Category: Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement
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Virginia’s New Immigration Enforcement Policies
From Governor Abigail Spanberger’s Executive Order No. 10 taking the state police out of immigration-law enforcement: Ensuring public safety in Virginia requires state and local law enforcement to be focused on their core responsibilities of investigating and deterring criminal activity, staffing jails, and community engagement. Since 2025, Virginians have been deprived of critical public safety…
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Parole Bill Would Usurp Governor’s Appointment Powers, Release Dangerous Inmates
by Hans Bader A progressive Virginia legislator apparently thinks the parole board isn’t releasing enough inmates. So he has introduced a bill, HB318, that would let progressive legislators, rather than the governor, pick many of the parole board’s members. His bill would also make it much easier to parole inmates serving life sentences — which…
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The Deadly Consequences of Non-Compliant Nursing Home Reporting
by James C. Sherlock Regulators and law enforcement agencies cannot oversee what they do not understand. They do not understand nursing home management structures, and thus, business models of chains whose facilities, due to the core role of understaffing in those models, routinely abuse and cause the untimely deaths of residents. Section 1124(c) of…
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Crime and Punishment in Virginia Nursing Homes
by James C. Sherlock The Virginia Department of Health (VDH) inspectors regularly report instances of resident abuse, including battery, occasionally resulting in death. That has persisted for decades and appears undeterred by current enforcement efforts. The Code of Virginia (Code) is partially at fault. It makes it challenging for the state, its citizens, and local…
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Officer-Involved Shootings on the Rise in 2024
The number of officer-involved shootings in Virginia increased to 45 in 2024, nearly double the rate recorded in 2019, according to the Virginia State Police Crime in Virginia 2024 report. The number of fatal shootings, 31, was two-and-a-half times higher than five years previously. The Crime in Virginia report classifies every one of the shootings…
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About Those Hate Crime Numbers…
The officially reported tally of hate crimes against Jews spiked to 84 in 2024, while the number against Blacks increased slightly from an already high level to 136, according to data from the Virginia State Police Crime in Virginia 2024 report. As the report itself notes, however, these numbers should be viewed with caution. “Because…
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Slight Decline in Law Enforcement Staffing in 2024
The number of law enforcement employees declined slightly (1.2 percent) in 2024 compared to the year before, according to Virginia State Police Crime in Virginia data. The number of both civilians and officers was almost identical to that in 2022 when homicides were roughly 25 percent higher. If the number of law-enforcement personnel is a…
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3,257 Police Officers Assaulted in 2024
Even as homicides and violent crimes declined in 2024, according to the Virginia State Police Crime in Virginia 2024 report, the number of assaults on Virginia police officers continued at roughly the same rate as in the previous two years. The 727 injuries to officers did represent a 10-percent decline from 2023, however. One police…
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Worth Reading….
Charlottesville, VA, Eliminating Use of Camera Systems Because Feds Might Track Illegal Aliens From David Strom with Hot Air: “The Charlottesville police department will drop its use of the Flock license plate reading camera system due to concerns that the federal government might find illegal aliens it is looking for if it gets ahold of…
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Fairfax County’s Sanctuary Policy Is Costing Lives
by Stephanie Lundquist-AroraRepublished with permission from IWFeatures On Dec. 17, Marvin Fernando Morales-Ortez, 23, allegedly shot and killed a man in Reston, Virginia. Only the day before, Fairfax County officials ignored an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainer request and released him from jail. According to case documents from the Fairfax County General District Court, police…
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Block the Flocks?
According to the Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism, there are well over 1,000 Flock license-plate readers in Virginia. Here follows a Copilot AI-generated article about the cameras. Flock cameras in Virginia are automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) used for surveillance and law enforcement, recently regulated by new legislation aimed at balancing public safety and privacy…
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Illegal Alien Charged With Murder In Fairfax County
Kerry Dougherty provides an update on that illegal alien, Marvin Fernando Ortiz, charged with shooting his roommate a day after his release from Fairfax County jail. (See “Social Breakdown Update: Fairfax Edition.”) That’s right. This illegal hairbag was in jail – and released – last week but the order to turn him over to ICE…
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Violent Crime Down 7% in 2024, Homicides by 19%
Hooray, the Virginia State Police has finally published its Crime in Virginia 2024 report! The big news was that violent crime in the commonwealth dropped 7% that year compared to 2023. The number of homicides (murder and nonnegligent manslaughter) declined from 520 in 2023 to 421 in 2024 — 19 percent! There’s much more to…
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Gun Killings Down in 2024
But homicides remained highly concentrated in nine old urban localities. From the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission report, “Effects of Community Gun Violence in Virginia“: Virginia ranks 23rd highest among states for violent firearm offenses, with 88 per 100,000 residents annually on average (slightly below the 50-state average of 93). Virginia’s statewide gun homicide…