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Criminal Justice and Prisons

Ms. Farmer’s Law Protects Trans Women

March 19, 2025 Lolo Serrano, Workers World. , , , , ,
On his first day in office, President Trump 2.0 signed Executive Order 14168: “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.” EO 14168 sets in motion an attack on trans people throughout the country — then, using trans people as a springboard, an attack on incarcerated people as a whole. Within weeks of Inauguration Day, Trump’s Federal Bureau of Prisons (FBOP) announced plans for implementing EO 14168. FBOP officials told the less-than-two-dozen trans women housed in women’s facilities that they would be summarily transferred to men’s prisons.

In Maryland, Cracking Down On A Crime Wave That Doesn’t Exist

March 6, 2025 Jon Jeter, Black Agenda Report. , , , , ,
Here in this deep blue state, a coalition of judges, attorneys, youth advocates, civil liberties and racial justice organizations are trying to persuade Maryland lawmakers to amend Draconian legislation that requires prosecutors to charge children as young as 10 in adult criminal court for a wide range of felony offenses. At issue is Senate Bill 422 , which, if passed by Maryland’s General Assembly in this legislative session, would reduce by nearly two-thirds the 33 criminal offenses for which juveniles in Maryland are automatically charged as adults.

As US Authorities Crack Down On Immigrants, ICE Seeks To Expand

February 27, 2025 Natalia Marques, People's Dispatch. , , , , , , ,
As Trump’s mass deportation efforts continue to terrorize immigrant communities across the US, Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE)’s vast network of primarily for-profit detention centers have exceeded their capacity. Earlier in February, ICE was forced to release some migrants from their facilities after reaching 109% capacity. Due to limited detention capacity, Trump’s administration has utilized a strategy dubbed “catch and release”, which Trump himself had criticized Biden for employing. Through “catch and release”, migrants that are considered “nonviolent” by immigration authorities are released after agreeing to return for their hearings in immigration court.

Black Prisoners Organize For Dignity In Angola

February 24, 2025 Natalia Marques, People's Dispatch. , , , , , , , , , ,
This Black History Month, Peoples Dispatch is exploring the history of the notorious Louisiana State Penitentiary, the site of centuries of Black struggle—first against slavery, then convict leasing, and now the US prison system, which some label as slavery in the modern day. At the helm of the US’s notorious system of mass incarceration sits Louisiana State Penitentiary. Apart from being the largest maximum-security prison in the United States, this prison, nicknamed “Angola” after the former plantation site that it sits on, is an example of the conditions of modern-day slavery that the US prison system inflicts upon its disproportionately Black incarcerated population.

This Black-Owned Bank Is Disrupting Recidivism

February 23, 2025 Hibah Ansari, Next City. , , , ,
For 21 years, Halim Flowers was incarcerated in prisons across the country, often spending his time reading books about economics, banking and finance. It wasn’t until 2018, during his last few months in the D.C. Department of Corrections, that 44-year-old Flowers was able to validate what he was learning, meet bankers from D.C. based-Industrial Bank, and open a savings account from prison with one of the only banks in the country offering services to incarcerated people. “They were good teachers. They humanized us as incarcerated people,” says Flowers, who is now an artist, author and runs his own fashion brand.

Luigi Mangione Draws Crowd For First Court Hearing

February 23, 2025 Michael R. Sisak, AP News. , , , , ,
The defendant wore a bulletproof vest and shackles. A woman in the crowd wore a “Free Luigi” scarf. Outside, throngs of people cheered and chanted his name. So it went Friday at a court hearing for Luigi Mangione, the man accused of gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside a Manhattan hotel on Dec. 4. Mangione, who has become something of a cause célèbre for people upset with the health insurance industry, made his first court appearance since his Dec. 23 arraignment on state murder and terror charges. Mangione, 26, didn’t speak at the hearing.

Prison Imperialism: A Critical Examination Of Bukele’s US Deal

February 20, 2025 Erica Caines and Clau O'Brien Moscoso, Black Agenda Report. , , ,
El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele has recently proposed a controversial agreement with the United States: to house ‘violent’ criminals from the U.S. in his country’s prisons in exchange for financial compensation. This deal, confirmed by Bukele on social media, would see convicted individuals, including U.S. citizens and legal residents, incarcerated in El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) , a mega-prison with a capacity for 40,000 inmates. While Bukele frames this as a mutually beneficial arrangement—low-cost for the U.S. but financially significant for El Salvador—the implications of this agreement extend far beyond economics.

Kentucky Activists Bought Land Where Feds Want To Build A Prison

February 16, 2025 Jared Bennett, Louisville Public Media. , , ,
A community building and land restoration group bought a plot of Letcher County land that’s been targeted for a new federal prison. The Appalachian Rekindling Project paid local property owners $160,000 in late December for 63 acres near the community of Roxana, according to a deed of sale obtained by the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting. The land makes up a portion of the 500-acre site where the Bureau of Prisons planned to build an estimated $500 million prison complex to incarcerate more than 1,300 people.

Biden Gave Trump The Blueprint To Lock Up 30,000 Migrants

February 2, 2025 Jose Olivares, Drop Site. , , , , , ,
On Wednesday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to “expand” a migrant detention center located within the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base. Prior to the release of the executive order, the administration announced that 30,000 migrants would be detained at Guantánamo. “We have 30,000 beds in Guantanamo to detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people. This will double our capacity immediately,” Trump said. But according to Department of Homeland Security and Navy documents from 2021 and 2022 reviewed by Drop Site News, the Trump administration may not be able to detain that high of a number of migrants at the facility — at least not immediately.

Despite Pardons, Many Formerly Incarcerated Black People Still Face Uncertainty

January 29, 2025 Christina Carrega, Black Agenda Report. , , ,
Michelle West waited 32 years. Convicted in 1994 of nonviolent drug offenses, she was ordered to federal prison for two life sentences , plus an additional 50 years. On Sunday, former President Joe Biden commuted her sentence, meaning she will walk away from a low-security correctional facility in Danbury, Connecticut , this week as a free woman. Kemba Smith Pradia waited 24 years . She had been out of federal prison since 2000, after former President Bill Clinton commuted her 294-month sentence. But it took another 24 years, until Biden’s final full day in office, for her federal drug conviction to be cleared from her permanent record.

Pentagon Directive To Expand Access To Military Courts Falls Short

January 29, 2025 Ziva Branstetter, ProPublica. , , , ,
More than two years after ProPublica sued the Navy over its failure to provide public access to military courts, the Department of Defense has for the first time directed U.S. military branches to give advance public notice of preliminary hearings, a crucial milestone in criminal cases. These “Article 32” hearings end with a recommendation about whether the case should move forward, be dismissed or end in a nonjudicial punishment. DOD General Counsel Caroline Krass issued the guidance earlier this year, directing the secretaries of the Navy, Army, Air Force and Homeland Security (which oversees the Coast Guard) to post upcoming preliminary hearings, provide access to certain court records and publish results of military trials — known as courts-martial — on a public website.

Hyperimperialism, The Fall Of Syria And Capitalist Gangsters

January 21, 2025 Mnar Adley, MintPress News. , , , , , , , , , , ,
As 2025 begins, California is on fire. And it feels like much of the rest of the world is burning, too. From the slaughter in the Middle East to a new Cold War brewing in Asia, everywhere we look is filled with uncertainty. At home, the California wildfires have exposed much of the true face of capitalism. From prison laborers risking their lives for pennies by fighting the blazes to massive price hikes for rents in Southern California, the U.S. is crumbling. Yet externally, America is as aggressive as ever. Only last month, it helped force through a coup against the Assad government in Syria, and Trump has made noises about using force against Panama, Greenland, and has threatened Canada, Cuba, Venezuela and other nations in the Global South.

Joe Biden Grants Clemency To Leonard Peltier

January 20, 2025 Jennifer Bendery, HuffPost. , , , , ,
With literally minutes left in his presidency, Joe Biden on Monday granted clemency to Leonard Peltier, the ailing Native American rights activist whom the U.S. government put in prison nearly 50 years ago after a trial riddled with misconduct and lies. In a statement as President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration was underway, Biden announced he is “commuting the life sentence imposed on Leonard Peltier so that he serves the remainder of his sentence in home confinement.” Shortly afterward, Peltier said he’s ready to get back to his family. “It’s finally over – I’m going home.” he said in a statement. “I want to show the world I’m a good person with a good heart. I want to help the people, just like my grandmother taught me.”

Trump’s Felony Conviction Appeal Will Show How Fully He’s Above The Law

January 15, 2025 Marjorie Cohn, Truthout. , , , ,
Donald Trump has always maintained that the laws don’t apply to him. But he failed to convince New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan to delay sentencing him this month following the May 2024 jury verdict finding him guilty of 34 state felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up a sex scandal in New York v. Trump. Trump appealed Merchan’s denial of his motion to put off the sentencing. Justice Ellen Gesmer, a New York appeals court judge, affirmed Merchan’s ruling that the sentencing should proceed. She was not convinced that presidents-elect enjoy presidential immunity.

Baltimore Media Create A False Impression That Youth Are Responsible For A Lot Of Very Dangerous Crime

January 9, 2025 Janine Jackson, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. , , , , ,
Some listeners may know the Sentencing Project for their work calling out racial disparities in sentencing associated with crack versus powder cocaine, and mandatory minimums. A recent project involves looking into another factor shaping public understanding and public policy around criminal justice—the news media. In this case, the focus is young people. “The Real Cost of ‘Bad News’: How Misinformation Is Undermining Youth Justice Policy in Baltimore” has just been released. We’re joined now by the report’s author. Richard Mendel is senior research fellow for youth justice at the Sentencing Project. He joins us now by phone from Prague.
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