Free Cities

California

Kerry Jackson – Criminal Justice Policy in CA Following COVID-19 and Statewide Riots

PRI Fellow Kerry Jackson, author of the book “Living in Fear in California,” joins us to discuss the debate over criminal justice policy in California in these troubled times. We discuss temporary changes to early release and cash bail policies during the COVID-19 crisis, controversies over police activities highlighted by ...
Blog

Criminal Justice Policy in SF Upside Down Under New SF District Attorney

It’s been recently said that with Chesa Boudin as district attorney, San Francisco has two public defenders: Manohar Raju, the appointed public defender, and Boudin, the former public defender who critics might say acts more like a legal advocate for the accused than the prosecutor he’s supposed to be. Though ...
Blog

Is Coronavirus Triggering De-Facto Early Release for Thousands of Offenders?

In recent years, California has undergone a significant change in its approach to criminal justice. As PRI’s Kerry Jackson writes in his book, Living in Fear in California, once California’s prison population reached an all-time high of 160,000 in 2006, “a May 2011 U.S. Supreme Court ruling . . . ...
California

Gov. Newsom would rather take gas-tax money for bike lanes than fix California’s roads

When Senate Bill 1 was passed and signed into law in 2017, Californians were told the tax hikes it authorized were good for them. The revenues were to be dedicated to repairing the state’s lousy roads. Yet there have been numerous accountability and transparency questions about the law, enough that ...
California

California must do a better job of helping homeless children

By Lance Izumi and Michele Steeb As Gov. Gavin Newsom noted in his 2020 State of the State address, California had the second highest increase in state homelessness in 2019. But a newly released report by State Auditor Elaine Howle found that California public schools undercounted homeless students by at ...
California

PRI 2nd Annual Policy Conference: The Homeless Crisis

California’s growing homeless crisis is impacting nearly everyone, especially those living in big cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sacramento. In Governor Newsom’s recent State of the State address, he reportedly spent 35 of his 42 minute speech on the homeless crisis.  On the same day, PRI held an ...
Blog

Chesa Boudin Invites Crime To San Francisco. So It’s No Surprise When Crime Rises

San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin is no crime fighter. He’s among the new breed of decline-to-prosecute prosecutors whose elections have been funded by George Soros (and his political machine). The uber-wealthy agitator is determined to use his multiple billions not to advance society but disrupt it. So far, it ...
Blog

Homelessness Task Force Isn’t Up To The Task

A state homelessness task force is recommending that local governments be hauled into court if they aren’t moving people off the streets. It’s unlikely to help. The most probable outcome is an increased burden on the courts and a higher dose of politics into an arena where politics have already ...
California

Joseph Tartakovsky – Martin v. Boise and the Homeless Crisis

Joseph Tartakovsky, a PRI adjunct fellow and with the law firm Gibson Dunn, discusses the homeless case Martin v. the City of Boise.  It involves five homeless people who sued Boise, Idaho for fining them for violating a city ordinance prohibiting people from living in the streets. The homeless group ...
Agriculture

A Bold Fix For The West’s Water Woes

The nation’s Western states are facing severe, and worsening, water shortages. There are both consumption and supply problems, and neither will be easy to fix. However, we have a remedy for the latter. More water is used in America per capita than almost anywhere else in the world — more ...
California

Kerry Jackson – Criminal Justice Policy in CA Following COVID-19 and Statewide Riots

PRI Fellow Kerry Jackson, author of the book “Living in Fear in California,” joins us to discuss the debate over criminal justice policy in California in these troubled times. We discuss temporary changes to early release and cash bail policies during the COVID-19 crisis, controversies over police activities highlighted by ...
Blog

Criminal Justice Policy in SF Upside Down Under New SF District Attorney

It’s been recently said that with Chesa Boudin as district attorney, San Francisco has two public defenders: Manohar Raju, the appointed public defender, and Boudin, the former public defender who critics might say acts more like a legal advocate for the accused than the prosecutor he’s supposed to be. Though ...
Blog

Is Coronavirus Triggering De-Facto Early Release for Thousands of Offenders?

In recent years, California has undergone a significant change in its approach to criminal justice. As PRI’s Kerry Jackson writes in his book, Living in Fear in California, once California’s prison population reached an all-time high of 160,000 in 2006, “a May 2011 U.S. Supreme Court ruling . . . ...
California

Gov. Newsom would rather take gas-tax money for bike lanes than fix California’s roads

When Senate Bill 1 was passed and signed into law in 2017, Californians were told the tax hikes it authorized were good for them. The revenues were to be dedicated to repairing the state’s lousy roads. Yet there have been numerous accountability and transparency questions about the law, enough that ...
California

California must do a better job of helping homeless children

By Lance Izumi and Michele Steeb As Gov. Gavin Newsom noted in his 2020 State of the State address, California had the second highest increase in state homelessness in 2019. But a newly released report by State Auditor Elaine Howle found that California public schools undercounted homeless students by at ...
California

PRI 2nd Annual Policy Conference: The Homeless Crisis

California’s growing homeless crisis is impacting nearly everyone, especially those living in big cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sacramento. In Governor Newsom’s recent State of the State address, he reportedly spent 35 of his 42 minute speech on the homeless crisis.  On the same day, PRI held an ...
Blog

Chesa Boudin Invites Crime To San Francisco. So It’s No Surprise When Crime Rises

San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin is no crime fighter. He’s among the new breed of decline-to-prosecute prosecutors whose elections have been funded by George Soros (and his political machine). The uber-wealthy agitator is determined to use his multiple billions not to advance society but disrupt it. So far, it ...
Blog

Homelessness Task Force Isn’t Up To The Task

A state homelessness task force is recommending that local governments be hauled into court if they aren’t moving people off the streets. It’s unlikely to help. The most probable outcome is an increased burden on the courts and a higher dose of politics into an arena where politics have already ...
California

Joseph Tartakovsky – Martin v. Boise and the Homeless Crisis

Joseph Tartakovsky, a PRI adjunct fellow and with the law firm Gibson Dunn, discusses the homeless case Martin v. the City of Boise.  It involves five homeless people who sued Boise, Idaho for fining them for violating a city ordinance prohibiting people from living in the streets. The homeless group ...
Agriculture

A Bold Fix For The West’s Water Woes

The nation’s Western states are facing severe, and worsening, water shortages. There are both consumption and supply problems, and neither will be easy to fix. However, we have a remedy for the latter. More water is used in America per capita than almost anywhere else in the world — more ...
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