Category: Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement
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Marijuana Decriminalization in Virginia: Issues and Recommendations for Regulators
By Don Rippert Ready, fire, aim. In Virginia, it seems likely that the Democratic Party’s control of the General Assembly and Governorship will result in decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana. This legislation will likely be passed in the 2020 session and go into law next summer. But what are the details of decriminalization?…
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Conformity Article Errata, Semi-Mea Culpa
I got enough of importance wrong in yesterday’s post on state income tax policy that a real correction is required, not just a tweak to the existing previous post. Herewith what I know I got wrong: As Dick Hall-Sizemore pointed out, correcting me in a comment, the 2019 provision creating a new Taxpayer Relief Fund…
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Virginia marijuana reform: Outlook for 2020
By Don Rippert Cannabis certitude. The seemingly inexorable march toward legalized marijuana in the United States continues unabated. A poll of 9,900 American adults conducted by the Pew Research Center from September 3 – 15, 2019 found that 67% of the respondents thought cannabis should be legalized. That’s five percentage points higher than Pew’s last…
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Virginia Judges, 1; Artificial Intelligence, 0
by James A. Bacon It sounded like such a good idea: Develop a criminal-sentencing algorithm to help judges identify felons least likely to reoffend and either give them shorter jail sentences or divert them to probation or substance-abuse treatment programs. Virginia created just such an algorithm in 2001. Minimizing the subjective element in sentencing, it…
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Bringing Addicted Babies into the World Should Be a Crime
by James A. Bacon When social breakdown, a drug epidemic and failed government institutions converge, this is what you get: babies like Charlee Ford (seen at left) born with opioids and marijuana in her system and diagnosed with cerebral palsy. After birth, her lungs failed for nine minutes before doctors revived her. In her short,…
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Inmates Need Costly Medical Care, Too
by Dick Hall-Sizemore In the most recently completed fiscal year, the general fund cost to provide medical care to Virginia prison inmates was $221.6 million. That is a lot of money by any measure; it exceeds the entire budget of all but a few state agencies. However, despite its size, it does not get much…
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A Budget Cut that Should be Made
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Just to show that I am not the “tax and spend” liberal that some people may think I am, I am proposing a significant budget cut for the Governor’s office to consider in its effort to satisfy all the demands it is getting for the upcoming biennial budget. That budget item can…
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Bacon Bits: Cloudy Day Edition
Neo-Nazies on the loose. I’ve been highly critical of Attorney General Mark Herring for spinning state crime statistics to imply that there has been a surge in white supremacist hate crimes in Virginia. But that’s not to say there aren’t hateful white supremacists residing in the the state. The Daily Beast describes how an FBI…
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Bacon Bits: River Preservation, Truth in Tuition, and Election Interference
Good deed of the day. Riverside Outfitters, which provides guided kayak, raft, tube, and paddleboard trips, has paid $11,000 to purchase Goat Island, a one-acre islet in the James River. The outfitting company will make the island openly available for public use as a destination for canoers and paddleboarders, reports Richmond BizSense. The company plans…
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Good News, Bad News on Crime Trends
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Each year the state produces six-year forecasts of state and local criminal offender populations. These forecasts are ultimately adopted by an interagency, inter-disciplinary committee, chaired by the Secretary of Public Safety and Homeland Security. The process of producing the forecasts is fairly complicated and stretches over several months, involving numerous meetings. I…
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Virginia’s Human Trafficking Horror
by James A. Bacon Virginia’s elected officials don’t agree about much. But they do share one common interest across the partisan divide: fighting human trafficking. Even in our hyper-partisan world, Democrats and Republicans still can unite over the proposition that sexual enslavement and exploitation is a bad thing. In October of 2018, the Human Trafficking Institute released…
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Bacon Bits: Numerological Edition
$6.5 billion. That’s how much Dominion Energy estimates it will cost Virginia ratepayers if the state signs up with the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a cap-and-trade program designed to reduce CO2 emissions. The utility said it would have to shutter four coal-fired power plants and replace their generating capacity with additional solar, natural gas,…
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Dude in a 7-Eleven Shoots Two Robbers, Kills One….
A 37-year-old Virginia Beach man was buying a Big Gulp at a 7-Eleven when two armed robbers burst into the store. The clerk and intruders started arguing and tensions quickly escalated. Worried for the clerk’s safety, the bystander pulled out a concealed weapon and fired, hitting one robber in the neck and the other twice…
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Best Gun Violence Idea Not Proposed in VA?
by Steve Haner The most effective gun violence prevention idea presented to the Virginia State Crime Commission Monday was one seldom discussed in the state: Add violent misdemeanors to the list of convictions that prevent gun purchases from a licensed dealer. Four states, including Maryland, have that provision and a Boston University study found it…
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Gun Issues Return to Capitol Monday, Tuesday
by Steve Haner Proposed firearms regulations will pack a General Assembly meeting room Monday and Tuesday, and for that portion of the population not already locked into an ideological position either way, it could be useful to pay attention. The Republican majorities have taken some political bashing for failing to act on the flood of…