Prison

Is the criminal justice reform bill being considered in the Senate all it’s cracked up to be?

Stefan Beck reviews Rachel Kushner’s ‘The Mars Room,’ a novel that probes the soul-warping effects of prison life.

Like most American cities, Washington has been grappling lately with the issue of historic monuments and statuary, public and private, and whether they ought to be displaced and discarded. The good news this past week is that, in a departure from recent custom, a new statue—eight feet high, encased…

Eight years after his release from federal prison, Joe Ganim is ready to run.

Before Jack Henry Abbott, there was Edgar Smith.

Before Jack Henry Abbott, there was Edgar Smith.

For nearly 40 years, the federal government has enforced the "Common Rule." The rule required researchers in the social and medical sciences to get the approval of an independent review board, or IRB, for their federally funded experiments. The purpose of the boards, which are usually set up by the…

For nearly 40 years, the federal government has enforced the "Common Rule." The rule required researchers in the social and medical sciences to get the approval of an independent review board, or IRB, for their federally funded experiments. The purpose of the boards, which are usually set up by the…

In a Labor Day speech, Hillary Clinton promised that, when she is president:

Maryland's Republican governor Larry Hogan is angering immigration activists with his decision to comply with a federal immigration enforcement directive. The Washington Post reports that Hogan actually made the decision "with no fanfare" in January that Maryland will notify federal immigration…

An Obamacare contractor has been found to be running a "fight club" in a New Zealand prison. The contractor is Serco and the scandal in New Zealand appears to be rapidly unfolding. 

The Atlantic dubbed July 8, 2015 “the day the computers betrayed us” as systems supporting the NYSE, United Airlines, and the Wall Street Journal all suffered crashes. Those events served as a fitting backdrop to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson's remarks on cybersecurity at…

“The quality of mercy is not straine’d,” implored Shakespeare’s Portia, meaning it should not be difficult or forced. But President Obama’s Clemency Project, an effort to free “a whole bunch of good citizens who committed one little mistake” and ended up with more than 10 years in prison, is…

On Monday, Senator Rand Paul told CBS radio host Dom Giordano that if he were the Republican nominee for president he would attack Hillary Clinton on crime. “I’ll ask Hillary Clinton, what have you done for criminal justice? Your husband passed all the laws that put a generation of black men in…

At a Manhattan fundraiser yesterday (as noted by The Hill), potential presidential candidate Hillary Clinton spoke of the rioting in Baltimore by invoking a theme of the Obama administration: the need for reform of the criminal justice system.

If I sported a hairpiece, I’d be wearing it at half-mast right about now, upon hearing that the world just grew a little less interesting.  For the most colorful man who ever inhabited Congress, former Ohio Democratic Rep. James A . Traficant Jr., expired today at the age of 73.  Traficant—he of…

Gonzales, La.

Reuters reports:

Hardly anyone who takes a close look at the network of federal and state laws mandating minimum prison sentences for myriad offenses can doubt that they waste billions of dollars, destroy lives, and do a disservice to justice. Reading the stories assembled by groups like Families Against Mandatory…

A list of rappers and stars, including Russell Simmons, LL Cool J, Lil Wayne, Ludacris, Kim Kardashian, and many more, have written an open letter to President Obama to ask that he ease the nation's drug policy. They also ask that prison policy be changed, too. 

If Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey is found guilty of traveling to the Dominican Republic to engage in sexual intercourse with underage prostitutes, he could face up to 30 years prison. The appropriate law, which would seem to apply in this instance, is the Prosecutorial Remedies And Other Tools…

The Associated Press reports on a mass prison break in Tripoli, Libya: 

President Obama's Department of Justice recently released new regulations to prevent prison rape. "Sexual violence, against any victim, is an assault on human dignity and an affront to American values," Obama said when announcing the new initiative. "The Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 (PREA)…

Fyodor Dostoevsky once purportedly wrote that the degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.  As many in the mainstream media have reminded us since his April 21 death at age 80, Charles W. Colson first did so in 1973, as President Nixon’s “hatchet man” sent to…