Bicycle chain gain for French convicts

From behind prison bars, the view never changes. From behind the handlebars of racing bikes, dozens of French inmates are seeing the vineyards of Provence, the sun-drenched Mediterranean coast and the majestic spires of the Alps in their own special Tour de France.

1

6

State-by-state look at felon voting restoration

States use a variety of approaches to deal with the issue of restoring voting rights to felons.

0

1

WA bill would smooth voting restoration for felons

For tens of thousands of convicted felons in Washington state, only one thing stands between them and the ballot box: debt.

12

22

Push to register felons to vote could aid Obama

Undaunted by the heat, James Bailey spent his late-summer afternoons walking Virginia's bleakest neighborhoods on the hunt for ex-cons — each a potential voter who might cast the decisive ballot in this hotly contested state.

8

10

Getting out of prison and into a job

Clayton Smalls has come a long way since he was holding up tellers behind bank counters.

0

3

More convicted felons allowed to enlist in Army, Marines

Under pressure to meet combat needs, the Army and Marine Corps brought in significantly more recruits with felony convictions last year than in 2006, including some with manslaughter and sex crime convictions.

24

19

Fla. Felons to Regain Rights More Easily

Most Florida felons will regain voting and other civil rights more quickly after completing their sentences under changes approved Thursday by the governor and the state clemency board.

4

2

Florida legislators pledged to overhaul state law to require that caregivers for children and the elderly undergo background checks before they begin work and to close loopholes that have let thousands of felons get jobs in day care and nursing homes.

1

1

Thousands of people with criminal pasts that include violent felonies and hurting children have been hired to work in Florida's child-care centers during the past two decades, a ( Fort Lauderdale) Sun Sentinel investigation has found.

2

1

Disturbing flaws in Florida's background screening system have put children, seniors and the disabled in the care of convicted felons with records that include rape, child molestation and murder, an investigation by the Sun Sentinel newspaper has found.

2

2

One day after the Herald reported some surprised Bay State inmates - including murderers and rapists - were cashing in $250 stimulus checks, federal officials revealed the same behind-bars bonus was mailed to nearly 4,000 cons nationwide.

1

5

The Congress makes the following findings: (1) The right to vote is the most basic constitutive act of citizenship. Regaining the right to vote reintegrates offenders into free society, helping to enhance public safety.

10

21

Of the 167 candidates running for the Detroit City Council, 19 owe a combined $2.4 million in taxes, one in seven has filed for bankruptcy and three are felons

4

4

Despite making promises of relief to homeowners desperate to keep their homes, FedMod and other profit making loan modification firms often fail to deliver, according to a New York Times investigation based on interviews with scores of former employees and customers, more than 65 …

2

4

New York-based Morgan Stanley is copying a financing structure known as Re-REMICs that bundle mortgage securities into new bonds that often offer investors an additional layer of protection, or collateral, from downgrades.

2

4

As she runs for state attorney general, prosecutor Kamala Harris faces questions over a program that trained illegal immigrant drug felons for jobs, kept them out of jail and expunged their records.

2

3

OLYMPIA, Wash. — Gov. Chris Gregoire has approved a measure that lets convicted felons get their voting rights back once they're no longer in state custody. Gregoire signed the bill into law Monday. It takes effect July 26.

5

18

More nonsense. This Officer will be ridiculed for his actions but many will commend him.

3

1

The California prison system must reduce overcrowding by as many as 55,000 inmates within three years to provide a constitutional level of medical and mental health care, a federal three-judge panel tentatively ruled Monday.

2

0

More than five million people in the U.S. cannot vote due to felony convictions. The Los Angeles times reports that the drive to restore voting rights is backed strongly by justice-reform advocates, the African American community, and evangelical Christians.

0

0

The McCain camp is called to account for their hypocritical smears of Obama for a peripheral association with Ayers, connected solely through charity work done with Republicans, when they are far more deeply intertwined with true domestic terrorists guilty of a string of bombings …

1

0

More than 30,000 Florida felons who by law should have been stripped of their right to vote remain registered to cast ballots in this presidential battleground state, a Sun Sentinel investigation has found.

1

4

As James Bailey, a Virginia Beach voting rights activist, knocked on door after door this summer trying to register new voters, he kept hitting the same roadblock.

1

1

Undaunted by the heat, James Bailey spent his late-summer afternoons walking Virginia's bleakest neighborhoods on the hunt for ex-cons - each a potential voter who might cast the decisive ballot in this hotly contested state.

34

298

The Dems are going after the ex-felon vote. Actually just trying to get them registered. Sahrpton and the ACLU are involved.

0

0

In Kansas, ex-cons build lake cabins, weld snowmobiles—and stay out of prison. What's the matter with the rest of the country?

5

4

Felons are asking President Bush for pardons and commutations at historic levels as he nears his final months in office, a time when many other presidents have granted a flurry of clemency requests.

3

3

Flurry of requests adding to backlog of nearly 2,300

2

0

Trolling around blogs and receiving misinformed Emails has prompted me to seed this link about McCain.

1

1

Moments before Robert Ray Huizenga won his bid to end house arrest for felony DUI more than five months early, prosecutor Lanie Bandell summed up my feelings precisely.

1

1

Reversing decades of tough-on-crime policies, including mandatory minimum prison sentences for some drug offenders, many cash-strapped states are embracing a view once dismissed as dangerously naive: It costs far less to let some felons go free than to keep them locked up.

8

11

The US Dept. of Defense changed the guidelines for enlistment a few years back to increase recruitment and enlistment. Just what we need: Criminals (including manslaughter, armed robbery, aggravated assault) to protect our homeland.

1

0