All Blog Posts Tagged 'dont' (134)

SHANE REAMS' mother was practicing "tough love" when she encouraged neighbors to press charges. Shane had been stealing from the neighbors' garages. Those burglary convictions ended up serving as the basis for a three-strike sentence that sent her son away for 25 years to life. His third strike: aiding and abetting a $20 drug sale to an undercover officer.

Ronnie Villa, a grandfather of four, is doing 25 to life. His crime: stealing five bottles of Head and Shoulders shampoo. His…

Prison Spending Outpaces All but Medicaid

One in every 31 adults, or 7.3 million Americans, is in prison, on parole or probation, at a cost to the states of $47 billion in 2008, according to a new study.

Criminal correction spending is outpacing budget growth in education, transportation and public assistance, based on state and federal data. Only Medicaid spending grew faster than state corrections spending, which quadrupled in the past two decades, according to the report Monday…

Awesome news! U.S. Department of Justice reports show that violent crime has dropped by over half in the last 15 years. What incredible, uplifting news we can celebrate! But you haven't heard about this. Why was this news censored?

To verify this inspiring news, see the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) graph and information here and here. The biggest drop occurred between 1994 and 2004.

Unfortunately some key data on the DOJ website is not very up to date, but you can find more…

Prisons, Privatization, Patronage

2012-06-22, New York Times

Posted: 2012-06-26 11:12:00

Prisons, Privatization, Patronage

The New York Times has published several terrifying reports about New Jersey’s system of halfway houses — privately run adjuncts to the regular system of prisons. The horrors described are part of a broader pattern in which essential…

IF YOU BUILD IT THEY WILL COME!!

Say No to Prison Privatization!

A letter was sent recently to 48 U.S. governors announcing the Corrections Corporation of America's "Investment Initiative" to spend up to $250 million to buy prisons from state, local, and federal governments. The "initiative" requires a minimum commitment of 20 years for the facility, maintaining 90% capacity over the 20-year period. This outrageous offer strikes at the heart of a democracy grounded in human…

As state governments wrestle with massive budget shortfalls, a Wall Street giant is offering a solution: cash in exchange for state property. Prisons, to be exact.

Corrections Corporation of America, the nation's largest operator of for-profit prisons, has sent letters recently to 48 states offering to buy up their prisons as a remedy for "challenging corrections budgets." In exchange, the company is asking for a 20-year management contract, plus an assurance that the prison would…

by Laura Sullivan

Glenn Nichols, city manager of Benson, Ariz., says two men came to the city last year "talking about building a facility to hold women and children that were illegals."

Last year, two men showed up in Benson, Ariz., a small desert town 60 miles from the Mexico border, offering a deal.

Glenn Nichols, the Benson city manager, remembers the…

By JUAN A. LOZANO 09/21/12 06:47 PM ET EDT



Rayford Tyrone Ellis Jr., Timothy Daray Ellis desciption Rayford Tyrone Ellis Jr., right, and Timothy Daray Ellis, left, leave the Liberty County Courthouse after a status update in their cases Monday, Dec. 5, 2011, in Liberty, Texas. Both men are among more than a dozen men accused of taking part in a series of sexual…

AP | By LAURA WIDES-MUNOZ

MIAMI (AP) — The U.S. is locking up more illegal immigrants than ever, generating lucrative profits for the nation's largest prison companies, and an Associated Press review shows the businesses have spent tens of millions of dollars lobbying lawmakers and contributing to campaigns.

The cost to American taxpayers is on track to top $2 billion for this year, and the companies are expecting their biggest cut of that yet in the next few years thanks to…

A recent federal raid of a Smoke 911 shop in Sandy Springs highlights the rise in crimes related to synthetic marijuana and bath salts, but what are these drugs?

“We started hearing about bath salts around late 2009, early 2010,” said Detective Joseph Lane, with the Sandy Springs Police Special Investigations Unit. “It really was the new kind of designer drug. Not many people knew what it would do to you.”

According to DrugFree.org, bath salts are a synthetic compound of a…

09/14/12

It’s yet another reason why parents need to keep a close eye on their kids’ involvement with social networking websites—during a three-year period ending in March 2012, members of a violent Virginia street gang used some of these websites to recruit vulnerable high-school age girls to work in their prostitution business.

After a multi-agency state and federal investigation, all five defendants pleaded guilty to various federal charges related to the sex trafficking…

Cuicide Builds Suicide Awareness.



Compton, CA –

Struggling to survive and overcome violence and poverty is a common image seen in movies and music about those who live in Compton. For West Coast rapper Cuicide, it’s all just a part of his life.

He’s dealt with hardships from the moment he was born, from having been abandoned…

Louisiana is the world's prison capital

Published: Sunday, May 13, 2012, 5:00 AM Updated: Tuesday, May 29, 2012, 11:23 AM

By Cindy Chang, The Times-Picayune The Times-Picayune

Louisiana is the world's prison capital. The state imprisons more of its people, per head, than any of its U.S. counterparts. First among Americans means first in the world. Louisiana's…

WATCH THE DOCUMENTARY HERE...

What people are saying:

"Documentaries have the power to inform, incite and inspire an audience all in one sitting. Judging from the two-minute long standing ovation he received [at Sundance] after the screening of his film Slavery by Another Name, director Samuel…

Chilling message posted hours before S.F. homicide

By: Mike Aldax | 03/30/12 5:25 PM

SF Examiner Staff Writer | Follow on Twitter @SFExMikeAldax

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Courtesy photo

Diondre Young, 21, was shot dead Friday morning near the Bay Bridge in San Francisco.At 5:44 p.m. on Thursday, 21-year-old Diondre Young posted a rhyme on Facebook that mentioned friends who had died and asked whether his “time could be next.”

Young’s “time,” it turned out, was just hours away, as he was…

Gang dispute fueling violence in San Francisco

By: Mike Aldax | 08/01/12 5:57 PM

SF Examiner Staff Writer | Follow on Twitter @SFExMikeAldax

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Mike Koozmin/The S.F. Examiner

The site of the shooting was the 3000 block of San Bruno Avenue, not far from a Visitation Valley neighborhood plagued with multiple killings in the recent weeks. Four shooting deaths since Sunday have been the result of a raging dispute between members of one vicious gang, police said…

Clarence Aaron is serving three life terms for a small-time college cocaine deal, another victim of heinous mandatory drug sentencing laws.



This is a simple truth: the United States is the only country in the first world that imposes life sentences to teenagers for small-time, non-violent drug offenses. In fact,…

Drug lord's son speaks out against violence

Sebastian Marroquin speaks in Calgary about the crimes of his father, Pablo Escobar, a drug lord killed in 1993.

Sebastian Marroquin, son of columbian drug dealer Pablo Escobar

CALGARY — In 2007, Sebastian Marroquin set off on a journey of atonement. He sat down and wrote letters to two young men whose fathers were brutally murdered.

"It took me three months to write the letters," says the soft-spoken 35-year-old, as we sit together at…