Tag: prison

Trump admin punishing inmates for protesting Epstein accomplice’s ‘VIP treatment’: report

President Donald Trump’s administration is now reportedly coming down hard on federal inmates for speaking out against the DOJ’s apparent soft treatment of convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell.

That’s according to CNN, which reported Friday that Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) — the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee — is now demanding answers from the warden at Maxwell’s minimum security prison about what he alleges is “VIP treatment” for deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s chief accomplice. CNN host Jim Sciutto said Raskin is also questioning Maxwell getting “mysterious visitors, meal delivery and other special perks” and that the DOJ has “retaliated against inmates who dared to speak out about her fawning preferential treatment.”

Elie Honig, a legal analyst for the network, told Scuitto that while he’s less concerned with meal deliveries and meetings with visitors, the major red flag in Raskin’s letter is the allegation that inmates have been punished for drawing attention to Maxwell’s treatment.

“Apparently there are other inmates in this facility, other female inmates who have spoken out about preferential treatment to Ghislaine Maxwell and are now being punished,” Honig said. “Representative Raskin points out one particular inmate who appears to have been kicked out of a training program and moved to a higher security prison. That is a major problem, if that’s happening as retaliation.”

Honig went on to remind viewers that Maxwell shouldn’t even be at the Bryan, Texas prison — where she was moved earlier this year after a two-day meeting with Deputy Attorney General (and Trump’s former personal attorney) Todd Blanche — due to Bureau of Prisons rules. Facilities like Bryan are typically only for white-collar offenses, whereas violent offenders like those convicted of sex crimes have to serve their sentences in more restrictive conditions.

“That takes a waiver. Somebody within the Justice Department … has to specifically approve that, say, ‘I waive the normal course of proceedings and I’m okay with Ghislaine Maxwell being moved to a lower security prison,'” Honig said. “To this day, we don’t know who actually authorized that. And we’ve not gotten answers from DOJ about that.”

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Rosie O’Donnell’s Daughter Sentenced to Prison amid Sexual Assault Allegations

Rosie O’Donnell’s daughter is facing time behind bars.

According to documents obtained by Us Weekly, O’Donnell’s daughter Chelsea was sentenced to prison last week after violating her terms of probation.

A judge in Wisconsin ruled that the 28-year-old had violated her probation due to sexual assault allegations and had also failed to show adequate progress in her drug treatment program.

“The facts surrounding this request have been staffed with the Marinette County Treatment Drug Court Team and have been deemed sufficient grounds to warrant termination from the Marinette County Treatment Drug Court Program,” the filing read.

Chelsea will reportedly serve her sentence at Taycheedah Correctional Institution, a medium-security prison in Wisconsin.

However, the length of her sentence has not yet been publicly disclosed.

Her mother took to Instagram to ask people to pray for her troubled daughter.

“My child chelsea belle – before addiction took over her life – i loved her then i love her now as she faces a scary future- prayers welcomed,” the actress wrote.

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Mamdani Vows To Shut Down Rikers Island, Release Almost 8K Criminals

If New York City voters elect Muslim democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani as mayor, they will come to appreciate H.L. Mencken’s maxim that “democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”

The latest on the far-far-far left radical goes well beyond raising taxes on whites, providing free day care and bus transportation, and, famously, “seizing the means of production.”

Last night, during the final mayoral debate against independent candidate and former Governor Andrew Cuomo and radio talker and Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa, Mamdani vowed again to shut down the Rikers Island prison facility in 2027, as city law requires. The problem: Other jails cannot be built before the deadline.

Result: Almost 8,000 dangerous criminals would be loosed upon the city. Not that Mamdani would care. Aside from the other communist ideas he espouses, he would also abolish jails and prisons.

Rikers Island is a 413-acre property with 12 facilities, almost all the city’s jails. In 2019, the city passed a law to close the facility and replace it with jails in four of the city’s five boroughs. That was a pipe dream, and now, the deadline for shuttering Rikers looms.

Answering a debate moderator’s question about it, Cuomo said “you cannot close Rikers in 2027 because there’s no place to put the people unless you’re going to release 7,000 people.” Noting that Mamdani would release them, Cuomo added that “I’m not going to release 7,000 criminals into New York.”

Releasing the criminals is the Democratic Socialists’, and therefore Mamdani’s, policy, Cuomo said. The former Empire State governor would build new jails on the island.

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Wall Street Journal Weeps for Murderers Trump Sent to Supermax

Shortly before he left office, President Biden commuted the sentences of 37 convicted murderers. Those convicts, all on death row, were now facing life behind bars.

Two of those convicts, Norris Holder and Billie Allen, killed bank guard and former police officer Richard Heflin in a 1997 bank robbery. Other family members of murder victims were outraged and hurt by Biden’s move.

Alex Snell, the brother of Amanda Snell, was one of those people. Amanda, 20, was strangled by Jorge Avila-Torrez in 2009. “I’d rather see it go back to the way it was, where he was sentenced to death,” Snell said. “He should have gotten that penalty.”

President Biden said he commuted the sentences (save for three convicted of terrorism or hate crimes) because he had a change of heart on the death penalty, and the Wall Street Journal says he found it “needlessly cruel, as well as impossible to administer fairly.”

It seems the Wall Street Journal believes those commutations somehow absolve the convicted murderers from facing consequences for their actions, and they’re appalled that President Trump hasn’t made their lives behind bars easier.

Here’s more:

Among the last actions by former President Joe Biden before leaving the Oval Office was commuting the death sentences of 37 convicted murderers.

Hours after President Trump took over, he ordered the life sentences of these men be made, in effect, a living hell.

With that guidance, officials canceled plans to transfer most of the inmates to mainline prisons. Instead, Emil Bove III, the acting deputy attorney general at the time, ordered all but a handful requiring specialized medical treatment be housed in the U.S. Penitentiary at Florence, Colo., the harshest institution in the federal system.

Inmates at the Colorado prison—intended for the nation’s most violent—typically spend 23 hours a day alone in their cells. At a meeting in May with Attorney General Pam Bondi for families of loved ones killed by the 37 convicts, some officials said they wished conditions at the prison, known as ADX, were even worse.

Aaron Reitz, a former assistant attorney general, held a roundtable with victims’ families. “If you’re not going to be killed lawfully at the hands of the state, well, your prison sentence is going to be hard as hell,” Reitz said in an interview.

There is little sympathy for these convicts outside of the Wall Street Journal editorial room.

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Ghislaine Maxwell’s Cushy Minimum-Security Stay Sparks Uproar

On a sweltering mid-August weekend, hundreds of women at Federal Prison Camp Bryan were locked in their dorms, missing family time and fresh air. All except one: Ghislaine Maxwell. The 63-year-old Jeffrey Epstein confidante, convicted for helping him abuse underage teens, held a quiet meeting with several visitors inside the prison chapel while the rest of the camp was on ice, according to a new report from the WSJ, citing people familiar with the matter.

Maxwell had landed at the minimum-security Texas facility less than three weeks earlier, after a sudden transfer from a higher-security prison in Tallahassee. That move alone raised eyebrows: Bureau of Prisons policy generally keeps sex offenders out of camps without a special waiver. Her defense has said she faced “serious danger” in Florida; the bureau won’t say how many waivers like this exist – or why Maxwell got one.

The ripple effects inside Bryan were immediate. Inmates say the usually relaxed camp tightened the screws: more frequent lockdowns, armed guards on site, and SORT tactical teams posted at the gates. Black tarps went back up on the fence line. Guards delivered meals to Maxwell’s room, escorted her for late-night workouts, and let her shower after others were confined. Meanwhile, resentment simmered. Some inmates called her a “chomo,” prison slang for child molester. The warden, sources said, warned that threats or media chatter would earn a fast ticket to a harsher joint.

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100+ unqualified immigrants were hired as corrections officers in Washington jails, whistleblower claims

An anonymous whistleblower claimed that a Washington corrections department illegally hired unqualified immigrants as corrections officers.

According to Fox News Digital, the individual wrote to the Criminal Justice Training Commission in August, stating that the King County Department of Adult and Juvenile Detention violated a state statute that requires all peace officers and corrections officers to be United States citizens, lawful permanent residents, or recipients of deferred action for childhood arrivals.

“It has come to my attention, that, over the past several years, the King County DAJD has knowingly hired individuals as corrections officers who do not meet these legal requirements,” the letter to the commission read.

The whistleblower claimed that in some instances, individuals with temporary work visas or expired work authorization were hired to guard detention centers.

“This practice not only undermines the integrity of Washington’s criminal justice system but also presents significant legal and security concerns,” the whistleblower remarked, urging the commission to investigate the claims promptly.

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Northern Territory bans men from women’s prisons

The Northern Territory Chief Minister has announced a ban on men in women’s prisons in response to a bizarre situation where inmates around Australia are being housed based on gender delusions rather than biological reality.

Lia Finocchi­aro spoke out after a paedophile who sexually abused his own daughter was placed in a women’s jail in Victoria because he claims to be a woman, and a female prisoner in South Australia was raped by her violent gender-deluded male cellmate.

The Chief Minister also insisted there were no men in the NT’s jails, where aboriginals make up 90% of the adult prison population and almost 100% of youth detainees, and said she wouldn’t be “confused by this woke agenda driven by Labor governments”.

“There should be no men in women’s prisons, full stop. I can tell you now, here in the Northern Territory there are no blokes in women’s jails and we’re not having that here, not on my watch,” she told The Australian.

“We’ve got really clear guidelines around this. Labor had a weaker process but we want to make it really clear that if you are a man and you’re fundamentally equipped as a man, if I could put it that way, then you belong in a men’s prison.

“If you’re born a bloke, you go into a men’s prison. At the end of the day, this is really about women’s safety. It’s about women’s dignity.”

She went on to describe placing men who claim to be “transgender” in women’s prisons as “absurd” and “our nation’s shame”, and accused Labor state governments of being “obsessed with social engineering” and pursuing “ideologically driven law and policy”.

Ms Finocchi­aro made the announcement following a letter from Women’s Forum Australia to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and every state and territory leader objecting to the practice of placing inmates in jails based on their so-called gender identities.

“This practice is dangerous, dehumanising and in direct violation of international human rights standards,” Women’s Forum Australia chief Rachael Wong wrote.

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Bureau of Prisons currently has 4,497 ‘unresolved’ employee misconduct cases, GAO reveals

Anew Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found that the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has failed to fully communicate its “employee misconduct” policies and procedures and about 37% of the 12,153 cases that are open as of February 2025 have been unresolved for 3 years or longer.

In its September 2025 report, GAO notes that while BOP updated its Standards of Employee Conduct in June 2024 and continues to offer training, the agency does not systematically collect or use feedback from staff about that training. The omission limits BOP’s ability to refine the design and effectiveness of its misconduct prevention efforts, according to the report.

Training material sub-par

The audit also points out shortcomings of BOP’s orientation handbooks. “BOP uses orientation handbooks and signs posted in facilities to inform incarcerated individuals how to report certain employee misconduct. However, the handbooks and signs discuss sexual misconduct rather than a broader range of allegations, such as contraband and physical abuse,” read the report. 

“Developing a communication strategy to fully inform incarcerated individuals about employee misconduct offenses that affect their health and safety could increase awareness about the standards BOP is trying to uphold and help ensure facility safety and employee accountability”, GAO added.

The watchdog found that while BOP tracks allegations of employee misconduct, the agency does not sufficiently analyze data trends over extended periods of more than two years. There are currently 4,497 unresolved cases.

“BOP increased staff and took other steps to reduce its employee misconduct caseload, but about 37 percent of the 12,153 cases open as of February 2025 had been unresolved for 3 years or longer. BOP’s approach to investigating and disciplining employee misconduct does not include establishing milestones or designating responsibilities to key officials,” the report read.

“Implementing a comprehensive plan with these elements would help BOP allocate the resources necessary for investigating and disciplining employee misconduct cases, achieve desired results, and enhance safety and efficiency,” the GAO also reported.

The GAO said in the report that the BOP remains on its “High‑Risk List,” given that “staffing gaps and leadership stability continue to be central concerns and affect BOP’s ability to monitor persistent issues such as employee misconduct.”

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‘Louisiana Lockup’ Detention Center Is Punishing Immigrants for the Same Crime Twice, New Lawsuit Says

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed suit on Monday, accusing Louisiana’s new immigration detention center, “Louisiana Lockup,” and the Trump administration of indefinitely locking up immigrant detainees in the facility and punishing immigrants for the same crime twice, in violation of the Double Jeopardy Clause.

The Louisiana facility opened on September 3, using the blueprint forged by Florida’s Alligator Alcatraz. After Republican Gov. Jeff Landry declared a state of emergency in July to expedite repairs to a section of the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, Louisiana—a maximum-security prison notorious for violent and inhumane conditions—the state partnered with the Department of Homeland Security to add 416 immigrant detainee beds. 

“This facility is designed to hold the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens,” and is meant “to consolidate the most violent offenders into a single deportation and holding facility,” Landry said during a press conference on opening day. “Angola is the largest maximum-security prison in the country,” he continued, “with 18,000 acres bordered by the Mississippi River, swamps filled with alligators, and forests filled with bears.”

“If you don’t think that they belong somewhere like this,” Landry said, referring to the incoming immigrant detainees, “you got a problem.” 

But in the case of Oscar Amaya, a 34-year-old man who is currently detained at “Louisiana Lockup,” there may very well be a problem. The lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana, argues that Amaya’s continued detention violates the Double Jeopardy Clause and is designed to punish him—again—for a prior conviction. 

Although immigration detention is a civil penalty, double jeopardy applies if the civil sanctions are applied punitively. As the complaint, reviewed by Reason, points out, the punitive nature of imprisonment in a place like Angola is no secret. Rather, both Landry and Trump administration officials seem to relish in the facility’s violent past. “This is not just a typical [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] ICE detention facility that you will see elsewhere in the country,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem proclaimed during the facility’s opening. “This is a facility that’s notorious.…Angola Prison is legendary.”

Amaya fled Honduran gang life in 2005 and worked in the United States “without incident” until 2016, according to the complaint. That year, he was arrested and later “convicted of attempted aggravated assault, possession of a weapon (knife) for unlawful purpose, and unlawful possession of a weapon (knife).” Amaya was sentenced to four and a half years in prison, but was released after two years with good time credits. 

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North Bay man sentenced to jail for Holocaust denial, hate speech

In a historic legal decision, a North Bay man has been sentenced to nine months in jail after being found guilty of promoting hatred and denying the Holocaust through dozens of disturbing social media posts and videos promoting hate and violence against the Jewish community.

It marks the first-ever conviction in a Canadian court for Holocaust denial, according to Crown prosecutors.

The conviction was a result of a seven-month-long investigation into a hate crime by the North Bay Police Service’s Criminal Investigation Section.

Kenneth Paulin, 51, was sentenced to nine months in jail and two years of probation on Sept. 18 for the wilful promotion of hate against Jewish people and the wilful promotion of antisemitism by condoning, denying, or downplaying the Holocaust, according to a release from the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies (FSWC).

The organization shares lessons of the Holocaust, and advocates for human rights and battling antisemitism and hate.

Paulin was arrested and charged on Friday, June 20, following the investigation into his antisemitic online content.

“His posts vilified the Jewish community, promoted blood libels and conspiracy theories, incited hate and violence against Jews, and repeatedly mocked and denied the Holocaust,” says the release.

Paulin’s posts included claims that Jews are “demons,” “the greatest mass murderers in human history,” “to blame for every American who falls,” and responsible for “almost 100%” of the world’s problems.

He also expressed support for a “Worldwide ‘Jew Hunt'” and declared that “antisemitism is the only thing that can save the world,” among countless other hateful posts and videos.

Most disturbingly, he minimized and denied the Holocaust, including in a video he titled “Their victim card gets permanently denied as the hollow-cost-Hoax is exposed” and by sharing a post that read, “Six million didn’t happen, but it should’ve.”

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