Tag: prison

Pam Bondi Aims To Revive a Moribund Legal Process for Restoring Gun Rights

Although President Donald Trump has been entrusted with control of the nation’s vast military might, including its nuclear weapons, he is not allowed to own a gun. He lost that right as a result of 34 state felony convictions involving falsification of business records. Whatever you think of the legally dubious case underlying those convictions, this situation makes no sense as a matter of public safety. It epitomizes the absurdly broad criteria that bar Americans from possessing firearms under federal law.

Attorney General Pam Bondi recently took an important step toward addressing the unjust, constitutionally dubious burdens imposed by that policy. An interim final rule that took effect last week aims to revive the moribund legal process for restoring the Second Amendment rights of “prohibited persons” who pose no threat to public safety. The rule rescinds the delegation of that process to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), which Congress has long prohibited from accepting applications for relief.

“For decades, law-abiding Americans who have had their gun rights unfairly restricted have been left in legal limbo—creating an unconstitutional de facto lifetime gun ban,” says Erich Pratt, senior vice president of Gun Owners of America. “This bureaucratic failure has denied thousands of individuals their lawful opportunity to restore their rights. The [Justice Department’s] decision to finally withdraw ATF’s authority in this matter is an encouraging sign that this administration is serious about protecting the Second Amendment for all Americans.” 

Under 18 USC 922(g), prohibited persons include anyone who has been convicted of a crime punishable by more than a year of incarceration, regardless of the sentence that was actually imposed, whether or not the offense involved violence, and no matter how long ago it happened. This is the provision that forced Trump to give up his guns, even though his offenses were nonviolent and did not result in any formal punishment. The law also prohibits gun possession by anyone who has ever been subjected to involuntary psychiatric treatment, even if he was never deemed a threat to others.

Anyone who defies these bans is committing a federal felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison. He could face additional penalties for lying on the federal form that must be completed to buy a gun from a federally licensed dealer, which can be construed as two distinct felonies under 18 USC 922(a)(6) and 18 USC 924 (a)(1)(A), and for “trafficking in firearms,” which Congress has counterintuitively defined to include prohibited persons who obtain guns. All told, a prohibited person who dares to exercise his Second Amendment rights could face combined maximum sentences of nearly half a century.

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NYC teen raped more than 30 times by female shrink known as ‘Big Foot’ at juvie jail: lawsuit

A Staten Island teen was allegedly raped dozens of times by his female counselor — known as “Big Foot” — at an upstate juvenile detention facility, while staffers joked about it, he claimed in a lawsuit.

The victim, now 21, was just 17 in 2021 when he was sent to Brookwood Youth Facility, about 45 minutes south of Albany, and first encountered associate psychologist Maya Hayes, who held frequent counseling sessions with him in her private office, according to the litigation.

The sexual abuse began about three months after the accuser, whose name is being withheld by The Post, arrived, the suit claims. It didn’t end until he had been raped more than 30 times, he claimed.

Hayes, 47, allegedly “groomed and manipulated [the victim] into trusting that what she was doing had some basis in legitimate care and treatment. It did not,” he said in court papers.

Hayes “used and exploited her position of trust and authority . . . to her disgusting advantage and her own depraved benefit . . . to sexually abuse and exploit as many children as possible under the guise of performing routine and necessary counseling sessions,” the teen alleged.

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Judge Orders Bureau of Prisons to Return Transgender Inmates to Women’s Facilities, Reversing Trump’s Protective Order

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, a Ronald Reagan appointee, ordered the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) on Wednesday to transfer two transgender inmates—biological men who identify as women—back to federal women’s prisons.

This move comes after they were originally relocated to men’s facilities following President Donald Trump’s executive order that limited transgender protections in federal custody.

The decision, which conservatives are blasting as a blatant reversal of common-sense protections for female inmates, grants a preliminary injunction for the two individuals—identified as “Rachel” and “Ellen Doe,” ABC News reported.

Lamberth’s ruling mandates not only the immediate transfer of the two individuals but also compels the Bureau of Prisons to continue providing them with hormone therapy treatments for gender dysphoria.

The ruling follows complaints from the plaintiffs that they felt unsafe in male prisons, alleging threats of sexual assault and inappropriate searches by male officers.

“The fact that they have already been transferred and, allegedly, have been abused at their new facilities can only strengthen their claims of irreparable harm,” Lamberth wrote in his decision.

Under Trump’s policies, biological sex—not gender identity—determined where inmates were placed, helping to prevent cases where violent offenders or opportunistic criminals claimed transgender status to gain access to female-only spaces.

But with Lamberth’s order, those protections are being eroded, and the floodgates are opening once again for a dangerous precedent. The decision impacts at least 15 inmates who are currently covered under similar lawsuits.

Meanwhile, three other prisoners—one transgender woman housed in a men’s prison and two transgender men in women’s prisons—are also challenging Trump’s order, hoping to fully dismantle the remaining safeguards against gender-based prison transfers, according to ABC News.

There are reports of transgender women or individuals posing as transgender women raping female inmates in US prisons.

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What Are the Ethics of Strapping VR Headsets on Inmates in Solitary Confinement?

Right now in the US, the total population held in prison is nearly 2 million people, which is over 20 percent of the world’s prisoners. Of that massive number, over 122,000 US citizens are forced to endure solitary confinement for at least 22 hours a day.

Solitary confinement is the brutal practice of stuffing people into closet-sized rooms without sunlight, stimulation, or human contact for hours, days, weeks, and sometimes years or decades at a time. It’s a practice that amounts to torture, according to the United Nations and the Geneva Convention.

It’s no wonder why: research has shown that just hours of solitary confinement can cause serious and lasting psychological damage, potentially magnifying existing mental illness and significantly increasing a victim’s risk of suicide. All told, it’s a horrifying mark on an already dystopian carceral system.

Now take that grim situation and add a “Black Mirror”-esque wrinkle: prison officials in California are now offering some people held in solitary confinement an escape via virtual reality.

The program comes by way of Creative Acts, a social justice organization that leads art therapy workshops and educational initiatives in youth and adult prison systems. The nonprofit has previously used VR headsets as part of a general population reentry program, where incarcerated people visualize scenarios like their first steps outside the prison walls, before working through their emotional and physical response with volunteers.

The Guardian recently detailed how the program is working at Corcoran State Prison, where incarcerated people are plucked from 6ft by 11ft cells — where some had been for weeks — and chained to a metal seat inside of a “therapeutic module,” a metal cage no bigger than a phone booth.

From there, Creative Acts volunteers fit the participants with Oculus headsets, loaded up with a range of virtual programming ranging from a ride through Thailand on a rickshaw to a stroll down the streets of Paris. Let’s get it out of the way: the optics of prisoners in small cages, outfitted with VR headsets, are pretty bleak.

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Clinton-Appointed Judge Rules Inmate Who Murdered Baby Must Be Provided Taxpayer-Funded Sex Change at ‘Earliest Opportunity’

Clinton-appointed Judge Richard Young has ordered the Indiana Department of Correction (IDOC) to provide sex change surgery for a “transgender” inmate who murdered a baby.

The inmate, Jonathan Richardson, who now goes by “Autumn Cordellioné,” is in prison for the reckless homicide of a baby.

Richardson was convicted in 2001 for strangling his then-wife’s 11-month-old daughter to death.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed the lawsuit against the Indiana Department of Corrections seeking a sex change on behalf of Richardson in 2023, three years after the baby-killer decided to begin identifying as a woman.

Currently, there is a law in Indiana banning taxpayer-funded sex change procedures for inmates.

According to a Fox News report, the ACLU argued that the law violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of “cruel and unusual punishment.”

Judge Young sided with the ACLU on March 5 and ordered taxpayers to foot the bill for the murderer’s vanity surgery.

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Trump Is “Dangerous” & Racist To Keep Men Out Of Women’s Prisons, Professor Says

President Donald Trump’s executive order to keep men who claim to be women out of female prisons is “dangerous” and hints of racism, according to an anthropologist.

Kate Clancy, a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, analyzed the president’s directive that the federal government define sex on biological terms.

He also said prisons should not house men who claim to be transgender with women. The administration has also frozen people from requesting an “X” gender marker, for “nonbinary,” on their passports.

The order is “stupid” and “dangerous,” Clancy told LGBTQ Nation. Clancy disputed the idea that sex is biologically determinable. However, biology experts have affirmed there are only two sexes and it is not possible to change one’s sex.

“I think Trump, in whatever terrible language is available to him, is trying to control women and control people he perceives to be in the woman category,” Clancy told the news outlet.

“A lot of this is keeping the category of women pure—and also, obviously, about doing immense harm to trans people.”

But she also finds a racial element in the executive order.

She stated:

There’s also a very racial, white supremacist thing going on here with this “defending women.”

It’s a very old idea—it appears in travelogs, early writings of Europeans, as well as in the United States when they started encountering North American indigenous folks, and the way that they thought about enslaved peoples.

There was this belief that in the “lower races,” men and women were less different and that in the “higher races,” there were more differences between women and men.

This was about saying men and women are differentiated, clear, non-overlapping categories because that makes us a more evolved people.

Clancy also said “sex is also socially constructed.”

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Fury as transgender killer is allowed out of prison for surgery to reduce the size of Adam’s apple

A transgender killer was allowed out of jail to have surgery to make him look more feminine.

Alan Baker – now known as Alex Stewart – is serving life for the ‘wicked and brutal’ stabbing of a man he met on an online dating site.

But it has now emerged the 36-year-old – who is behind bars at HMP Greenock, Renfrewshire – has had an operation to reduce the size of his Adam’s apple.

Last night, critics demanded to know whether the taxpayer picked up the bill for the work.

Susan Smith, of campaign group For Women Scotland, said: ‘We are disturbed to learn a dangerous prisoner was allowed out to seek unnecessary cosmetic surgery.

‘We doubt that a female murderer would be allowed day release for Botox or a nose-job.

‘How was this funded and at what cost to the taxpayer? At a time when resources are stretched both for prison and health services, this looks like a profligate indulgence of a manipulative man.’

Baker, of Bonhill, Dunbartonshire, was jailed for a minimum of 19 years for the murder of father-of-two John Weir in 2013.

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Trump Restores Single-Sex Jails, Transgender Inmates Sent Back to Men’s Prisons

President Donald Trump has restored single-sex prisons, sending male inmates who identify as women back to men’s facilities.

The approximately 1,500 male federal prisoners who identify as women will now be sent to men’s facilities in the wake of President Trump’s executive order establishing single-sex prisons, according to a report by the New York Times.

President Trump’s executive order, titled, “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” also ends transgender-related medical procedures for prison inmates.

The Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF), a feminist organization that advocates for single-sex prisons and raises awareness about incarcerated women becoming victims of male violence, called President Trump’s move “a major victory.”

Currently, WoLF is working to combat California legislation that allows inmates to request facilities that align with their identity, rather than their actual biological sex.

The feminist organization asserts that the law violates incarcerated women’s constitutional rights, citing the Eighth Amendment, which protects people from cruel and unusual punishment.

President Trump’s executive order echoed those sentiments, declaring, “efforts to eradicate the biological reality of sex fundamentally attack women by depriving them of their dignity, safety, and well-being.”

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Trump signs executive order banning men from women’s prisons, gender-confused troops in military

President Donald Trump rescinded an executive order that allowed gender-confused people to join the military.

Trump rescinded 78 of former President Joe Biden’s executive orders, including a handful that pushed the LGBT agenda. The decision drew praise from conservative groups.

One of the rescinded Biden directives is “Executive Order 14004 of January 25, 2021 (Enabling All Qualified Americans To Serve Their Country in Uniform),” according to the White House website.

The Biden order made it “the policy of the United States to ensure that all [so-called] transgender individuals who wish to serve in the United States military and can meet the appropriate standards shall be able to do so openly” and without alleged “discrimination.”

It revoked President Trump’s first-term decision to prohibit gender-confused individuals from enlisting in the military.

Trump also rescinded other Biden orders on transgenderism and homosexuality, including several relating to “gender identity” and “sexual orientation.”

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D.C. Gulag Holds J6 Prisoners Hostage Despite Trump’s Pardons

One of Donald Trump’s first acts as president was to commute the sentences of or pardon nearly every single Jan. 6 prisoner, setting them all free. But multiple prisons and halfway houses have resisted complying, with the D.C. gulag holding multiple prisoners hostage and refusing to release them.

Trump’s historic order commuted the sentences of about a dozen individuals and pardoned “all individuals convicted of offenses related to event that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.” It ordered that those “currently held in prison are released immediately.” But the thugs who have so abused and trampled the rights of the J6ers under the Biden-Harris administration for four years are defying the law one last time. J6ers and friends reported prisons and halfway houses across America slow-rolling prisoners’ releases, and the infamous Washington, D.C., jail nicknamed the Gulag flat out refused to release multiple J6 hostages.

Even Elon Musk responded to families’ pleas, resharing a message urging them to bring Trump‘s pardon with them to the prison and requesting to be notified if they continued to encounter resistance in the release of their loved ones.

A family member of J6er Jake Lang, likely his fiancée, accused via Lang’s X account on Monday evening that he was assaulted by prison guards, handcuffed, and thrown back in his cell while in the process of being released. Lang has been in jail for four years without a trial in inhumane conditions, much of it in solitary confinement. I was subsequently able to reach Lang by text, and he confirmed that the D.C. Gulag was refusing to release some of the J6 prisoners.

“The GULAG doesn’t want to cough up its hostages!!! After 1465 days, every second is like an eternity!! I’m ready to go home!!! God will deliver!!!” Lang wrote me in his message. 

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