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Victory in Supreme Court of Virginia against out-of-control prosecution

Galen Baughman in photo at Open Society Foundations Headquarters in Manhattan, wearing charcoal suit and dark blue shirt, depicted from the mid-torso up, with a background consisting of circular lights and dimmed grey circles several feet across.

Justices declare effort targeting leading advocate illegal, ending 5-year court battle On Thursday, the highest court in Virginia ended the Commonwealth’s 13-year campaign to indefinitely detain a prominent advocate on criminal justice matters, Galen Baughman. In a victory for justice the Supreme Court ruled that the petition filed against Baughman in 2017 was illegal. A Short History of Baughman’s Fight Baughman has been targeted by the Virginia attorney general’s office under the state’s civil confinement scheme since 2009 when prosecutors filed a petition to send him to Virginia’s shadow prison in Burkeville shortly before his release from a seven-year…

Protest in Texas Against Civil Commitment

Protest Against Texas Shadow Prison in Littlefield Salute from Just Future There was a protest against the Texas system of so-called “sex offender civil commitment” in Littlefield, Texas on Saturday, April 09, 2022. Hats off to the brave advocates against pre-crime preventative detention who rallied in the middle-of-nowhere Texas to stand up for their values and their loved ones. The Propaganda If it looks like a prison, and has razor wire like a prison, and treats people without dignity or rights like a prison… it’s probably a prison. But in response to a recent protest outside the “not-a-prison” prison in…

Galen Baughman — Oral Arguments — Supreme Court of Virginia

Virginia bill would end civil commitment of sex offenders

By DENISE LAVOIE — RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Two Virginia Democratic lawmakers are spearheading a push to repeal a decades-old law that allows the state to hold certain sex offenders at psychiatric facilities indefinitely after their criminal sentences if they are deemed “sexually violent predators.” Critics say civil commitment laws are fundamentally unfair and violate the constitutional prohibition against punishing someone twice for the same crime. Supporters counter that the laws protect society from repeat offenders who are unable to control their behavior. Sen. Joe Morrissey and Del. Patrick Hope, both Democrats, are co-sponsoring legislation that would end the state’s…

Fourth Appearance on Crossroads Radio WPFW 89.3FM Galen’s interview

Pre-crime preventative detention was the focus of an almost hour-long conversation on the Crossroads Radio show hosted by Roach Brown and Nkechi Taifa on WPFW 89.3FM, known as “Washington’s station for jazz and justice”
Click Play to listen to Galen Baughman talk about how he has been directly impacted by these Kafkaesque systems of pre-crime preventative detention and his work with Just Future Project.

VCBR Coronavirus Outbreak Prompts Virginia’s National Guard to Take Action

The Virginia Center for Behavioral Rehabilitation (VCBR), a shadow prison in Burkeville, Virginia operating under the guise of a treatment facility, is currently in the midst of a COVID-19 outbreak; and many people locked within the facility are fearful for their health. As of October 14th, twenty-two “residents” and six staff members at the Virginia Center for Behavioral Rehabilitation have tested positive for the coronavirus. The National Guard was called in by the governor to provide tests after an outbreak of fifteen cases occurred in one of the facility’s living units. There are numerous firsthand accounts suggesting that…

Federal Judge Orders IRS to Issues Withheld $1,200 Stimulus Checks to Persons in Carceral Settings

BREAKING: Earlier this week in the Northern District of California (NDCA), a federal judge issued an injunction against the Trump Administration for withholding COVID relief funds from incarcerated people. The presiding judge, Phyllis J. Hamilton, ruled that the Treasury Department could no longer withhold CARES Act emergency relief “based solely on the basis that they are incarcerated.” Although both incarcerated and formerly incarcerated peoples were eligible to receive EIP (economic impact relief) under the CARES Act, the federal government still failed to provide them with this relief. Earlier this year, the coronavirus pandemic took the nation by storm, causing…

1977 Report by Psychiatrists call “Sex Offender” Label Invalid and Fallacious

Deiridre M Smith, “Dangerous Diagnoses, Risky Assumptions, and the Failed Experiment of ‘Sexually Violent Predator’ Commitment,” 67 OKLA. L. Rev. 619 (2015) Forty-six years ago, the concept of the “sex offender” was considered conceptually invalid. The only thing that has changed in the near half-century since the below recorded report is that a cottage industry has grown up around the principle of “sex offender treatment” to feed off the criminal legal system and the burgeoning Treatment Industrial Complex. We offer the below citation from an excellent article by Deiridre M. Smith that cites to the original 1977 Report by…

Virginia Lawmakers Call Shadow Prisons “Appalling”

Featuring Senator Joe Morrissey, Delegate Patrick Hope, and Delegate Don Scott. Moderator Gin Carter of the Humanization Project. Just Future Project is one of the members of our coalition and they deal specifically… with VCBR. If people don’t know what that is and what that’s about, I know I personally was completely appalled last year when I learned what VCBR is.

Virginia Center for Behavioral Health Breaks Ground on Facility Expansion

By Aziza Jackson. August 17, 2018 BURKSVILLE, Va. — The Virginia Center for Behavioral Rehabilitation (VCBR) has broken new ground on an expansion project for their Burkesville facility. HDR, an international design and architecture firm based in Omaha, Neb., signed on to design the expansion and renovation of the facility in 2013. The firm provided programming, planning, design, construction documents and construction-phase services for the project, and worked closely with construction company Balfour Beatty, ADTEK Engineering, Valley Engineering, GovSolutions and Stanton Fire Protection. The forthcoming facility features expanded treatment facilities and a 258-bed housing expansion, to include 185,000 square feet…

Category: Top Stories