Inmate Jail Search

Inmate Jail Search – Prison Reform and Recidivism

Our prisons are broken. Does anybody really doubt that? Two-thirds of felons return to jail within three years of release. We lock people up at a faster rate than any other developed country, and yet it doesn’t result in lower crime rates than those other countries. We need to look for real solutions to fix the problems of our penal system.

Most of us relate more to the victims of crimes than the perpetrators. We feel anger and impatience with those who commit crimes, and prison sentences often serve to satisfy our need for retribution and revenge. The punishment received for crimes is often well warranted. Many of us hope that perpetrators will feel a portion of the pain that they inflicted on their victims. Yet, unless we can break the cycle of crime-punishment-more crime, we all suffer; society suffers.

Few criminals make the mental connection between their actions and the prison time they serve. They are often much more full of excuses than remorse. This disconnect lies at the heart of recidivism. But just as there are many ways that lives can fall apart, we need to explore a variety of options for building them back up. No single prison reform program will work across the board with all inmates, but some have demonstrated more promise and success than others. These are the ones that ought to be investigated, replicated, and instigated. Prison reform and rehabilitation programs ought to be at the top of the list of priorities, rather than being among the first cuts during a budget crunch.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if during the course of a jail sentence, an inmate could be transforming into a better person rather than a more hardened criminal? If prison fellowship could be inspirational and restorative rather than draining life of all hope? In a forward-thinking society, we would spend less money building jails and more building community centers, pass fewer laws regarding mandatory sentencing and more regarding restorative justice. If prisoners are forced to take accountability through vocational or educational or anger management classes while incarcerated, and if they have follow-up support for reintegration with society upon their release, they’re much less likely to wind up back in jail.

Some prison reform truly does work. We do a disservice to us all if we ignore that to focus solely on punishment.

Each of us can contribute to Prison reform by participation in Prison Fellowship, when people work together, all things are possible.

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China sentences notorious gang ‘godmother’ – Yahoo! News

BEIJING – Dubbed the “godmother” of the Chinese underworld, she was notorious for her toughness and a lavish lifestyle that reportedly included luxury villas and a stable of 16 young lovers.

Her criminal reign ended Tuesday when Xie Caiping, 46, was sentenced to 18 years in prison for running illegal casinos and bribing government officials. Her trial was one of a series of gang prosecutions in the southwestern city of Chongqing that have featured lurid testimony about sex, corruption and the violent underworld.

Xie is the only female gang boss to be tried as part of a monthslong crackdown on local gangs, known as “black societies,” in the sprawling southwestern megacity of 30 million. The trials have exposed the tangled web of links between government officials and police officers who sought to provide cover for the crime syndicates.

Besides her luxury homes, Xie reportedly enjoyed her own Mercedes-Benz and “retained 16 young men for personal entertainment,” local media reported. On Tuesday, her driver Luo Xuan, 29, who was also her lover, was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in jail for his role.

Wearing an inmate-assigned vest of bright orange, the short-haired and plain-faced Xie was grim and emotionless as she was led out of the No. 5 Intermediate People’s Court after the sentencing.

Xie had been protected for years because she was the sister-in-law of the city’s long-serving deputy police chief, Wen Qiang, who was detained for investigation by the ruling Communist Party in August. Wen, who is regarded as being at the heart of an extensive network of protection of local gangs for over a decade, will go on trial later in the month.

Xie once absconded with a suitcase full of money after being tipped off by Wen before a police raid on one of her gambling dens, according to a local newspaper. Last year, she hired gang members to beat an undercover police officer unconscious, put him in a bag and dump him in the countryside.

During the trial, Xie’s profanity-laced testimony drew a rebuke from the judge. Victims who had been terrorized by the gangs waited patiently for Tuesday’s sentencing.

Xie was convicted of “organizing and leading a criminal organization, running gambling dens, illegal imprisonment, harboring people taking illegal narcotics and giving bribes to officials,” the official Xinhua News Agency reported. She was also fined 1.02 million yuan (about $150,000).

Chen Yanling, a Chongqing resident who says she was beaten by thugs after refusing a corrupt policeman’s request to turn her teahouse into a casino, said she and other victims waited outside the court for the verdict. But they were angered by Xie’s sentencing, with some people refusing to leave until police escorted them away.

“We didn’t believe our ears when we first heard it’s just 18 years. How many crimes has she committed?” Chen said.

The crackdown in Chongqing has netted some 1,500 suspects — gangsters, prominent businessmen and 14 high-ranking officials. Six gang members in the city have already been sentenced to death for crimes including murder and blackmail.

On Tuesday, 20 others, including officials who offered protection to gang members, were sentenced to between one and 13 years in prison, according to a notice on the Chongqing court Web site.

The court notice said Xie’s gang “severely broke the normal order of society,” and illegally detained others and allowed loan sharking at the casinos. The casino took a cut of the profits won by gamblers, the notice said. It said casino bosses hired stand-ins to take the blame when there was a crackdown and paid bribes to judicial officials.

Since September 2004, it said, Xie’s gang had made 2 million yuan ($293,000) in illegal earnings by running more than 10 gambling dens.

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Copyright 2006 Elaine Currie

An online advertisement for an e-book on the subject of avoiding Internet work at home scams started me wondering about just how dangerous working at home on the Internet might be. I stumbled across the advertisement by accident. I have to confess I was doing just what I warn everyone else not to do – allowing myself to get sidetracked in the middle of doing some work instead of making a bookmark and returning later!.

An advertisement saying something along the lines of “Secret tips to foil the scammers” caught my eye. Forgetting all about the fate of the nosey feline, I clicked the ad and started reading what turned out to be a long sales letter for a downloadable e-book on the subject of avoiding Internet work at home scams. That was a fatal mistake because there’s no stopping half way through for me: whether I want the product or not, I just have to read to the end.

The discovery that the author was asking just short of $25 for an e-book about Internet scams, made me wonder whether this could be a scam. You will see it all the time on the Internet: people offer to sell you e-books containing “secrets”, but when you download the book you find it is full of tips that should be obvious to anyone with half a brain cell and information that you could pick up online free of charge. Would this turn out to be just another case of a promise to sell secrets that turn out to be no more than a collection of free information much of which is blindingly obvious? I’ll never know unless someone tells me because I have no intention of paying to download this e-book simply to satisfy a passing curiosity. If I can’t recognise most types Internet scam after being online for over two years… Actually, I wouldn’t still be here if I couldn’t recognise them by now.

How to avoid Internet scams is a lesson I learned without the benefit of an e-book telling me how to do it. Most of the lesson was easy and came free as one of the perks of being a compulsive reader: this involved reading tons of free articles. If you type “Internet scams” into a search engine, you will find hours of fascinating reading.

Another part of the lesson came through buying into a few scam programs (you know, the old too good to be true syndrome) and noticing the features to avoid when considering programs in the future. This part wasn’t free (ouch!) but these were early days’ mistakes and, although they seem foolish now, it is easy to understand how they happened. I suppose the experience qualifies me to become the author of my own “how to avoid Internet work at home scams” e-book but does the world need another book on the subject of avoiding work at home scams? How big is the problem of work at home scams?

The figures I found were quite surprising: in 2005, fraud complaints received by the FTC were broken down as follows:

1. Identity Theft – 37%

2. Internet Auctions – 12%

3. Foreign Money Offers – 8%

4. Shop-at-Home/Catalog Sales – 8%

5. Prizes/Sweepstakes and Lotteries – 7%

6. Internet Services and Computer Complaints – 5%

7. Advance-Fee Loans and Credit Protection – 2%

8. Business Opportunities and Work-at-Home plans – 2%

9. Telephone Services – 2%

10.Others – 17%

The figures do not distinguish between Internet work at home scams and offline work at home scams but it’s probably a safe bet that the majority of that 2% of complaints relates to Internet based work at home scams.

Seeing work at home scams put into perspective makes working on the Internet seem a lot less dangerous. Less dangerous that is apart from the fact that working at home on the Internet will inevitably lead us into situations where we could become the prey of identity thieves and they are the real pike in our pool. Identity theft is a lot more frightening than Internet work at home scams. If you are scammed it will probably cost you very little unless you are very unlucky. Sometimes the loss won’t even be financial, it will involve wasted time. If, however, you become the victim of identity theft, you could find yourself penniless and in jail even though you are completely innocent of any crime.

No, I don’t think I would pay for a book on the subject of work at home scams but a book about identity theft? Now that’s a different story.

About The Author

Visit Elaine Currie at her Work At Home Income Directory Website to start your Home Business today.

http://www.HuntingVenus.com

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