Just days after pardoning his son Hunter in a widely unpopular move, President Joe Biden on Thursday issued the most sweeping one-day clemency in modern U.S. history by pardoning 39 Americans and commuting the sentences of nearly 1,500 others.
Read MoreTag: criminal justice reform
Mentally Ill Woman Prosecuted by Kamala Harris After Surviving Police Shooting Lived in ‘Squalor’ Despite $1 Million Settlement
Teresa Sheehan was shot by two officers at a group home during a mental health crisis with the San Francisco Police Department in 2008, when Vice President Kamala Harris was serving as the District Attorney of San Francisco.
Read MoreNew Study Challenges ‘Myth’ That U.S. Has a Mass Incarceration Problem
Prison reform advocates have repeatedly pushed the notion that the U.S. has a mass incarceration problem, but a soon-to-be released Heritage Foundation study casts doubt on that claim.
Left-wing proponents of criminal justice reform claim that masses of individuals, including an unfair rate of minorities, are languishing in America’s country’s prisons, but they do not take into account the vast number of crimes that go unsolved or the number of criminals who avoid jail time, according to the report. The data show that any mass release of the U.S. prison population would result in a high number of individuals convicted of violent crimes being put back into American communities.
Read MoreCommentary: America’s Radical Criminal Justice Reform Disaster
Over the past decade or so, America has undertaken a radical experiment with criminal justice reform. The consequences have been devastating.
The number of people arrested in America each year has fallen sharply over the past two decades. Public prosecutors now prosecute significantly fewer cases. Those that are convicted can generally expect shorter sentences. The combined effect of all this is that America’s prison population is now 25 percent lower than it was in 2011.
Read MoreCommentary: San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin’s Recall Shows How the Criminal Justice Reform Movement Doesn’t Work
Two and a half years ago, pre-COVID and before surging crime and fentanyl overdoses gripped San Francisco, District Attorney Chesa Boudin’s left-wing lineage seemed a perfect fit for the liberal bastion by the bay.
Likewise, California Rep. Karen Bass was a barometer of Los Angeles’ transformation into a sprawling progressive metropolis. A former Congressional Black Caucus chairwoman, Bass was a top contender to become Joe Biden’s running mate in 2020 and was considered a likely contender for a statewide office.
Read MoreCommentary: The GOP Brought Historic Criminal Justice Reforms to Georgia – The Rest of the Nation Should Be Watching
The GOP has been busy enacting effective legislative reform aimed at real-world problems in our great nation — something Democrats can hardly boast.
Take Georgia’s accomplishments in the realm of criminal justice reform, for instance. Georgia has been the focus of national media and political obsession for the past few years. President Joe Biden himself called the Georgia voting reform bill “Jim Crow in the 21st Century,” miring state-level politics in the national racial debates. Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s various policy efforts have faced unrelenting attacks from politicos and progressive journalists alike.
Read MoreSenate Lawmakers Pass Conference Report for Criminal Justice Reform Legislation
During potentially the final day of the lengthy 2020 special session, Senate legislators adopted and passed the conference committee report on a bill that allows judges in certain criminal cases to issue the sentences instead of the jury.
The conference report that was unanimously agreed upon by the six conferees, two Republicans and two Democrats, passed the Senate by an almost exact party line vote of (Y-22 N-16).
Read MoreGade: Democrats Will Destroy America as We Know It
At the 41st annual GOP Pig Roast U.S. Senate candidate Daniel Gade warned that American values are at risk if the Democrats gain power.
“The Left in the United States have decided that now is the time when they come after our values. And they’ve openly said what they’re going to do if, God forbid, they win the presidency and if, God forbid, they win and they take the Senate,” Gade said in his speech.
Read MoreVirginia House Passes $134B Budget with Rental and Utility Assistance, Justice and Police Reform Funding
The Virginia House of Delegates passed its two-year $134 billion budget on Tuesday with specific funding for rental and utility assistance, public education, internet access, affordable housing, criminal justice and police reform.
The revised budget from the House does not perfectly lineup with the proposed budget Governor Ralph Northam presented to the General Assembly at the beginning of the 2020 special session.
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