Tag: prison

Abigail Spanberger Restores Voting Rights to 66,000 Virginians ‘with Past Felony Convictions’

Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D) announced that her administration has restored voting rights to more than 66,000 Virginians who have “past felony convictions.”

In a press release on Friday, Spanberger expressed that “the right to vote is foundational to who we are as Americans.” Spanberger added that as a gubernatorial candidate and since taking office she has “heard from many Virginians who have shared their personal stories of redemption with me.”

Per the press release, the civil rights restored by Spanberger also include “the right to vote, serve on a jury,” and to “run for public office”:

Virginia is one of three states with a constitution that permanently disenfranchises citizens with past felony convictions — leaving restoration of rights entirely to the Governor’s discretion. The civil rights restored by Governor Spanberger include the right to vote, serve on a jury, run for public office, and become a notary public.

“I’m proud that — after contending with my predecessor’s efforts to deny Virginians their fundamental rights — we have restored the rights of more than 66,000 Virginians who have served their time,” Spanberger said. “These Virginians deserve the right to use their vote, make their voices heard, and be recognized as contributing citizens to our Commonwealth and country.”

The press release comes as Virginia residents in the fall will be able to “vote in a referendum on a constitutional amendment that would allow” felons in Virginia to have their voting rights restored “upon their release from incarceration.”

Keep reading

“A Shameful Relic of Our Jim Crow Past” – Democrat Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger Restores Voting Rights for 66,000 Felons Before Midterms

Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger announced on Friday that her administration has restored voting rights for more than 66,000 felons since taking office in January. 

The Democrats gained 66,085 new voters with this move.

Their rights to serve on a jury, run for public office, and become a notary public were also restored under Spanberger’s direction.

“By giving these Virginians back their ability to make an impact at the local, state, and national levels, we are empowering our neighbors to take hold of their second chance,” Spanberger said in a statement.

Virginia is one of three states that strips convicted felons of their right to vote.

Spanberger’s predecessor, Republican Glenn Youngkin, previously rolled back a policy of automatically restoring felons’ rights and chose to evaluate applications on a case-by-case basis.

According to the Blaze, Youngkin had restored the right to vote for about 10,000 felons.

“The right to vote is foundational to who we are as Americans. As a Member of Congress, as a candidate for Governor, and in the months since I took office, I have heard from many Virginians who have shared their personal stories of redemption with me — and heartfelt reflections of the moment their voting rights were restored by previous Governors,” Spanberger said.

“I’m proud that — after contending with my predecessor’s efforts to deny Virginians their fundamental rights — we have restored the rights of more than 66,000 Virginians who have served their time. These Virginians deserve the right to use their vote, make their voices heard, and be recognized as contributing citizens to our Commonwealth and country.”

She further urged voters to vote yes on a constitutional amendment that would automatically restore voting rights to convicted felons upon completing their sentences. She called the practice of stripping voting rights from felons “a shameful relic of our Jim Crow past.”

The governor wrote, “This fall, voters can cast their ballots for Virginia to no longer strip so many of our neighbors of their fundamental rights — a shameful relic of our Jim Crow past. I hope Virginians will join me in voting yes.”

Not only is Spanberger trying to get as many convicted-felon voters as possible, but her state is now pausing the removal of noncitizen voters from the voting rolls 90 days before the election in accordance with a court settlement between Virginia and the Campaign Legal Center.

According to Judicial Watch, “Virginia cancelled 6,531 declared non-citizen voter registrations. But Virginia entered into a settlement with leftist groups to pause the program to remove declared noncitizens from voting rolls for the 90-day period before federal elections.”

According to Judicial Watch, The more than 6,500 noncitizen voters were removed between 2024 and June 2026.

Keep reading

DSA Co-Chair Romer Defends Proposals to Abolish Senate, Borders, Prisons

On this week’s broadcast of “Fox News Sunday,” Democratic Socialists of America co-chair Megan Romer defended their proposals to abolish Senate, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and prisons.

Partial transcript as follows:

SHANNON BREAM: We’re going to put up on the screen a few of the things that are part of your platform. And I want to ask you, just give me sort of a true or false on these. Abolish the Senate?

ROMER: True.

BREAM: OK, replace the presidency and Supreme Court as we now know them?

ROMER: Yep

BREAM: Abolish ICE?

ROMER: Absolutely.

BREAM: Abolish borders and give amnesty to anyone currently in the US illegally?

ROMER: As a long-term plan, yep.

BREAM: Defund the Pentagon?

ROMER: Absolutely.

BREAM: Abolish prisons, at least in large part?

ROMER: Yeah, again, as part of a long-term program, yeah?

BREAM: OK, so no prisons. Government or public ownership of most large corporations?

ROMER: Yeah, absolutely.

BREAM: Okay, so then let’s go back through some of those, then, abolish the Senate. There are people who are in the Senate now who are very supportive of DSA. They lose their seats?

ROMER: Well, the Senate is an anachronistic institution, and it comes from the British House of Lords. It is meant to protect power. You know, the Senate was part of the, the system that was made to make sure that the people didn’t have too much of a say. So we want to expand the Congress significantly, but make it a unicameral legislature.

Keep reading

DSA Assault on Prisons Is Rooted in Third Worldist Lust for Barbarism

The Democratic Socialists of America are having a moment. In fact, they’re having a season. DSA candidates are winning nationwide in Democratic Party primaries, knocking off incumbents while running on some of the most deformed and deranged platforms in recent political memory. Zohran Mamdani, the charismatic young socialist in Gracie Mansion, is the new leader of the DSA pack. Terrifying as it may be, Zo may be the closest thing the entire activist left has these days to a kingmaker.

It couldn’t be clearer what the DSA wants: The democratic socialists want to finish the job, launched by Barack Obama on the precipice of presidential victory in 2008, of “fundamentally transforming” the United States. The DSA’s new policy platform, released earlier this month, says the quiet part out loud: “We are workers fighting to transform society,” to “draft a new constitution, and create a democratic socialist republic.”

It would be one thing if these were the words of a starry-eyed freshman pothead, first exposed to Marx and pontificating to dormmates while John Lennon’s dreadful song “Imagine” plays in the background. But people like Hizzoner and the new uptown socialist “it girl,” Darializa Avila Chevalier, are adults. They are serious. And that makes them not just naive but dangerous.

Zo has had a complicated relationship with the issue of public safety.

The official DSA platform stops short of calling for full “abolition” of prisons or policing, instead calling to “demilitarize police departments” and “end mass incarceration.” But Avila Chevalier promoted full-on police and prison abolition from a since-deleted Twitter/X account, and Mamdani condemned the “carceral state” when he ran for state assembly in 2020. After Avila Chevalier’s primary victory, Mamdani was pressed during an appearance on ABC News on whether he supports the existence of prisons. “There are prisons,” he simply responded.

Keep reading

Canada’s Supreme Court restores mandatory jail time for child sex predators

Canada’s Supreme Court again restored a mandatory minimum sentence for those who have been convicted of trying to engage in sex acts with minors under age 18.

The restoration of a mandatory six-month jail sentence came after a 7-2 decision by the Supreme Court on July 10.

The new ruling means that a May 2024 decision by the Quebec Court of Appeal, which ruled that a mandatory minimum sentence for trying to engage in sex with a minor was unconstitutional, is now null.

The appeal of the mandatory minimum sentence came from a case involving then-61-year-old Mario Denis, who was convicted of communicating online with a minor for trying to obtain sexual services. Denis had clicked on an ad offering underage escorts that was a police sting operation and was arrested when he went to a room he thought the underage girl was in.

While Denis was found guilty and given a six-month sentence, he appealed that his sentence violated his Charter rights because it was cruel and unusual punishment. As a result, the Quebec Court of Appeal agreed with Denis that a six-month sentence was indeed unconstitutional, but his sentence was not reduced.

The recent court ruling is at odds with a 2025 Supreme Court ruling that found a mandatory one-year sentence for possessing or accessing child pornography is “unconstitutional.”

This ruling was blasted by both Conservative and even non-Conservative politicians alike, with Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew saying anyone caught with child pornography should be “buried under the prison.”

Despite the outrage from left and right provincial leaders, the Canadian government under Prime Minister Mark Carney said it would not be looking to overturn via a constitutional tool the recent Canadian Supreme Court ruling that a mandatory one-year sentence for possessing or accessing child pornography is “unconstitutional.”

Child pornography and the sex trafficking of minors is a growing problem in Canada and the world.

As LifeSiteNews columnist Jonathon Van Maren noted in a recent blog, Canada is one of the world’s largest exporters of pornography.

Keep reading

Inspired by Trump, Israel Advances Plan for Crocodile-Ringed Prison for Palestinians

The Israeli government this week stripped Nile crocodiles of their protected status in order to advance a proposal that National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said was inspired by the Trump administration’s now-shuttered Alligator Alcatraz to build a prison for Palestinians surrounded by a moat full of the ravenous reptiles.

“You read that right,” the liberal US Jewish group J Street said in response to the news. “When cruelty becomes a governing principle instead of an aberration within the Israeli government, something has gone deeply wrong.”

Israeli Environmental Minister Idit Silman signed a directive Wednesday reclassifying Nile crocodiles as “specially managed wild animals,” a novel legal category enabling the government to keep them for security purposes.

Ben-Gvir, who heads the Israel Prison Service (IPS), said he was inspired by the Trump administration’s recently closed Alligator Alcatraz immigrant detention center in Florida. He is seeking to first introduce crocodiles into a moat around Ketziot Prison in southern Israel.

While it is not certain that the plan will come to fruition, Ben-Gvir celebrated Silman’s decree in a social media post showing him petting a crocodile, with the caption: “Cursed terrorist, thinking of trying to escape? Think again.”

Palestinians have occasionally escaped from Israeli lockups, such as in September 2021, when six men used improvised tools, including spoons, to tunnel out of the high-security Gilboa Prison. All six escapees were caught within weeks.

Keep reading

Black prisoners are assigned harsher living conditions in Ontario jails—thanks to AI

Black prisoners in Ontario’s jails are being assigned to harsher living conditions than other prisoners, through the use of an artificial intelligence (AI) tool that claims to predict their behaviour. A class action lawsuit says the province was aware its use of the software could disproportionately target Black prisoners, but went ahead with it anyway.

The Security Assessment for Evaluating Risk (SAFER) program has been operating quietly in Ontario’s jails since early 2021. SAFER inputs a prisoner’s personal information—including arrests, charges, and disciplinary records—into an algorithm. The program assigns each prisoner a score from 0 to 100 that determines whether they’ll be placed in minimum, medium, or maximum security detention.

Critics of the program argue that the data that SAFER is fed is racially biased: they cite documented patterns of police and courts handing out more severe punishments to Black people because of anti-Black racism. SAFER then uses that data to make harsher risk assessments of Black people who are sent to jail. 

The ministry responsible for Ontario’s prisoners agrees. It wrote in internal training documents viewed exclusively by The Breach that “Indigenous and racialized individuals face systemic discrimination in our justice system … As a result, assessments like SAFER would likely contribute to the overrepresentation of Indigenous inmates in maximum security.”

Despite this, the ministry has been using SAFER for five years. And while the province has included several measures in its rollout of SAFER to reduce the number of Indigenous prisoners in maximum security, it does not appear to have taken such steps for Black prisoners. “We are continuously evaluating to determine if it is necessary to make similar adjustments for other groups,” the same training document from the Ministry of the Solicitor General says. 

Keep reading

Labour to free waves of killers and rapists early: Criminals guilty of the most serious offences will now be released just halfway through sentences

Labour is to start releasing waves of killers, rapists and violent criminals from jail under its controversial soft-justice plan.

As part of a scheme to free up prison space, even those jailed for more than a decade will get out early.

The plan will ‘horrify’ victims, Justice Secretary David Lammy was warned last night, amid calls for it to be halted immediately.

The Ministry of Justice release programme could mean hundreds of serious criminals being freed in large batches – potentially even on the same day – heightening police fears of a surge of offenders on the streets.

Ministers have set out a timetable that will see 6,000 prisoners walk free, starting in September.

Criminals handed sentences shorter than 18 months will be the first to be freed. 

Releases will then ramp up month by month, depending on the length of sentences. Offenders handed more than 12 years in jail – some of the most dangerous criminals in the country – will start to be freed next June.

Tory spokesman Dr Kieran Mullan said: ‘Victims are going to feel like justice has been stolen from them by these plans. We aren’t talking about shoplifters or vandals.

‘We are talking about paedophiles, rapists and seriously violent criminals. Seeing them walk out of prison years early will horrify most victims, and the public as well. The whole programme needs to be stopped.’

Labour’s Sentencing Act, part of a long-term plan to reduce the prison population, allows early release for violent and sexual offenders after serving half their sentence, rather than the current two-thirds.

Other offenders could be freed after serving just a third of the punishment imposed by a court if they demonstrate good behaviour while in jail.

The early-release scheme means a killer jailed for 15 years for manslaughter would be freed after seven and a half years if they are assessed to have behaved well. 

Murderers will not be considered because they are given a mandatory life term, with a minimum amount of years they must serve.

Ministers are braced for a backlash after a scheme introduced in autumn 2024 saw offenders celebrating at the prison gates by popping bottles of bubbly, driving away in luxury cars and thanking Keir Starmer.

Keep reading

Trump loyalist Jim Jordan linked to group that received ‘dark money’ from ICE detention contractor

Jim Jordan is among the most famous names in this stretch of Ohio.

The congressman and chair of the powerful House judiciary committee is considered among the most conservative and influential members in Congress, and is a longtime loyalist of Donald Trump.

But a report released last month by Pogo Investigates, a nonprofit newsroom, highlighted the close ties between Jordan and a company profiting from the Trump administration’s anti-immigration crackdown, which has sometimes been violent and even deadly.

The report found that the American Liberty Foundation, a political action committee (Pac) tied to Jordan, last year received $250,000 in “dark money” payments from Geo Group, the Florida-headquartered company that runs dozens of detention centers on behalf of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) across the country.

The money transfer came 11 days after the passing of the president’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act last July, which saw the federal government’s budget for ICE and other immigration enforcement efforts trebled to $170bn – an amount greater than the GDP of Morocco.

“A company and or a company’s political action committee is permitted to contribute funds to a Super Pac, but a federal contractor [such as Geo Group] is not,” says Nick Schwellenbach, the author of the Pogo Investigates report.

“Geo Group’s Pac had not disclosed this. Only American Liberty Foundation had. Both have legal obligations to disclose. This raises a lot of questions about the broader universe of dark money contributions from Geo Group or other private prison companies.”

Campaign Legal Center, a litigation advocacy organization, has since filed a complaint to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) against Geo Group, alleging it violated federal campaign finance laws by making an illegal, misreported contribution.

Critics say that taxpayer money is helping to create a “deportation-industrial complex” that puts Geo Group, which runs ICE detention facilities across 16 states, including Delaney Hall in New Jersey, at the forefront of the benefactors.

All the while, conditions at many of the 52 detention centers that Geo operates on behalf of ICE have been reported as being very poor. Detainees at Delaney Hall last month launched a hunger strike to protest against the state of their living conditions and accused the contractor of denying them access to medical care. This month, the state of New Jersey sued Geo Group, seeking full access in order to inspect the facility.

In Michigan, family members and friends of the estimated 1,500 immigrant detainees held at the North Lake Processing Center have reported being verbally abused by staff and refused permission to see their detained family members.

Repeated emails sent by the Guardian to Geo Group asking why the company donated to Jordan’s Super Pac and if it believes the money represents a conflict of interest were not responded to.

Some rights groups have suggested that the poor living conditions are a tactic to force immigrants to self-deport. Trump’s former attorney general, Pam Bondi, previously worked as a lobbyist for Geo Group before joining the Trump administration.

According to reports, ICE is Geo Group’s biggest source of revenue, with 41% of its 2024 income coming from ICE. That figure is likely to have risen significantly under the Trump administration, with a host of new contracts signed.

Keep reading

NYC Democrat Socialist Candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier Wants to ABOLISH Prisons and OPEN America’s Borders — Deletes Thousands of Radical Tweets Before Tuesday’s Primary

The far-left challenger backed by NYC’s Communist Mayor Zohran Mamdani tried to scrub her record, but the receipts are devastating.

New York’s 13th Congressional District heads to the polls tomorrow in a Democratic primary that could hand a radical open-borders, abolish-prisons extremist a major platform in Congress.

Darializa Avila Chevalier, a 32-year-old democratic socialist and Justice Democrats-backed organizer, is challenging longtime Rep. Adriano Espaillat.

She’s been endorsed by far-left NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani and has positioned herself as the future of the Democrat Party in Upper Manhattan and the Bronx.

But newly uncovered deleted tweets from her old account (@darializabonet) — over 3,600 posts and reposts from 2018 to 2022 — reveal exactly who she really is.

In September 2021, she reposted this gem:

“A world without borders—just like a world without prisons or police—is possible, necessary, and the only moral way forward.”

She also amplified calls to “literally, abolish the border” and declared that “all deportation is wrong.”

She pushed for zero deportations and full open borders while the rest of the country was already suffering under Biden-era chaos.

During the 2020 riots, she doubled down on abolishing police entirely:

“F**k you. We’re gonna defund and abolish. You don’t get to water down our movements.”

And:

“No. It means ending policing full stop. Period. No more police at all ever.”

Other deleted posts praised seizing private property from landlords, nationalizing industries, and openly flirted with communism.

When confronted, Chevalier claimed the posts “did not reflect who she is today.” Too late. The mask is off.

Keep reading