Category: Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement
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One Less Obstacle for Prisoners Re-entering Productive Society
by James A. Bacon State prison inmates seeking to re-establish a productive life in society will find that task a little less intimidating thanks the efforts of Governor Bob McDonnell. A partnership between the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and the Virginia Department of Corrections (DOC) has expanded into 12 correctional facilities and processed…
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The Economics of Cigarette Smuggling
Shipping black market cigarettes from Virginia to New York City is more profitable than peddling cocaine, heroin or illegal firearms. So states a new report by the State Crime Commission, “Illegal Cigarette Trafficking.” The report also issues a warning, “If organized crime continues to view Virginia as an ideal location to obtain cigarettes, their habitual…
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Judge Carrico and Southern Mythology
By Peter Galuszka One of the infuriating things about Virginia is that one can never get away from its tendency to spin myths and construct a separate universe especially when it comes to what actually happened in its history. A case in point is the coverage of the death of 96-year-old Harry Lee Carrico, the…
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Good Correctional Policy Starts with Good Data
by James A. Bacon It costs roughly $25,000 a year on average to incarcerate people in jails and prisons across Virginia — totaling more than $1 billion a year for the state Department of Corrections and hundreds of millions more for local governments. One of the few things upon which everyone can agree is that…
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Is Virginia a Leader in Gun Control?
By Peter Galuszka For all of the sound and fury over guns in Virginia — panicked shooters are draining firearms shops of ammunition — the Old Dominion actually has been a leader among states on the gun control issue on a couple of fronts. For details, see my story in this week’s Style Weekly. First,…
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That Darned Cuccinelli Is Not Performing to Script!
by James A. Bacon Attorney General and assumed Republican gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli may be a populist conservative politician, but that doesn’t mean he’s predictable. Who ever would have imagined him fighting to restore the voting rights of nonviolent felons? A House subcommittee voted down this morning proposed constitutional amendments that would provide for the…
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Retaking Roads from Cars
Speaking of bicycles… Sen. Chap Peterson, D-Fairfax, has introduced SB736, which would forbid drivers and passengers to open car doors on the side adjacent to moving traffic “until is is reasonably safe to do so.” Violators would be fined by up to $100. On his Ox Road South blog, Peterson defends the bill as a…
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Factoids of the Day: Virginia’s Prison Population
If you encounter an Asian walking down a dark alleyway in Virginia, you probably don’t have anything to fear. If you bump into an Hispanic in a dark alleyway, you still don’t have much to fear. Both racial/ethnic groups are significantly less likely to wind up in Virginia prisons than other groups, according to the…
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McDonnell: Get Real On Assault Rifles
By Peter Galuszka The usual attitudes are moving beyond infuriating. Year after year, Virginia politicians put enormous effort into expanding the presence of guns in state society, from allowing more than one purchase of a handgun each month to taking away the rights of localities to fingerprint people applying for concealed weapons permits. Now in…
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Time for a Talk on Gun Control
By Peter Galuszka Once more time, we have mass death by firearms perpetrated apparently by a man with severe mental illness. In this case, however, some 20 of the victims were schoolchildren roughly between the ages of five and 10. When the gunman entered Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Ct., they were utterly helpless.…
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Is Virginia’s Violent Crime Rate Down or Not?
The murder rate is down across the country, and Americans can be forgiven for relishing this rare bit of good news amid the dirges for layoffs, deficits and fiscal cliffs. Now the Wall Street Journal has gone and spoiled it all for us. While the number of murders has declined the past decade, it’s not…
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Crime Drops, But Virginians Pack More Heat
By Peter Galuszka Virginians have been buying more firearms than ever even though crime has been steadily falling. Why? Last year, 420,829 firearms were bought through licensed gun dealers in Virginia. That’s a 73 percent increase from the sales in 2006. Leading the list were pistols (175,717) sold last year, followed by rifles (135,495). Central…
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Reform Juvenile Treatment: Save Money, Save Lives
The tab for holding juvenile offenders in secure state facilities averages $221 per day per youth over a stay of 14 months. That amounts to almost $100,000 per kid. The result? Seventy-four percent of those confined in state facilities are convicted of another offense within three years. Writes Mike Thompson in the latest edition of…
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President Barack Obama!
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in Business and Economy, Children and Families, Consumer Protection, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Demographics, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), Electoral process, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Government workers and pensions, Gun rights, Health Care, Housing, Immigration, Infrastructure, Insurance, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, LGBQT, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Public safety & health, Race and Race Relations, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, Social Services and Entitlements, Taxes, Transportation, Uncategorized, Water-waste waterBy Peter Galuszka President Barack Obama’s re-election and success with Virginia in Tuesday’s contest could provide a fresh opportunity to solidify more economic recovery than what have otherwise may have happened. It could be a real chance for bipartisan progress. Here’s my takeaway at 2:30 a.m.: Virginia has again shown that it is morphing into…
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No Need for Question 1 on Eminent Domain
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in Business and Economy, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Demographics, Economic development, Environment, Government Finance, Infrastructure, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Money in politics, Planning, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Social Services and Entitlements, TaxesBy Peter Galuszka It hasn’t gotten a lot of attention during this campaign, but Virginia will decide Tuesday whether to go with an amendment resulting in the toughest law in the country regarding eminent domain. Virginia has a law already that requires fair market compensation for private property taken for “Public Good” such as building…