Category: Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement
-
Look Who’s Using Encrypted, Self-Deleting Emails
Speaking of corruption (see previous post), this press release from Virginians for Safe Communities just arrived in my email inbox: Fairfax, Virginia – Yesterday, Virginians for Safe Communities filed a formal complaint [read here] with the Virginia State Bar, the professional standards body for licensed attorneys in the Commonwealth, against the Commonwealth’s Attorney for Fairfax…
-
Not a Good Look, Virginia
Not to give our friend Don the Ripper more ammo in his assertion that Virginia is the most corrupt state in the country, but… These numbers regarding federal public corruption convictions in Virginia’s Eastern District, published in a 2022 University of Illinois at Chicago study, “Anti-Corruption Report #14,” speak for themselves. I’d like to see…
-
RVA 5×5: Redefining 100 Percent Compliance
by Jon Baliles The recent stories from the City Jail have been anything but good — inmates dying far too often, staffing shortages leading to dangerous work conditions, deputies quitting, and the lack of leadership that can’t fill the vacancies while conducting lie detector tests on some of the staff that remain. Tyler Layne at…
-
Part II: School Discipline, Virginia Data and Virginia’s Disproportionality Concerns
This is the second of a three-part series on school discipline. The authors present information and provide discussion questions for the audience to respond. We hope the discussion will further an understanding of the complexity of school discipline and safe and orderly schools within the context of the presented data. by Matthew Hurt and Kathleen…
-
Miyares Reminds Republicans the Difference a Year Makes
by Shaun Kenney If Virginia Republicans needed a sizzle reel, this was it. With news that leftist Commonwealth Attorneys are openly refusing to enforce the law in some cases, the threat to the rule of law and the problem of selective enforcement is greater now than ever before. Which is why a long list of…
-
Virginia Dems Loathe No-Parole Laws
by Kerry Dougherty What do you do if you’re a soft-on-crime Democrat legislator in a no-parole commonwealth? You get creative. You find ways around the no-parole law that took effect back in the mid-1990s when Virginia was experiencing a crime wave similar to the one sweeping parts of the commonwealth now. Democrats in the State Senate…
-
‘Second-Look’ Bill to Release Inmates Is Back Without Safeguards
by Hans Bader In 2022, legislation allowing inmates to seek a reduction in their sentence after 15 years in prison passed the Virginia state Senate, but died in a 5-to-3 vote in a House subcommittee after a lobbyist for the bill boasted it would empty two entire Virginia prisons. The bill, SB 378, was viewed by…
-
The Shooting at Richneck Elementary – Part One
by James C. Sherlock There is trauma everywhere you look. A six-year-old boy shoots his teacher in school and we first consider the trauma. Then we look for ways to minimize its effects. And we simultaneously ask questions about the event itself. What happened and why? Unless we are personally involved, and even if we…
-
Governor’s Plan to Bolster Law Enforcement Is Meek Rather Than Bold
by Dick Hall-Sizemore In October, amidst much fanfare, Governor Youngkin announced Operation Bold Blue Line. In the words of the Governor’s press release, this initiative is “a series of concrete actions to reduce homicides, shootings, and violent crime.” I had some questions and wanted some details on the proposal. I posed these questions to the…
-
Why Law Enforcement Supports Gov. Youngkin’s Behavioral Health Transformation
by James C. Sherlock Updated Jan 6 at 13:10. Virginia’s sheriffs and police chiefs are reasonably hardened by what they see every day. They have very difficult jobs to do and are unlikely, either individually or in groups, to support nonsense. Governor Glenn Youngkin has accepted the challenge of finally fixing Virginia’s behavioral health system.…
-
Mysterious Laptop May Hold Clues To Virginia Beach Mass Shooting
by Kerry Dougherty Most of the country is focused on the chaos taking place in Congress. That’s nothing compared to the slice of crazy unfolding in Virginia Beach. As best we can stitch together from Facebook and stories in The Virginian-Pilot, a member of the House of Delegates has been sitting on what could be…
-
Police Common Sense in Richmond
by Dick Hall-Sizemore A recent article in the Richmond Times-Dispatch brings news that contravenes two themes prevalent in Bacon’s Rebellion: the rising violent crime rate and the ineffectiveness of the Richmond city government. Despite having a police force with a vacancy rate of 20%, Richmond has seen a 35% drop in homicides and nearly a…
-
New Census Bureau Numbers and the Southern Border
by James C. Sherlock I just received my “Happy New Year 2023” message from the Census Bureau. “As the nation prepares to ring in the new year, the U.S. Census Bureau today projected the U.S. population will be 334,233,854 on Jan. 1, 2023. Happy New Year 2023! This represents an increase of 1,571,393, or 0.47%,…
-
RVA 5×5 – Holiday Briefing
by Jon Baliles It’s Friday! Which means this newsletter would normally be filled with stories and analysis about what is happening in the RVA region (not all of it good), with an honest and insightful take (so far as that is possible). For instance, this week we could have stories about: A non-profit that presented…
-
Reparations for the Violators
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Governor Youngkin has proposed reparations for people who violated legal orders. Included in his budget proposal is a directive to reimburse all fines, fees, and interest imposed on individuals “due to violations of COVID-19 related practices, guidelines, rules or operating procedures” and to waive all such fines imposed. The budget language earmarks…