Category: Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement
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Is California-Style Shoplifting Coming to Virginia?
by James A. Bacon California has become notorious as a shoplifter’s paradise where prosecutors downplay “minor” crimes and the criminal element has responded, quite rationally, by increasing the brazen looting of retail outlets. The theft is so rampant in San Francisco and Los Angeles that dozens of drugstores and other retailers have closed shop. I’ve…
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Whatever Happened to Defund-the-Police?
by James A. Bacon The Defund-the-Police movement in Virginia has passed its peak. Indeed, it may have disappeared, leaving barely a trace. People still may have concerns about the criminal justice system, but that doesn’t mean they want to throw out the good with the bad. Consider three stories in the news clips today. SROs…
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Norfolk Shoot-Out on Granby Street
by Kerry Dougherty In March of 2021, the Virginia Beach oceanfront was the scene of a shooting spree that left two people dead. Last weekend, Norfolk’s Granby Street experienced something similar. These shootings shock the senses, especially when innocent people are among the victims. At least one of the Granby Street victims was a bystander,…
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Another Promising Young Life Snuffed Out
by James A. Bacon Our society has become inured to stories of drug dealers and other criminals shooting and killing one another on our cities’ streets. But we still maintain a capacity for outrage at the death of pure innocents — children and others who were unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at…
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Virginia Democrats Play Childish Games With Public Safety
by Kerry Dougherty What in the world are Virginia Senate Democrats thinking? On Thursday, in a childish game of tit-for-tat, these partisan hacks blocked three of Governor Glenn Youngkin’s nominees for the state parole board. There was nothing objectionable about the trio. This was political gamesmanship and a fresh reminder that Democrats have little interest…
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Committee Kills Bill to Release “Good Behavior” Murderers
by Hans Bader Voting along party lines, a legislative committee in Virginia’s Republican-controlled House of Delegates voted 5-to-3 yesterday to kill a bill that would have allowed a large proportion of the state’s murderers to seek release from prison. The bill, SB 378, would have allowed Virginia prison inmates to seek release from prison after…
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School Threat Assessment Teams Revisited
by James C. Sherlock I wrote on February 12 of this year about what I consider an indicator of a potential overreach by the Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS). FCPS security has published an RFP for corporate support for web search to support its threat assessment team. Since that article, I have conducted extensive email…
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Bacon Bits: Law and Order Edition
Lord of the Flies update. In late January a fight broke out after a basketball game between Deep Run High School and Glen Allen High School in the affluent West End of Henrico County. One student reportedly suffered a broken nose. According to WWBT-Channel 12, brawls had occurred “several times” over the previous two weeks.…
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Things Fall Apart: Fare-Jumping Edition
by James A. Bacon Thirty-four percent of all Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority bus riders are not paying their fares, reducing revenues by $10 million in the second half of 2021 alone, reports The Washington Post. That’s up from 17% in unpaid fares two years previously. Bacon’s Rebellion readers may be reassured to know that…
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Should It Be OK For The Police To Lie?
by Dick Hall-Sizemore On at least five occasions over a four-year period, Virginia Beach police confronted suspects with fake documents that indicated the suspect had been connected to a crime through DNA evidence. The documents were forged certificates of analysis, complete with the letterhead of the Virginia Department of Forensic Sciences and the Seal of…
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A Dangerous Overreach in Public School Policy
by James C. Sherlock Disturbed by the actions of Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS), I have just finished reading Threat Assessment and Management in Virginia Public Schools: Model Policies, Procedures, and Guidelines (Model Policies), a publication of the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS). It enjoins schools to investigate everyone, including “persons unaffiliated with the…
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The Peasants Must Be Controlled
by James A. Bacon It caused a brouhaha last year when U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland assigned the FBI to look into threats of violence against local school officials by parents protesting woke school policies. The announcement struck many as paranoid and detached from reality, but it apparently reflected a widespread concern by local officials…
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Many Criminals Don’t “Age Out” of Crime
by Hans Bader Supporters of releasing criminals from prison make misleading claims. They say criminals age out of crime, and usually don’t return to crime after being released from prison. But a recent report of the U.S. Sentencing Commission shows how misleading these claims are, chronicling how most violent offenders return to violent crime after…
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Parole Board Bill: Minimal Benefit vs. Possible Harm
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Legislation to make the activities of the Parole Board a little more transparent has cleared one committee. The bill, SB 5 (Sutterlein, R-Roanoke) would require individual Parole Board member votes to be available to the public on request. I understand the motives behind this bill. The call for more transparency, to know…
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Things Fall Apart: From the Mountains to the Sea Edition
by James A. Bacon There are more signs in the news today that the social fabric is fraying across Virginia: (1) a teacher poll showing that 39% of Newport News teachers and staff are thinking about quitting; and (2) concerns that urban violence is spilling out of Roanoke into nearby Blacksburg. For good measure, I’ll…