Tag: Prison

Categories
Politics

Biden to order DOJ to finish non-public jail contracts as a part of racial fairness push

Biden to order DOJ to end private prison contracts as part of racial equity push

President Joe Biden signs an executive order for transgender people for military service in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, USA on January 25, 2021 when he meets with new Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.

Kevin Lemarque | Reuters

President Joe Biden will order his Justice Department on Tuesday not to renew his private prison contracts, one of several new planks on Biden’s broader agenda for racial justice.

Biden is ready to sign four more executive measures after submitting his press schedule to the White House at 2:00 p.m. CET according to his press schedule. Vice President Kamala Harris will also attend the event.

Actions are aimed at tackling discriminatory housing practices, reforming the prison system, respecting the sovereignty of tribal governments, and combating xenophobia against Asian Americans, especially in the face of the Covid pandemic.

The actions are just the latest in a comprehensive flex of the presidential powers in the first week. According to a preview from senior administrators, Biden will sign on Tuesday afternoon:

  • An executive order directing Biden’s attorney general not to renew DOJ contracts with privately operated penal institutions
  • A presidential memorandum directing the Department of Housing and Urban Development to investigate the impact of the Trump administration’s regulatory actions that “undermine fair housing policies and laws.” Based on this analysis, the memo also instructs the HUD to take steps to fully implement the requirements of the Fair Housing Act.
  • An executive order urging federal agencies to deal with tribal governments regularly and meaningfully
  • And an executive memorandum directing the Department of Health and Human Services and the Covid Health Equity Task Force to publish best practices in their Covid response efforts to promote “cultural literacy” and sensitivity towards Asian Americans and islanders in the Pacific to consider. The memo also instructs the DOJ to work with these communities to prevent hate crimes and harassment against them.

The President’s speech and signatures will be preceded by a press conference at 12:30 p.m., at which domestic affairs adviser Susan Rice is due to appear alongside the White House press secretary Jen Psaki.

“America never kept its basic promise of equality for all, but we never stopped trying,” Biden said Tuesday morning in a tweet from the president’s official Twitter account.

“Today I will take action to promote racial justice and bring us closer to the more perfect union we have always been looking for.”

The White House said in a separate tweet that the new measures will “promote racial justice and support communities of color and other underserved communities.”

Biden put questions of racial justice at the center of his winning campaign against former President Donald Trump. Shortly after he took office, Biden signed an executive order setting his government’s focus on social justice and repealing some of his predecessor’s policies.

In particular, the January 20 action overturned Trump’s September order to restrict federal entrepreneurs’ ability to deliver training on diversity and inclusion in the workplace.

Biden also ended the Trump administration’s “1776 Commission” which, in the final days of Trump’s tenure, produced a report that was extremely critical of progressive ideologies.

Biden’s command charged the Rice-headed Home Affairs Council with coordinating “efforts to embed principles, strategies, and approaches of justice throughout the federal government.”

“This includes efforts to remove and provide equal access to systemic barriers to opportunity and benefit, identify communities that have been underserved by the federal government, and develop strategies to advance equity for those communities,” it said in this regulation.

Biden is expected to return to the state dining room at 4:45 p.m. to speak about his government’s efforts to contain the Covid pandemic.

Categories
Business

Jay Y. Lee, Chief of South Korea’s Samsung Empire, Is Despatched to Jail

Jay Y. Lee, Chief of South Korea's Samsung Empire, Is Sent to Prison

SEOUL, South Korea – The Seoul Supreme Court sentenced Samsung’s top leader Lee Jae-yong to two and a half years in prison on Monday for bribing former South Korean President Park Geun-hye.

Mr. Lee’s case can still go to the Supreme Court if either Mr. Lee or the prosecution wants to take it there. In South Korea, the Supreme Court can either approve a lower court ruling on a case or send it back for retrial. It cannot override the judgment of a lower court.

When Mr. Lee’s case first reached the Supreme Court in 2019, the court returned it to the Seoul Supreme Court for retrial, stating that it had the amount of bribes Mr. Lee gave to Ms. Park and her secret confidante Choi Soon- paid, underestimated. sil while Mrs. Park was in power. The amount was supposed to be 8.6 billion won ($ 7.8 million), not 3.6 billion as the lower court found.

In its ruling on Monday, the Seoul Supreme Court accepted 8.6 billion won as the correct amount as instructed by the Supreme Court. The decision to do so meant that it was far from settled, that the Supreme Court would approve the verdict should the case end there again.

Mr. Lee has already spent a year in prison after being arrested in 2017 in connection with the prosecutor’s bribery case. He is now expected to spend only a year and a half in prison, which takes away the day-to-day running of one of the world’s most valuable technology giants.

After the court issued its verdict on Monday, Mr. Lee was immediately arrested in the courtroom so that he could serve his time.

Categories
Entertainment

Bobby Shmurda Eligible for Launch From Jail in February

Bobby Shmurda Eligible for Release From Prison in February

Brooklyn rapper Bobby Shmurda, whose rapid rise in the music industry was interrupted when he was arrested in 2014 for conspiracy and gang arrest, will be released from prison next month, the New York State Department of Corrections said on Monday.

Shmurda, 26, whose legal name is Ackquille Pollard, was sentenced to seven years in prison in October 2016 after pleading guilty to conspiracy and gun possession in connection with his leading role in the GS9 gang, an offshoot of the Crips in the East Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn.

Shmurda was denied parole in September, partly due to disciplinary action against him while he was incarcerated, and he was then ordered to serve his maximum sentence until December 11, 2021. Following a review by the Corrections Department, Shmurda’s recognition for good institutional behavior was restored, making him eligible for a conditional release from February 23, provided no further incidents occurred. The remainder of his sentence was to be served on parole.

“I’m glad he comes home,” said Alex Spiro, a lawyer who represented Shmurda in the criminal case.

Before his arrest at a Manhattan recording studio in December 2014, Shmurda went viral thanks to a hit single known in its edited version as “Hot Boy” and a related meme taken from the social media app Vine Rise in hip-hop that showed him throwing his hat in the air and doing his trademark “Shmoney Dance”. Mimicked by Beyoncé and in NFL touchdown dances, the move helped send “Hot Boy” to # 6 on the Billboard Hot 100.

The then 19-year-old Shmurda signed a seven-digit contract with Epic Records for several albums. However, while waiting for the trial and unable to pay his $ 2 million bail, he complained that the label had abandoned him. “When I was locked up, I thought they would come pick me up,” he told the New York Times in an interview, “but they never came.”

In the years since, Shmurda, despite only releasing a handful of songs, has become something of a folk hero in rap; His release from prison was eagerly awaited by fans and fellow artists. His close associate, Rowdy Rebel, who was convicted of the same case, was released on parole last month.

While behind bars, Shmurda was disciplined for numerous violations of fighting and possession of contraband, which damaged his reputation with the probation authority. In a partial transcript of the probation hearing published by New York magazine, Shmurda said he “tried to learn how to defend himself” while detained on Rikers Island and called the prison “just a crazy place”.

Shmurda is currently being held in the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, NY, according to the Department of Corrections inmate database.

He told the parole board last year that he hoped to get back to rap and the entertainment business while also advising children from areas similar to those he grew up in. “I was young, I was just a follower,” he said, “and then I got older, I started making music and then I saw my life start on a different path, but my past just caught up with me . ”

In a recent interview with NPR’s Louder Than a Riot podcast, Shmurda suggested that he should have started rapping sooner. “I would never have been on the street, you know what I mean?” he said. “My biggest regret is not to follow my dreams sooner.”