Minnesota gov't sends trans rapists to women's prisons

The office of Minnesota governor Tim Walz gave nearly $500,000 to a lobby suing the state to have trans-identified convicts sent to women's prisons.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, 2024. Office of Gov. Tim Walz / Wikimedia Commons.

At Least FIVE Male Inmates Transferred To Minnesota Women’s Prison, Including Two Convicted Pedophiles | Reduxx | Genevieve Gluck:

September 11, 2024 - "A total of five male convicts were transferred to a Minnesota’s women-only prison following the adoption of a gender identity policy by the Department of Corrections in January of 2023. Two of the men who are now being held at MCF-Shakopee, a female correctional center, are sexual predators serving sentences related to the abuse of children.

"Among them are Elijah Thomas Berryman, 26, who was first arrested in April 2022 and accused of sexually abusing a minor multiple times. He pleaded guilty to four counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct in March of this year, and according to the Minnesota DOC website, is currently serving his 25-year sentence at the women’s prison.

"Another, Sean Windingland, 35, sexually assaulted two 6-year-old relatives and posted videos of the abuse and grooming on pornography and pro-pedophile websites. Windingland admitted to engaging in sexual contact with the young girls when questioned by investigators, but claimed that the children had consented. He pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct in 2019. Windingland is now serving his 36-year prison sentence among women at MCF-Shakopee.

"[A] third, Bradley Richard Sirvio, is a convicted murderer who is serving a life sentence. Sirvio, 52, beat a man to death with a hammer before setting his house on fire in November of 1995. A repeat offender, Sirvio... was quietly transferred to MCF-Shakopee in November 2023, a full five months ahead of the date that a newly-drafted gender identity policy was set to take effect.

"The two remaining men confirmed by Reduxx to have been transferred into the women’s prison are Nathan Charles Johnson, ... and a trans-identified male who uses the name Christina Suzanne Lusk, but was born Craig Lusk. In June 2022, Lusk launched a discrimination lawsuit against the Minnesota Department of Corrections which ultimately resulted in the implementation of measures permitting male convicts to be housed in the female estate. 

"Lusk ... was backed by the trans activist non-profit organization Gender Justice – which was recently revealed to have received nearly $500,000 in taxpayer funds from the administration of Governor Tim Walz. The Democratic vice presidential nominee’s office handed out $448,904 to Gender Justice just one year after the organization filed the sex discrimination complaint against Minnesota’s DOC on behalf of Lusk, according to a review of public records published by the taxpayer watchdog group OpenTheBooks.com.""

Read more: https://reduxx.info/exclusive-five-male-inmates-transferred-to-minnesota-womens-prison-including-two-convicted-pedophiles/

Wrongfully convicted man freed after 23 years

After Spending 23 Years in Prison for a Murder He Didn’t Commit, Ricky Kidd Is Going Home – Reason.com - Zuri Davis & Joe Seyton:

August 15, 2019 - "Ricky Kidd was charged in 1996 for a double murder that he did not commit ... and he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. On Wednesday, Judge Daren L. Adkins of Missouri's 43rd Judicial Circuit granted Kidd habeas corpus relief. After 23 years behind bars, Kidd will finally get to go home a free man, unless state prosecutors opt to retry him within 30 days of the Adkins' ruling....

"Police in Kansas City, Missouri, received a call in 1996 after neighbors believed they heard gunshots. Upon investigation, the lifeless bodies of George Bryant and Oscar Bridges were discovered at Bryant's property. An anonymous tip, which was likely called in by those connected to the crime, named Kidd as a suspect. That tip — and a number of Brady violations committed by the prosecutor — sealed Kidd's fate.

"Multiple witnesses attested that around the time of the shooting, Kidd was driving to the Jackson County Sheriff's Office at Lake Jacomo, Missouri, to apply for a gun permit [but] Kidd's alibi was not enough to save him from a sloppy police investigation. Nor did it convince the Jackson County lead prosecutor, ... Amy McGowan, [who] acknowledged in a 2017 deposition that 'there is no physical evidence tying [Kidd] to the crime scene that I recall.'

"McGowan did not disclose the depositions of Gary Goodspeed Sr. and Gary Goodspeed Jr., both of whom are now considered 'viable alternative suspects' in the murders of Bryant and Bridges, according to Adkins' ruling. Kidd's lawyers have spent years arguing that this was a Brady violation that ultimately helped doom Kidd.

"Though Kidd was sentenced to die alone in a cell, he had the Midwest Innocence Project (MIP) in his corner. Thanks to that group's years-long effort, Kidd received a Rule 91 hearing in April, which allowed him one final shot at habeas corpus relief.... On Wednesday, Adkins ordered the state of Missouri to release Kidd from prison.

"'Based on a careful consideration of the record and these proceedings, this Court finds that the evidence is clear and convincing that Kidd is innocent of the murders of George Bryant and Oscar Bridges,' Adkins wrote in his 107-page decision.....

"'If anything, Ricky's case shows just how hard it is to correct an injustice,' Tricia Bushnell, executive director [of] the MIP and a member of Kidd's legal team, told the AP. 'It shouldn't take 20 years to bring a man home. Ricky's case is solved. We know who committed this crime,' she added.... And even if he does get to come home, which seems likely, there's no getting back the 23 years Kidd lost while incarcerated."

Read more: https://reason.com/2019/08/15/after-spending-23-years-in-prison-for-a-murder-he-didnt-commit-ricky-kidd-is-going-home/
'via Blog this'

‘Kids for Cash’ scandal documented (video)

Corrupt ‘Kids for Cash’ judge ruined more than 2,000 lives - Larry Getlen, New York Post:

February 23, 2014 - "Hillary Transue, 14, created a fake, humorous Myspace page about her school’s vice principal. Justin Bodnar, 12, cursed at another student’s mother. Ed Kenzakoski, 17, did nothing at all. It didn’t matter.

"As we see in the documentary “Kids for Cash,” ... all three Luzerne County, Pa. teens met the same fate for their minor infractions.... They were brought before Judge Mark A. Ciavarella and, without warning or the chance to offer a defense, found themselves pronounced guilty, shackled and sentenced to months of detention in a cockroach-infested jail. They were trapped in the juvenile justice system for years, robbing most of them of their entire high-school experience.

"Judge Ciavarella, who sentenced around 3,000 children in a similar manner, was later sentenced himself to 28 years in prison for financial crimes related to his acceptance of $2.2 million as a finder’s fee for the construction of a for-profit facility in which to house these so-called delinquents. The scandal was called 'Kids for Cash,' and it rocked the state in 2009.... Ciavarella had 2,480 of his convictions reversed and expunged....

"At the end of 'Kids for Cash,' directed by Robert May, information flashes across the screen saying: 'Two million children are arrested every year in the US, 95% for non-violent crimes'; that '66% of children who have been incarcerated never return to school'; and that 'the US incarcerates nearly 5 times more children than any other nation in the world.'”

Read more; https://nypost.com/2014/02/23/film-details-teens-struggles-in-state-detention-in-payoff-scandal/
'via Blog this'

Cash bail requirements cost U.S. $15 billion/year

Report: Imprisoning People Who Can’t Pay Bail Costs America $15 Billion a Year - Hit & Run : Reason.com - Scott Shackford:

December 19, 2018 - "America's dependence on cash bail does more than just deprive people of their liberty merely for being accused of a crime; it also costs the rest of us a fortune....

"A new report by The Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution attempts to measure the full financial impact of pretrial detention in the United States. Analysts Patrick Liu, Ryan Nunn, and Jay Shambaugh calculated that pretrial detentions that are the result solely of people being unable to pay bail cost the country $15 billion a year.

"They arrived at this figure by looking at the average number of people who are sitting in jails every day who have been offered bail but haven't paid it, typically because they cannot afford it. That's about 412,000 people, nearly a quarter of our incarcerated population. They calculated how much it costs to jail somebody each day. This varies wildly from state to state, but averages out to $77.67 a day, or about $28,000 a year per person....

"Liu et al. also did their best to calculate out how much money the economy loses due the amount of time somebody spends in jail and is therefore unable to work. That worked out to an average of about $8,590 annually per prisoner. All together, that comes out to $15.26 billion a year....

"The report also looks at trends of pretrial detention and finds a dramatic increase over a decade of both the number of people being held in jail prior to trial and the amount of time they have to spend waiting for their day in court.

"Since the 1990s, the number of people who have been ordered to pay bail (or some other financial obligation) in order to be freed has risen from 53 percent to 72 percent. What's more, pretrial detentions have increased even as total arrests have gone down....

"During this timeframe, the amount of time it took between arrest and adjudication for people charged with crimes increased in pretty much every category.... So people who cannot afford the increasing amounts of money being asked for their freedom are being punished with even longer waits behind bars....

"About 50 percent of those who are released before trial need a commercial bond (as in a bail bondsman) to cover the court's imposed bail. That means they have to pay typically 10 percent to the bondsman to be freed, which is money they never get back. Essentially, they're being ordered to pay a fine to a third party (sometimes in the thousands of dollars) to be released. If they don't, they sit in a jail cell. Either way, they're punished prior to conviction."

Read more: https://reason.com/blog/2018/12/19/report-imprisoning-people-who-cant-pay-b
'via Blog this'

Rand Paul bill would repeal indefinite detention

Rand Paul Bill Would Repeal Indefinite Detention Provision of NDAA - Joe Wolverton II, The New American:

June 13, 2017 - "Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) announced his plan to reintroduce S. 1300, the Sixth Amendment Preservation Act, a bill aimed at reasserting the constitutional guarantee of a speedy trial in all prosecutions.

"Dr. Paul’s legislation would prevent any future authorization of military force from being used to justify indefinitely detaining any person in America without trial. 'Giving the accused their day in court isn’t a suggestion,' said Dr. Paul. 'It’s enshrined in our Constitution as a cornerstone of our judicial system. My bill reminds our government that the Founders did not put an expiration date on the Sixth Amendment.'

"The specific target of Paul’s measure is a key section of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012....

"On December 31, 2011, with the signature of then-President Barack Obama, the writ of habeas corpus — a civil right so fundamental to Anglo-American common law history that it predates the Magna Carta — became voidable upon the command of the president of the United States. The Sixth Amendment right to counsel also became revocable at the will of the occupant of the White House....

"Americans would not need to worry about being held without charge if the president was not authorized in the same act to deploy the armed forces to round up 'suspects' and detain them indefinitely....One of the most noxious elements of the NDAA is that it places the American military at the disposal of the president for the apprehension, arrest, and detention of those suspected of posing a danger to the homeland....

"Under the provisions of Section 1021, the president is afforded the absolute power to arrest and detain citizens of the United States without their being informed of any criminal charges, without a trial on the merits of those charges, and without a scintilla of the due process safeguards protected by the Constitution of the United States....

"Senator Paul’s Sixth Amendment Preservation Act restores our nation’s constitutional commitment to individual liberty by repealing Section 1021."

Read more: https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/26244-rand-paul-bill-would-repeal-indefinite-detention-provision-of-ndaa
'via Blog this'

French prisons breeding grounds of jihadism

What is going wrong in France's prisons? - Telegraph - Harriet Alexander:

January 17, 2015 - "Mohamed Merah, the 2012 Toulouse attacker, moved from being a wild petty delinquent to a hardened jihadist while behind bars, and on his release travelled to Afghanistan and Pakistan to train for jihad. He returned to France and murdered seven soldiers and Jewish civilians.

"Mehdi Nemouche, author of the May murder of four people in Brussels, was also radicalised in prison – travelling to Syria when he was freed and then coming back to attack the Jewish museum.

"Chérif Kouachi was already involved in jihadi circles when he went to prison, and found the experience a Petri dish for his extreme views. Coulibaly, like Merah and Nemouche, went in a simple delinquent from the banlieus, but came out a dangerous Islamist.

"What is going on in France’s prisons?

"Of the 67,500 people currently behind bars in France, it is estimated that 70 per cent are Muslim – when they comprise only eight per cent of the French public. It is illegal under France’s strict laicity laws to count the number of Muslim prisoners, but experts agree that the figure is an accurate average – with some prisons, like those near Paris and Marseille, seeing an even higher percentage....

"French authorities state that 283 people are currently in prison for terrorism, of whom 152 are classed as dangerous Islamists. Sixty of them – almost all incarcerated in Paris – are deemed particularly dangerous.

"France is the country in Europe which has the highest Muslim population, and has also seen the highest number of people - estimated by the Brookings Institute this month at over 900 - travelling to Syria to join Islamic State....

"On the front line is Mohamed Boina M’Koubou, imam inside Fleury-Merogis – the prison where Kouachi and Coulibaly were both pushed towards extremist views.... He said that when he arrived in 2004 at Fleury-Merogis – a vast concrete pentagon, 20 miles south of the centre of Paris – there was no dedicated space for Muslims to pray, which emphasised the feeling of discrimination that the prisoners felt....

"Mr Boina attends prison twice a week, for an hour or two. He teaches prisoners how to read the Koran or talks to them about Islam. He also shows them how to pray, and follow the pillars of Islam.... Mainly he works with the young, aged 14 to 35.

"'Some of them leave prison as grown men. They regret what they have done'... But some, he added, do not find leaving prison easy. 'They can’t survive like that for long if society doesn’t help them,' he said. 'If they find nothing out there for them, they will slip back into bad ways.'

"One such prisoner was Coulibaly, who predicted his own return to a life of crime when he left behind Fleury-Merogis, having spent seven months in the same wing as Chérif Kouachi and hardened Islamist Beghal.

"Behind bars for armed robbery – one of his many sejours at Fleury – he filmed life inside with a secret camera, footage from which was used in an April 2009 documentary. It showed the violence of life in Europe’s largest prison – but also the ingenuity; food was cooked on improvised stoves, marijuana was given to the guards to keep them on side, and messages were passed from cell to cell with “Yo Yos”, plastic bottles swung between bars on a ripped strip of a bed sheet.

"'It’s a school of delinquency,' said one of the inmates."

Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11352268/What-is-going-wrong-in-Frances-prisons.html
'via Blog this'

Few jailed drug offenders are real criminals

Most people in federal prison for drug offenses have no serious criminal history - Vox - German Lopez:

November 13, 2015 - "In October, the [U.S] federal government conducted the largest ever release of federal prisoners, letting 6,000 drug offenders out into the world. As bipartisan support pushes criminal justice reform forward at the state and federal levels, Americans should expect these types of releases to continue. But many people, such as Fox News host Bill O'Reilly, are worried this will lead to more crime and chaos.

"But there's a good reason not to worry: There's little indication most federal drug offenders are violent or dangerous, even if they were involved in drug trafficking.

"A new report from the Urban Institute ... found that a majority of drug offenders in federal prison have no serious, violent criminal history. A little more than one in five have a minor history, such as simple assault and other crimes that don't typically lead to serious injury. Fewer than one in four drug offenders in federal prison has a serious history....

"Only 14 percent were sentenced for being a manager, supervisor, leader, or organizer in an offense. Fewer than 14 percent were sentenced for using violence, making a credible threat to use violence, or directing the use of violence during the offense. And more than 75 percent didn't have or weren't in the presence of a weapon during the offense.

"The result: There are a lot of people serving long prison sentences — on average, more than nine years, according to Urban Institute — for what amounts to small-time drug dealing. The general consensus among criminal justice reformers is that there's little reason to think this population is a serious risk to society and should be in prison at all or for very long, so maybe releasing them a little early isn't a bad idea."

Read more: http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2015/11/13/9730702/drug-offenders-facts-statistics
'via Blog this'