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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

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…

Cost of the Shadow Prison in California

California spends the second most money on prisons per capita in the nation. Especially now, with the pandemic ravaging our economy — at every level from local municipalities to the national tax base — state governments are left with difficult budgeting decisions to make. While congress has the luxury of deficit spending, individual state governments are constitutionally barred from going into the red. But it is impossible to balance a budget during the worst fiscal downturn since the Great Depression while spending the same amount of money as they were in the “before times.” One easy solution to their money…

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.

Bed Space – Virginia Center for Behavioral Rehabilitation (VCBR) Expansion Project

Virginia is rapidly running out of space at it’s pre-crime preventative detention facility to warehouse prisoners after the completion of their criminal sentence. In June 2018, the commonwealth broke ground on a massively expensive construction project to expand the current “not-a-prison” prison to add beds. Strangely, the commonwealth doesn’t seem to actually know how many beds they are building. The original Burkeville facility included 300 beds. The Virginia General Assembly approved the double-bunking of 150 cells at VCBR in 2011, which increased their total capacity to 450 beds. “Construction has begun on the expansion of VCBR in June…

N.J. psychologist surrenders state license after alleged relationship with sex offender patient

By Chris Megerian/Statehouse Bureau Natalie Barone, left, and Michael Bordo. TRENTON — A top state psychologist who was fired after allegedly having an affair with a sex offender patient surrendered her license to practice today, records show. The consent agreement, which described the allegations as “boundary violations,” allows psychologist Natalie Barone to avoid a public hearing for now. However, the State Board of Psychological Examiners could still decide to investigate the case. Barone, 37, was previously responsible for about 100 staff members providing treatment to 426 civilly committed sex offenders, currently housed at two Avenel facilities. The Department of Human Services fired…

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