It&#8217;s becoming a weekly ritual: California&#8217;s First Lady opens her mouth, inserts her foot, and the rest of the country winces.
In a resurfaced interview, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-gavin-newsoms-wife-bizarrely-attempt-to-relate-to-prisoners">Jennifer</a> Siebel Newsom recounts telling prisoners at San Quentin State Prison that she could relate to them. Why? Because at age six, she accidentally struck and killed her eight-year-old sister with a golf cart during a family vacation in Hawaii. She wasn&#8217;t punished, she explained, because it was clearly an accident, and she wanted those inmates to know their crimes were &#8220;probably an accident too.&#8221;
To call that comparison a stretch would be the understatement of the century.
Here&#8217;s the silver lining: if she keeps this up, she will single-handedly torch whatever remains of Gavin Newsom&#8217;s presidential ambitions. But there&#8217;s a larger point that cannot be glossed over. Democrats have long acted like they care more about criminals than their victims. Now they&#8217;re just saying the quiet part out loud.
The <a href="https://www.gov.ca.gov/2026/02/20/governor-newsom-transforms-san-quentin-opens-nation-leading-learning-center/">prison</a> known as &#8220;The Q&#8221; has become the Newsoms&#8217; progressive playground. The couple has poured millions into rebranding the facility as a &#8220;rehabilitation center&#8221; for wayward souls, even though the vast majority of its 3,500 to 4,000 inmates are Level II and Level IV prisoners with rap sheets containing murder, assault, armed robbery, and rape. This is the same prison that once housed the largest death row in America — until Gavin Newsom imposed a moratorium on executions in 2019. At least <a href="https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/twenty-years-since-last-execution-california-remains-under-execution-moratorium-as-advocates-push-for-mass-clemency-grant">650</a> condemned inmates were then quietly integrated into the general population. Empathy, apparently, has no room for such inconvenient details.
And who exactly are these &#8220;wronged individuals&#8221; the Newsoms are so eager to coddle? <a href="https://www.modbee.com/news/local/crime/scott-peterson-case/article267796397.html">Scott</a> Peterson, who murdered his pregnant wife Laci and their unborn son Connor, and <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/polly-klaas-killer-richard-allen-davis-seeks-death-sentence-overturned/#:~:text=Crime-,Judge%20to%20mull%20overturning%20Polly%20Klaas%20killer%20Richard%20Allen%20Davis,governor%20could%20change%20that%20policy.">Richard</a> Allen Davis, who kidnapped and strangled 12-year-old Polly <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/25/us/scott-peterson-off-death-row">Klaas</a>, for starters. The prison has also held Charles Manson, Robert F. Kennedy assassin Sirhan Sirhan, and a rogues&#8217; gallery of serial killers. But still — ‘accidents happen’ the First Partner assures us! The bleeding-heart Newsoms just feel too strongly for these poor souls. They want to ease their sentences and — one suspects eventually — set them free.
This is not an isolated gaffe. Progressives are increasingly defending the perpetrator over the victim, and they&#8217;re doing it with brazen clarity. Remember the State of the Union, when Democrats refused to stand for the simple proposition: &#8220;The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens. If you agree with this statement, stand up and show your support.&#8221;
That moment crystallized the divide. Democrats care about &#8220;them,&#8221; not you. It doesn&#8217;t matter that 18-year-old Sheridan Gorman was allegedly murdered by an illegal immigrant from Venezuela, or that 15-year-old Amber Paris was allegedly killed by a Guatemalan illegal immigrant speeding through North Carolina, or that 7-year-old Delilah Coleman will never walk again after an illegal immigrant from India crashed into her family&#8217;s car. The progressive catechism demands solidarity with the &#8220;oppressed&#8221; (i.e., criminal) over the &#8220;oppressor&#8221; — no matter the facts.
Despite a $3 billion state deficit in the 2026-27 budget and a total price tag for the &#8220;California Model&#8221; prison overhaul now reaching $14.2 billion, the Newsom administration carved out $78.5 million specifically for San Quentin&#8217;s physical makeover into a feel-good &#8220;rehabilitation center.&#8221; Compare that architectural largesse to the relative crumbs tossed at victim-services programs in the neighborhoods these criminals terrorized.
Violent crime in California remains nearly 10 percent higher than pre-pandemic 2019 levels. Aggravated assaults are still roughly 22 percent higher. The state&#8217;s overall recidivism rate hovers between 45 and 50 percent, even as boutique programs brag about single-digit success stories for a tiny slice of participants. This is an expensive experiment with other people&#8217;s safety.
Which brings us back to Jennifer Siebel Newsom and the story she told those inmates.
She was six years old, playing with her eight-year-old sister Stacey and other children on golf carts during a family vacation in Hawaii in 1981. The cart she was driving slipped into reverse. She did not see her sister behind it. The tragedy that followed was, by any measure, a genuine accident — the kind of event that would leave any child scarred.
&#8220;I felt the pressure to be perfect,&#8221; she later told the Los Angeles Times, &#8220;to make my parents forget, by being two daughters instead of one.&#8221; She described the survivor&#8217;s guilt, the compulsion to compensate, to improve other people&#8217;s lives, to do double the good. It’s no wonder she’s the way she is.
But sympathy does not require the eradication of judgment. The men Jennifer Siebel Newsom addressed at San Quentin were not involved in golf cart accidents. They were convicted killers, rapists, and predators. Projecting her childhood trauma onto their deliberate acts of violence is not empathy. It is a category error with consequences, and those consequences are carried not by the Newsoms but by the families of Laci Peterson, Polly Klaas, and every other victim whose killer now enjoys a governor&#8217;s reprieve and a First “Partner’s” suicidal empathy.
Soft on crime, hard on victims: If this is the compassion the progressive left wants to export to the rest of America, voters would be wise to decline the invitation. Some accidents, after all, are entirely avoidable.

Governor Gavin Newsom is set to be inaugurated for a second term on Friday, Jan. 6, and the preparations for the ceremony are underway in downtown Sacramento.

Jennifer Siebel Newsom Knows Exactly How Murderers Feel

California

Crime

Criminal Justice

Illegal Immigation

Jennifer Newsom

Prisons

MixCollage-07-Oct-2025-02-38-PM-9301

The Case Of The Child Killer Released From Prison Just Got Even More Insane

Kentucky

Leftists

Liberals

Matt Walsh

Murder

Opinion

Serial Killers

Violent Crime

The North Carolina General Assembly overrode Gov. Josh Stein&#8217;s veto to ban state funding of transgender medical procedures for minors.
&#8220;No State funds may be used, directly or indirectly, for the performance of or in furtherance of surgical gender transition procedures, or to provide puberty-blocking drugs or cross-sex hormones to a minor, or to support the administration of any governmental health plan or government-offered insurance policy offering surgical gender transition procedures, puberty-blocking drugs, or cross-sex hormones to a minor,&#8221; the law says.
The ban also ends transgender medical procedures for prisoners incarcerated in the state prison system.
The legislation was part of H.B. 805, which also states that there are only two sexes, defines &#8220;female&#8221; and &#8220;male,&#8221; restricts pornographic content to prevent exploitation of women and minors, and gives parents more control in schools and libraries.
Conservative activist Riley Gaines celebrated the bill&#8217;s passing on social media.
&#8220;NC legislature just overrode Gov Stein&#8217;s veto of HB 805,&#8221; she said. &#8220;BOOM.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
NC legislature just overrode Gov Stein&#8217;s veto of HB 805.
This bill: 
&#8211; defines &#8220;woman&#8221; &amp; &#8220;man&#8221; 
&#8211; restricts pornographic content 
&#8211; prohibits state funding for chemical/surgical castration for minors and prisoners 
&#8211; gives parents more control in schools
BOOM👏🏼 <a href="https://t.co/Yb4lWETEF2">pic.twitter.com/Yb4lWETEF2</a>
— Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_) <a href="https://twitter.com/Riley_Gaines_/status/1950219969163125073?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 29, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Stein vetoed multiple bills in early July, including H.B. 805, calling them &#8220;mean-spirited.&#8221;
&#8220;At a time when teachers, law enforcement, and state employees need pay raises and people need shorter lines at the DMV, the legislature failed to pass a budget and, instead, wants to distract us by stoking culture wars that further divide us,&#8221; Stein said. &#8220;These mean-spirited bills would marginalize vulnerable people and also undermine the quality of public services and public education.&#8221;
Stein is a Democrat, but Republicans hold a majority in the state House and Senate. Despite being one seat short of a supermajority in the House, Republicans were able to override Stein&#8217;s veto of multiple bills thanks to Democrats breaking with their party.
Another override was H.B. 318, the Criminal Illegal Alien Enforcement Act.
&#8220;This commonsense law requires sheriffs to check immigration status when someone is charged with a serious crime — and if they&#8217;re here illegally, they must be turned over to [Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)],&#8221; Majority Leader Brenden Jones said on social media.
A few bills passed the Senate override, but are waiting on votes in the House, CBS17 <a href="https://www.cbs17.com/news/capitol-report/slew-of-bills-become-law-in-north-carolina-as-veto-overrides-pass-senate-and-house/">reported</a>. They include bills banning diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in higher and public education; a bill requiring cooperation with ICE; and a bill allowing individuals over 18 to carry a gun without a concealed carry permit. It is unclear if those bills will clear the supermajority threshold in the House.

Latino voters in the swing state of North Carolina

North Carolina Lawmakers Override Dem Gov’s Veto, Ban State Funding For Trans Procedures On Minors

North Carolina

Social Issues

Transgender

U.S.

A federal judge on Tuesday issued a sweeping block of President Donald Trump’s order to stop taxpayer-funded transgender procedures for prisoners.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth of Washington, D.C., granted class-action status to a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The ACLU filed the lawsuit on behalf of over 1,000 federal prison inmates who are taking advantage of taxpayer-funded prison systems to finance clothing, hormones, and other expenses.
“In light of the plaintiffs’ largely personal motives for undergoing gender-affirming care, neither the BOP nor the Executive Order provides any serious explanation as to why the treatment modalities covered by the Executive Order or implementing memoranda should be handled differently than any other mental health intervention,” Lamberth wrote in a 36-page <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/documents/4b45e925-7db7-4cb7-b423-064d985f1373.pdf">ruling</a>.
“[N]othing in the thin record before the Court suggests that either the BOP or the President consciously took stock of — much less studied — the potentially debilitating effects that the new policies could have on transgender inmates before the implementing memoranda came into force,” Lamberth added.
The ruling is the latest example of a federal judge issuing a ruling the effect of which expands far beyond the scope of the case at hand. The ACLU lawsuit was brought on behalf of just three transgender-identifying prisoners before the court allowed it class-action status.
<a href="https://get.dailywire.com/subscribe/plus/?utm_medium=website&amp;utm_source=editorial&amp;utm_campaign=memorial&amp;utm_content=editorialmemorialday&amp;_gl=1*1qdq03s*_gcl_au*MTYyNDg0MTE0OS4xNzQxODk4NTMz*_ga*MTEzOTk1NjkxNi4xNzI2MzI1MDQz*_ga_CZKR9ZYKJP*czE3NDgzNzg2NDgkbzEwMDMkZzEkdDE3NDgzODEwMTckajU4JGwwJGgw" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Get 40% Off New DailyWire+ Annual Memberships</a>
The White House said the “decision allowing transgender women, aka MEN, in women’s prisons fundamentally makes women less safe and ignores the biological truth that there are only two genders. The Trump administration looks forward to ultimate victory on this issue in court,” according to <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/federal-judge-rules-against-trump-order-halting-sex-change-procedures-prisons">Fox News</a>.
Trump issued an <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/defending-women-from-gender-ideology-extremism-and-restoring-biological-truth-to-the-federal-government/">executive order</a> on January 20 setting the administration’s official stance of recognizing only two genders, male and female, and rejecting “ideologues who deny the biological reality of sex.”
“The Attorney General shall ensure that the Bureau of Prisons revises its policies concerning medical care to be consistent with this order, and shall ensure that no Federal funds are expended for any medical procedure, treatment, or drug for the purpose of conforming an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex,” the order says in part.
The courts have emerged as a major venue for opponents of Trump&#8217;s agenda to stifle the administration. Last week, a court <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2jeg8zej8o">interfered</a> in the administration&#8217;s ongoing battle with Harvard University, temporarily blocking the Department of Homeland Security from freezing new international enrollments at the Ivy League school.

Donald Trump

Judge Orders Trump Admin To Restart Taxpayer-Funded Trans Procedures In Prisons

Courts

Politics

Democrats on the California Senate Public Safety Committee shot down a bill on Tuesday that would have kept male sex criminals out of female prisons.
The committee, which includes far-Left Senator Scott Wiener, voted down a proposal from Republican Senator Shannon Grove to protect women from males who are registered sex offenders from being able to be housed in women&#8217;s prisons. The bill also would have given women privacy in sleeping arrangements and showers, meaning that they would be protected from males who have taken advantage of California&#8217;s lax laws that allow men to be placed in women&#8217;s prisons.
&#8220;Today I am here on behalf of incarcerated women in California prisons who are dealing with the unintended consequences of allowing transgender inmates to be housed in women&#8217;s correction facilities,&#8221; Grove said at the committee hearing. &#8220;Everyone agrees that we need to keep inmates safe and provide additional protections.&#8221;
She noted that she had received a letter from a female inmate discussing how males were being housed in her prison. The letter included a condom that had been distributed by prison staff.
&#8220;Why is the state of California paying for condoms in women&#8217;s prisons?&#8221; Grove asked the committee.
The only lawmaker to support the bill was Senator Kelly Seyarto, the lone Republican on the committee.
Grove&#8217;s bill is seeking to address problems created by <a href="https://www.cdcr.ca.gov/prea/sb-132-faqs/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">SB 132</a>, a bill sponsored by Wiener that said that inmates should be housed according to their &#8220;gender identity.&#8221; Her legislation would &#8220;establish a secure facility at each women’s prison to house transgender women, in order to protect the security needs of biological women at birth in sleeping and other intimate areas&#8221; and prohibit male sex offenders from being eligible to be assigned to female prisons.
“SB 132 created a preference for transgender individuals. If you are a woman serving in the women’s prison and a transgender self-identified check-the-box person comes in and goes, ‘I want to house with you,’ the woman in that cell has no recourse. They can’t say no because that’s considered discriminatory,&#8221; Grove told The Daily Wire on Monday.
Grove said that she was told before the hearing that the committee planned to kill the bill. She said that the California Democrat supermajority had a “preference for predators versus victims.&#8221;
The bill would only have prohibited males &#8220;convicted of an offense for which they are required to register pursuant to Section 290,&#8221; which include crimes like rape, human trafficking for sexual purposes of a minor, sexual battery, child molestation, sexual penetration with a foreign object, and other horrific crimes.
During his comments, Wiener said that it was common knowledge among kids that prisons had a rape problem. He claimed that the proposal from Grove was motivated by the &#8220;culture war&#8221; and trying to target &#8220;trans people.&#8221; He said people were trying to &#8220;turn trans people into terrifying predators&#8221; trying to scam their way into women&#8217;s prisons. Wiener claimed it would be dehumanizing to not allow men who identify as women into women&#8217;s prisons. He also said that the provision about the sex offender registry was &#8220;discriminatory&#8221; and targeted LGBT people.
Grove had a broad coalition of support from advocates concerned about the safety of women and inmates who have experienced the negative impacts of SB 132. In one letter of support shared with The Daily Wire, one inmate said that she was brutally beaten by a male named Tremaine Carroll who caused her to have a &#8220;spontaneous abortion.&#8221; Carroll, who has since been moved from the women&#8217;s prison, is currently <a href="https://abc7chicago.com/post/pronoun-use-center-rape-case-involving-former-chowchilla-central-california-womens-facility-prisoner-tremaine-carroll/15696730/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">facing charges</a> of raping multiple women at the prison. A California judge ruled in December that prosecutors have to use female pronouns for him because of his identity.
<div id="attachment_913767" style="width: 1462px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-913767" class="size-full wp-image-913767" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Screen-Shot-2025-04-29-at-4.20.41-PM.png" alt="" width="1452" height="1108" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Screen-Shot-2025-04-29-at-4.20.41-PM.png 1452w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Screen-Shot-2025-04-29-at-4.20.41-PM-300x229.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Screen-Shot-2025-04-29-at-4.20.41-PM-755x576.png 755w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Screen-Shot-2025-04-29-at-4.20.41-PM-768x586.png 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 1452px) 100vw, 1452px" />Letter from inmate in support of Grove&#8217;s bill</div>
Another letter in support came from an inmate who said that she was forced to house with a 6&#8217;2&#8221; man who was 200 pounds, describing the environment in prison as the &#8220;wild west.&#8221;
One of those who testified in favor of Grove&#8217;s bill was Amie Ichikawa, a woman who spent nearly five years in a California prison and now advocates to keep males out of female prisons. During her testimony, she asked the committee to back the bill to show that &#8220;protecting women&#8217;s safety is not up for debate&#8221; and asked committee members to value &#8220;people over politics.&#8221;
Recent <a href="https://www.cdcr.ca.gov/research/wp-content/uploads/sites/174/2025/04/SB132.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">documents</a> from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation reveal that at least 45 males who identify as transgender have been transferred into female prisons since implementation of Wiener&#8217;s legislation. In total, there have been nearly 900 males who have requested transfer into women&#8217;s prisons while only 70 females have requested transfers into male prisons. Many of the requests are still being reviewed.
Statistics from 2022 show that 33.8% of the men identifying as women seeking to transfer into women&#8217;s prisons were registered sex offenders and another 25.8% were convicted of sex crimes.
Grove&#8217;s proposal was also supported by Erin Friday, the president of Our Duty, a group that seeks to educate parents about the dangers of transgender medical procedures on kids. Friday, who says she was a longtime Democratic voter before the school system tried to transition her daughter, told The Daily Wire that Grove&#8217;s bill was “a first step in where we need to get which is to get all males out of female prisons and jails.&#8221;
She said that ultimately, Wiener&#8217;s SB 132 needed to repealed, but that there was a lot of work to be done.
“The Democrats won’t even get out the known rapists, the known sex offenders out of the women’s prisons. That’s how much they dislike women,&#8221; she said. &#8220;That’s how much the gender ideologues have to keep their falsehood going. This is so simple. At least get the sex offenders, the known sex offenders out of the women’s prisons.” 
The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/obama-trump-youth-prisons-transgender-house-young-girls?author=Leif+Le+Mahieu&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Despite+Trump+Orders%2C+Juvenile+Prisons+Still+Have+To+House+‘Trans’+Men+With+Young+Girls" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> last week that little scrutinized regulations from the Obama-era prohibit prisons from having policies in place to assign housing by sex, at both adult and juvenile facilities. President Donald Trump has indicated that he is looking to amend this code.

54th Annual San Francisco LGBTQ Pride Parade

California Dems Vote To Keep Male Sex Offenders In Female Prisons

Scott Wiener

President Donald Trump has made it a priority to keep men out of women&#8217;s sports, bathrooms, and other sex-specific spaces. But thanks to little-known Obama-era regulations, states could be required to house boys in all-girl youth prisons.
Currently, states are barred from imprisoning juvenile inmates on the basis of sex. That means a 17-year-old boy who claims to be &#8220;transgender&#8221; could be locked up alongside an 11-year-old girl. States that don&#8217;t comply with these mandates risk losing crucial federal funding, making even deep-red states comply with the guidance.
Advocates tell The Daily Wire that Trump&#8217;s executive orders protecting women&#8217;s spaces may not automatically negate these rules. Unless amended, the <a href="https://www.ecfr.gov/on/2017-01-03/title-28/chapter-I/part-115/subpart-D" target="_blank" rel="noopener">federal code</a> will continue to force youth prisons to consider housing transgender-identifying males alongside girls, raising serious concerns about their safety.
Amie Ichikawa, a woman who spent nearly five years in a California prison and now advocates to keep males out of female prisons, told The Daily Wire it was &#8220;disturbing&#8221; that juvenile facilities are blocked from making housing decisions on the basis of sex. She believes it&#8217;s even more dangerous than mixing genders in adult prisons.
“Kids in juvenile are extremely vulnerable, and to add mixed sex housing into it, that&#8217;s creating a totally unnecessary hurdle to have to jump over,&#8221; she said. &#8220;It’s setting them up for failure, and it&#8217;s just robbing them of any kind of normalcy or ability to focus on healing.&#8221;
The <a href="https://www.ecfr.gov/on/2017-01-03/title-28/chapter-I/part-115/subpart-D" target="_blank" rel="noopener">regulations</a> for juvenile facilities were first issued by then Attorney General Eric Holder in May 2012 and became law that August. The Obama administration touted the rules as a way to end rape and sexual assault in prisons. But in practice, these regulations could allow for girls, sometimes as young as 12, to be housed alongside physically and legally adult males.
For example, a <a href="https://ocfs.ny.gov/programs/rehab/assets/docs/prea/2022-Brentwood-PREA-Report.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2022 audit</a> of the Brentwood Residential Center for Girls in New York noted that there were two transgender offenders housed at the facility. One was identified as a &#8220;transgender male&#8221; and another as a &#8220;transgender female.&#8221; Since the facility houses females between the ages of 12-18, this means there could be an adult male lodging in the same location with middle school-aged girls.
Under the 2003 Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) — which <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-108publ79/pdf/PLAW-108publ79.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">doesn&#8217;t mention</a> transgender inmates — the Justice Department is authorized to come up with standards for prisons to end sexual assault at detention facilities.
Under the code&#8217;s section on juvenile facilities, prison staff are blocked from placing inmates based on biology.
“In deciding whether to assign a transgender or intersex resident to a facility for male or female residents, and in making other housing and programming assignments, the agency shall consider on a case-by-case basis whether a placement would ensure the resident’s health and safety, and whether the placement would present management or security problems,” the regulation reads.
The prohibition is made explicit in a form used to audit detention facilities across the country for compliance with PREA. The form states that &#8220;if an agency by policy or practice assigns residents to a male or female facility on the basis of anatomy alone, that agency is not in compliance with this standard.&#8221;
<div id="attachment_909057" style="width: 2432px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-909057" class="size-full wp-image-909057" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Screen-Shot-2025-04-17-at-10.05.16-AM.png" alt="" width="2422" height="848" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Screen-Shot-2025-04-17-at-10.05.16-AM.png 2422w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Screen-Shot-2025-04-17-at-10.05.16-AM-300x105.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Screen-Shot-2025-04-17-at-10.05.16-AM-1024x359.png 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Screen-Shot-2025-04-17-at-10.05.16-AM-768x269.png 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Screen-Shot-2025-04-17-at-10.05.16-AM-1536x538.png 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Screen-Shot-2025-04-17-at-10.05.16-AM-2048x717.png 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 2422px) 100vw, 2422px" />August 2023 PREA <a href="https://www.oregon.gov/oya/PREA/2023-CampTillamookYTF-PREAAuditFinalReport.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">audit</a> of Oregon&#8217;s Camp Tillamook Youth Transitional Facility</div>
While the Biden administration facilitated the movement of males into female prisons, Trump has taken a dramatically different approach.
Trump signed an <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/defending-women-from-gender-ideology-extremism-and-restoring-biological-truth-to-the-federal-government/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">executive order</a> in January directing his administration &#8220;to ensure that males are not detained in women’s prisons or housed in women’s detention centers.&#8221; The order says that amending federal code 115.41, a portion of the law related to &#8220;standards for adult prisons and jails,&#8221; may be necessary to comply with this directive.
However, it is unclear if this potential amendment of the federal code would include the juvenile standards that have been imposed on states, since the &#8220;standards for juvenile detention facilities&#8221; are found in section 115.342, a different part of the code.
The Justice Department referred The Daily Wire to the White House when asked for more details on any proposed changes to the code.
Lauren Adams, a lawyer with the Women&#8217;s Liberation Front, a feminist organization that fights to keep men out of women&#8217;s prisons, told The Daily Wire that just because the section on juvenile facilities wasn&#8217;t mentioned doesn&#8217;t mean it couldn&#8217;t be encompassed by the order.
“That specific direction to consider amending that particular provision, it doesn’t mean that they also shouldn’t also amend the other relevant provisions,” she said. “We can’t let juvenile offenders be dropped out of the conversation.”
Adams added that it was especially important for the federal code to be updated because of the ongoing lawsuits that have been filed by male prisoners across the country to stay housed at female facilities in defiance of Trump&#8217;s executive order.
&#8220;As we see these challenges and the litigation, the more we see that going through the courts, the more important it’s going to be to do regulation. We need to be able to have something that has the force of law. Executive orders are very, very weak in terms of law,&#8221; she said. 
The prohibitions on juvenile facilities assigning housing by sex were still in effect throughout the first Trump administration, a review of PREA audits reveals. That was at the same time that Trump revoked Obama-era guidelines in the Bureau of Prisons Transgender manual and mandated that sex be used for the initial determination of placement.
<div id="attachment_909689" style="width: 2471px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-909689" class="size-full wp-image-909689" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Screen-Shot-2025-04-18-at-11.24.39-AM.png" alt="" width="2461" height="800" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Screen-Shot-2025-04-18-at-11.24.39-AM.png 2461w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Screen-Shot-2025-04-18-at-11.24.39-AM-300x98.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Screen-Shot-2025-04-18-at-11.24.39-AM-1024x333.png 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Screen-Shot-2025-04-18-at-11.24.39-AM-768x250.png 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Screen-Shot-2025-04-18-at-11.24.39-AM-1536x499.png 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Screen-Shot-2025-04-18-at-11.24.39-AM-2048x666.png 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 2461px) 100vw, 2461px" />Screenshot: April 2020 audit of Elbert Shaw Regional Youth Detention Center in Georgia.</div>
Now, a few months into Trump&#8217;s second term, one juvenile detention facility confirmed to The Daily Wire that it has not received updated guidance on the transgender housing standard. A spokeswoman for Echo Glen Children&#8217;s Center in Washington, where transgender identifying inmates have been housed, said the facility has not received any new directive on the standard.
According to the most recent data available from the Justice Department, 26 states and the District of Columbia have fully certified compliance with PREA regulations, while 23 states have submitted an assurance that they will ensure compliance. Only four states, including Alaska, Arkansas, Indiana, and Utah, have declined to comply with PREA standards.
<div id="attachment_909133" style="width: 2194px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-909133" class="size-full wp-image-909133" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Screen-Shot-2025-04-17-at-11.07.25-AM.png" alt="" width="2184" height="816" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Screen-Shot-2025-04-17-at-11.07.25-AM.png 2184w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Screen-Shot-2025-04-17-at-11.07.25-AM-300x112.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Screen-Shot-2025-04-17-at-11.07.25-AM-1024x383.png 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Screen-Shot-2025-04-17-at-11.07.25-AM-768x287.png 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Screen-Shot-2025-04-17-at-11.07.25-AM-1536x574.png 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Screen-Shot-2025-04-17-at-11.07.25-AM-2048x765.png 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 2184px) 100vw, 2184px" />Source: DOJ.</div>
States that don&#8217;t comply with PREA guidance are penalized with federal funding cuts. If a state is non-compliant with PREA, including the transgender housing guidelines, the Justice Department yanks 5% of funding for grants given to the states from the department for &#8220;prison purposes.&#8221;
This includes programs like the <a href="https://www.prearesourcecenter.org/sites/default/files/library/JAG-PREA-FAQ-2018_0.pdf">Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant</a>, the top source of federal <a href="https://bja.ojp.gov/program/jag/overview" target="_blank" rel="noopener">funding</a> for state and local jurisdictions for a wide variety of areas, including law enforcement, prosecution, indigent defense, courts, crime prevention and education, corrections and community corrections, and technology improvement. The cuts could also apply to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Title II Part B Formula grant <a href="https://www.prearesourcecenter.org/sites/default/files/content/ojjdp_prea_faqs_fy2015_5_7_2015_changes_accepted_final.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">program,</a> which funds juvenile justice system improvements.
State and local juvenile facilities are audited every few years to ensure compliance with PREA, and a review of audit reports reveals a focus on special conditions for transgender-identifying offenders. Even in conservative states like Tennessee or Georgia, facilities have to affirm that they will not house offenders based on their sex.
For example, a recent <a href="https://www.williamsoncounty-tn.gov/DocumentCenter/View/25617/2024-PREA-Audit-Report?bidId=" target="_blank" rel="noopener">PREA audit</a> of the Williamson County Juvenile Detention Center in deep-red Tennessee affirmed that the facility did not have a policy of placing inmates in alignment with their sex.
<div class="page" title="Page 78">
<div class="section">
<div class="layoutArea">
<div class="column">
According to the report, the detention center&#8217;s PREA coordinator stated that &#8220;housing and programming assignments for transgender or intersex residents are made on a case-by-case basis whether a placement would ensure the resident’s health and safety, and whether the placement would present management or security problems.&#8221;
Special considerations were also made in the audit to inquire whether transgender identifying inmates can shower separately and the person&#8217;s sense of their safety. Auditors also have to ensure that faculty staff are trained “to communicate effectively and professionally with residents, including, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, or gender nonconforming residents&#8221; and &#8220;respect&#8221; their identity. 
Ichikawa told The Daily Wire that these kinds of standard auditing practices show special attention is given to transgender-identifying offenders while considerations of female safety are bypassed.
Ichikawa, who was incarcerated after being convicted of kidnapping and assault with a deadly weapon, said that female inmates were never asked about their own perception of safety and well-being, in contrast to transgender-identifying inmates.
“Nobody in prison had that, so it&#8217;s not like they were reinstating some precious right that was stolen from them. They’re just providing exclusive human rights to this small group of people, and it’s created a huge power imbalance,” she said. “Everybody’s sense of well-being and safety should be taken into consideration, not just trans-identified. This is gender politics, it’s not even about safety anymore.”
When she was in prison in California, she said that she and her fellow female inmates feared for their safety when a male double rapist was transferred into their prison. They were never asked how their safety could be impacted by the transfer of a male rapist into a women&#8217;s detention center.
A review of PREA audits conducted over the last few years finds multiple examples of juvenile detention centers housing transgender-identifying inmates.
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="page" title="Page 1">
<div class="layoutArea">
<div class="column">
For example, a <a href="https://dcyf.wa.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/prea-EchoGlen-cycle4.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2024 audit</a> of the Echo Glen Children&#8217;s Center in Washington showed it was housing two residents who identified as transgender, though no further details were given. That <a href="https://www.dcyf.wa.gov/sites/default/files/pubs/JR_0008.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">facility</a> has both male and female units, and admits boys between the ages of 11-17 and females between the ages of 12-15.
An <a href="https://www.oregon.gov/oya/PREA/2023-CampTillamookYTF-PREAAuditFinalReport.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">audit</a> of Camp Tillamook Youth Transitional Facility in Oregon also showed that one transgender-identifying resident was in custody.
In the previously mentioned audit of the Brentwood Residential Center for Girls, the auditor interviewed one transgender-identifying male resident who claimed to be a girl. This resident told the auditor that he had never been searched or physically examined to &#8220;determine her genital status.&#8221; Under PREA, faculty can only determine &#8220;genital status&#8221; through routine physical check-ups or medical records. That resident told an auditor that staff were &#8220;respectful toward her identification.&#8221;
Women&#8217;s safety advocates, like Adams, say that federal code should be amended to allow prisons to implement categorical placement by sex. She also said that it makes no sense for transgender-identifying inmates to be given all kinds of special privileges that are not afforded to women inmates.
For example, she noted that in most cases, male guards are not allowed to search female inmates, while transgender identifying inmates can request either a male or female guard to search them. This means that a male inmate could force a female guard to conduct a search of him, raising safety concerns.
“I don’t know how we can say men are a danger to women when they are guards but not when they’re inmates, 
she said. “But they can be forced to shower with sex offenders.&#8221;
The battle on this issue is already ongoing at the adult level with multiple federal lawsuits in litigation over the placement of males in female prisons. It remains to be seen whether a similar battle will take place at the juvenile level.
</div>
</div>
</div>

teen behind the cage or woman jailed, unhappy girl hand sad hopeless at fence prison in jail, no free and freedom struggle teen concept.

Despite Trump Orders, Juvenile Prisons Still Have To House ‘Trans’ Men With Young Girls

Barack Obama

Department of Justice

Eric Holder

gender ideology

New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul is backing away from her promise to ban some 2,000 correctional officers from ever working for New York State again after numerous county officials <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ny-counties-defying-dem-governor-after-she-fired-corrections-officers" target="_blank" rel="noopener">vowed to defy her order</a>.
The <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ny-counties-defying-dem-governor-after-she-fired-corrections-officers" target="_blank" rel="noopener">executive order</a> signed by Hochul on March 10 took aim at the thousands of officers who were continuing to strike over unsafe conditions in New York prisons, largely due to the Democrat-backed the Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement Act (<a href="https://nyassembly.gov/leg/?default_fld=&amp;leg_video=&amp;bn=A02500&amp;term=2019&amp;Summary=Y&amp;Actions=Y&amp;Committee%26nbspVotes=Y&amp;Floor%26nbspVotes=Y&amp;Memo=Y&amp;Text=Y">HALT</a>). The legislation severely limits the use of &#8220;special housing unit&#8221; separation, which replaced solitary confinement.
As highlighted by <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ny-counties-defying-dem-governor-after-she-fired-corrections-officers" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Daily Wire</a>, officials in Chemung County, Oneida County, and Rensselaer County reacted quickly, indicating that they would outright defy the order or move to challenge it legally to regain control of their hiring processes. Hochul has also received backlash from the New York State Sheriffs&#8217; Association.
Hochul&#8217;s administration has reportedly backed away from her order, which is set to expire on April 9. <a href="https://www.timesunion.com/capitol/article/hochul-retreats-lifetime-peace-officer-ban-20235479.php?utm_source=chatgpt.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">According</a> to the Times Union, Hochul&#8217;s office was set to seek passage of a bill permanently banning the former officers from becoming re-certified as peace officers. However, sources close to the governor&#8217;s office say Hochul has walked back the threat, and former officers will likely be able to pursue re-certification as peace officers, which would allow them to work at county jails, the report said. Hochul, though, has said publicly that she won&#8217;t allow fired officers to return to work for a state agency.
Contributing to the apparent walk-back was Chemung County issuing a lawsuit earlier this month over the order, arguing that the order is unlawful. “We are taking this action to protect our ability to staff our jail with experienced personnel and to stand against unconstitutional overreach,” Sheriff William Schrom <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/chemung-county-sues-governor-hochul-192150636.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>.
In Oneida County, the Board of Legislators approved a resolution allowing them to sue New York State over Hochul’s order. County Executive Anthony Picente said the resolution was approved because lawmakers believe Hochul overstepped, Spectrum News <a href="https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/central-ny/news/2025/03/12/county-accuses-hochul-of-overstepping-in-co-executive-order?utm_source=chatgpt.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>.
“Executive order no. 47.3 is an abuse of the governor’s authority and discretion, and unlawfully intrudes upon the county’s powers of home rule,” Picente said.
Additionally, Steve McLaughlin, who serves as county executive for Rensselaer County, said he would outright defy the order, <a href="https://x.com/SteveMcNY/status/1899510158708838650" target="_blank" rel="noopener">calling</a> it “reprehensible and vicious.”
“Just when you think Hochul can’t get worse, she finds a way,” he posted to X, captioning the executive order signed by Hochul. “Preventing Corrections Officers from seeking employment with counties is reprehensible and vicious but that’s exactly who Kathy Hochul is.”
“Like I do with everything else regarding her idiotic statements and actions, I will ignore this as well,” he said. “I will hire as many as I can here in #RensselaerCounty and I dare you to sue me and the individual CO’s [sic] as they seek gainful employment Hochul.”
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ny-counties-defying-dem-governor-after-she-fired-corrections-officers" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NY Counties Defying Dem Governor After She Fired Corrections Officers</a>

New York Governor Calls On Google And Meta To Stop Promoting Illicit Marijuana Shops

Hochul Backs Down After NY Counties Vow To Defy Order Banning Fired Officers From Work

Hochul Backs Down After NY Counties Vow to Defy Order Banning Fired Officers From Work

General

Kathy Hochul

New York

Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul (NY) signed an executive order on Tuesday, barring the thousands of correctional officers she fired from ever working for the New York government again, including even for counties.
As covered by The Daily Wire, about 15,000 officers began striking and protesting on February 17, arguing that prisons across the state have become totally unsafe for inmates and workers following the implementation of the Democrat-backed HALT Act. Hochul used aggressive tactics against them, including terminating health care coverage for some 5,300 officers and their dependents, and, eventually, firing 2,000 officers and sergeants on Monday.  
Steve McLaughlin, who serves as county executive for Rensselaer County, <a href="https://x.com/SteveMcNY/status/1899510158708838650" target="_blank" rel="noopener">called</a> the order &#8220;reprehensible and vicious.&#8221;
&#8220;Just when you think Hochul can&#8217;t get worse, she finds a way,&#8221; he posted to X, captioning the executive order signed by Hochul. &#8220;Preventing Corrections Officers from seeking employment with counties is reprehensible and vicious but that&#8217;s exactly who Kathy Hochul is.&#8221;
McLaughlin went on to say that he&#8217;ll ignore Hochul&#8217;s order, which he argued was likely unconstitutional.
&#8220;Like I do with everything else regarding her idiotic statements and actions, I will ignore this as well,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I will hire as many as I can here in <a class="css-1jxf684 r-bcqeeo r-1ttztb7 r-qvutc0 r-poiln3 r-1loqt21" dir="ltr" role="link" href="https://x.com/hashtag/RensselaerCounty?src=hashtag_click">#RensselaerCounty</a> and I dare you to sue me and the individual CO&#8217;s as they seek gainful employment Hochul.&#8221;
Additionally, New York journalist and radio host Bob Lonsberry called the governor a &#8220;hateful, vindictive tyrant&#8221; over her actions.
&#8220;Kathy Hochul is a hateful, vindictive tyrant,&#8221; he <a href="https://x.com/BobLonsberry/status/1899909428016468255" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a>. &#8220;If you don’t believe me, ask the 2,000 prison guards whose jobs and careers she destroyed this week. Better yet, ask their spouses and children. Ask the pregnant women who’ve lost their healthcare, the kids who will lose their homes and schools, the people who’ve lost their pensions and will be impoverished in their last days.&#8221;
Lonsberry added that Hochul banned the now-fired striking officers from ever working for the state after &#8220;seeing that sheriffs and police chiefs had shown an interest in hiring the former prison guards.&#8221;
Hochul&#8217;s decision to fire the striking officers has also raised alarm, especially considering the understaffing and low recruitment already plaguing New York prisons across the state. Even before the strike started, there were about 2,000 vacant positions inside the prison system. 
Currently, Hochul has National Guard members helping to man the prisons, with no end-date in sight. The governor activated thousands of members on the second day of the strike, and their inclusion has been controversial from the start. In some cases, they’ve been sleeping on gym floors and members have leaked photos of their rough conditions. 
Further, NY State Sen. Rob Ortt (R) has expressed <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/hochul-endangering-national-guard-indefinite-prison-duty-amid-corrections-strike-state-lawmaker?utm_source=chatgpt.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">concern</a> about their safety, noting that these guardsmen are &#8220;walking among criminals&#8221; without any proper training. State Sen. Daniel Stec (R) said that these guardsmen were &#8220;activated on state orders,&#8221; which makes them ineligible for care from Veterans Affairs if they were to get injured.

‘Vindictive Tyrant’: Hochul Bars Corrections Officers She Fired From Ever Working For New York Again

The following is an excerpt taken from the new book “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Fools-Gold-Radicals-Traitors-California/dp/1546008039">Fool’s Gold: The Radicals, Con Artists, And Traitors Who Killed The California Dream And Now Threaten Us All</a>” By Susan Crabtree and Jedd McFatter. (Center Street/Hachette, March 2025)
* * *
The Failed Progressive Vision
Under Newsom’s watch, violent crime in California has skyrocketed. Homicides jumped by 33.9 percent and aggravated assaults by 25.3 percent in 2022, with gun‑related homicides and aggravated assaults soaring by 37.7 percent and 61.1 percent, respectively. The actual rates are likely much higher. Crime data only captures incidents reported to police, and many crimes go unreported.
The rapidly rising crime rates didn’t just occur in a vacuum. They directly correspond with Newsom’s decade‑plus‑long progressive experiment with criminal justice reform, which has resulted in far lighter sentences and the premature release of violent criminals from jail. After Newsom released tens of thousands of prisoners during COVID, ostensibly to prevent the virus from spreading among California’s incarcerated criminals, the state prison population dropped from 160,000 in 2011 to around 91,556 by mid‑2024. As we discuss in Chapter 4, Newsom has been accused of releasing these prisoners under a false premise. COVID death rates in the state­ corrections system have been markedly lower than in the outside population. Even as crime surges, Newsom’s administration estimates the prison population will drop to roughly 86,000 by 2028.
Newsom is not only emptying prisons; he is also shutting them down. His administration has closed or is closing four state prisons, and has plans to “reimagine and transform” San Quentin, the state’s oldest and most notorious prison (and previous home to the largest “death row” in the United States), into a rehabilitation center. “We are literally tearing down walls to reimagine our prison system, incentivize true rehabilitation, and end cycles of violence and crime,” Newsom said in a 2024 press release. “Brick by brick, we’re building a new future that will make all of us safer.” But Newsom cited no evidence that the state is growing safer because there is none. As we will explain in Chapter 5 the state’s corrections agency won’t disclose rehabilitation results for the years Newsom has served in review copy office. Again, Newsom and the progressives’ failed COVID policies exacerbated the problem. During the pandemic, when millions were out of work and the state had the highest unemployment in the nation, flash mobs of masked robbers stormed through the doors of Nordstrom and other high‑end retailers in San Francisco and Greater Los Angeles, stealing thousands of dollars of purses, clothes, and jewelry. This type of organized retail theft has become such a massive problem that many retailers are closing their doors for good. By mid‑ 2024, Nordstrom, Macy’s, Whole Foods, Anthropologie, Old Navy, Office Depot, 7‑Eleven, and Denny’s all announced plans to close stores in downtown San Francisco or nearby Oakland. Starbucks and Target have also closed locations.
<div id="attachment_890669" style="width: 394px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Fools-Gold-Radicals-Traitors-California/dp/1546008039"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-890669" class="size-large wp-image-890669" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/91tKIgq7KIL._SL1500_-384x576.jpg" alt="Cover copyright: 2025 by Hachette Book Group, Inc." width="384" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/91tKIgq7KIL._SL1500_-384x576.jpg 384w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/91tKIgq7KIL._SL1500_-200x300.jpg 200w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/91tKIgq7KIL._SL1500_-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/91tKIgq7KIL._SL1500_.jpg 1000w" sizes=" (max-width: 384px) 100vw, 384px" /></a>Cover copyright: 2025 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.</div>
Newsom attributes business closures in downtown San Francisco to “macroeconomic” shifts, not rampant theft, drug use, and violent crime. In August 2023, downtown San Francisco was such a hotbed of crime, homelessness, and drugs that the US Department of Health and Human Services advised employees at the Nancy Pelosi Federal Building in the Tenderloin District to work remotely “for the foreseeable future.” Showing up for work at the building had become just too dangerous.
In January 2024, California’s homegrown, beloved burger joint, In‑N‑­Out Burger, announced that it would close a store for the first time in its ­seventy‑five‑year history, citing crime. The franchise no longer considered the store near Oakland International Airport safe for operation. “We feel the frequency and severity of the crimes being encountered by our customers and associates leave us no alternative,” the company said. “Despite taking repeated steps to create safer conditions, our customers and associates are regularly victimized by car break‑ ins, property damage, theft, and armed robberies.”
Southern California isn’t faring much better. More and more businesses in Santa Monica and Los Angeles, even on once tony and vibrant Wilshire Avenue, have boarded up due to vandalism, crime, and homelessness scaring customers away.
“Mayor, we need your help. We need your help in this area,” Sean James, an independent contractor who runs a business in Santa Monica pleaded in an interview with a local Fox News affiliate.
The surge in violent murders, rapes, organized retail thefts, and other crimes that shock the conscience are directly the result of Newsom’s failed progressive vision and can be laid squarely at his feet. Back in 2014, when Newsom was lieutenant governor, he was the highest‑ranking official pushing the specific progressive ballot measure responsible for the chaos: Proposition 47. This was the George Soros–backed policy that decriminalized drug, property crimes, and even certain sex crimes. Prop. 47 turned theft of items valued under $950, and some drug offenses, from felonies to misdemeanors. Newsom vocally supported the progressive activists and organizations pushing Prop. 47, while his boss, then‑Governor Jerry Brown, remained quiet. The measure passed by a wide margin.
Despite the bedlam that has ensued, Newsom now seems in denial over the disastrous effects of Prop. 47. In early 2024, he revealed that he witnessed a shoplifter steal from Target without workers intervening to stop. When he confronted an employee about it, the woman blamed the California governor for passing laws that emboldened criminals — before realizing he was in fact the governor. “Why didn’t you stop him?” Newsom recalls asking the Target employee. “The governor lowered the threshold &#8230; there’s no accountability,” the employee said. Newsom’s description of the encounter was widely ridiculed for his failure to recognize the obvious truth in the Target employee’s accusation. 
* * *
This excerpt is taken from the new book “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Fools-Gold-Radicals-Traitors-California/dp/1546008039" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Fool’s Gold</a>” by Susan Crabtree and Jedd McFatter. Published by permission of Center Street/Hachette Book Group. Copyright © 2025 by Susan Crabtree and Jedd McFatter.
Susan Crabtree is senior White House and national political correspondent for RealClearPolitics.
Jedd McFatter is the director of research at Peter Schweizer’s Government Accountability Institute.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

California Governor Newsom Announces New Funding For Los Angeles Communities Affected By Wildfires

Newsom Let Thousands Of Prisoners Walk During COVID. Then Crime Skyrocketed.

Books

COVID

Democrats

Gavin Newsom

Progressivism

San Francisco

New York Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul on Monday fired thousands of officers for continuing to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hochul-presser-spirals-with-arrest-threats-for-striking-officers-catch-every-single-one-of-them" target="_blank" rel="noopener">strike</a> over unsafe work conditions, including complaints about days-long shifts and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-leaked-footage-shows-how-violent-ny-prisons-have-become-since-dems-halt-act" target="_blank" rel="noopener">increased violence</a> sparked by the implementation of the Democrat-backed Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement (HALT) Act.
Hochul terminated some 2,000 officers on Monday for not returning to work following the governor claiming she struck a deal with officers on March 6. Most striking officers, though, refused that deal, and their government-affiliated union, the New York Correction Officers&#8217; Benevolent Association (NYCOBA), said Hochul cut them out of negotiations and only worked with the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS).
The March 6 deal, which included a 90-day suspension of the HALT Act and a commitment toward cutting days-long shifts, was largely rejected by the rank and file, with about 8,000 officers continuing to strike last week. In response, Hochul terminated health insurance coverage for more than 5,000 officers and their dependents. This sparked reports of children, pregnant wives, and a mother battling cancer without treatment.
Officers told The Daily Wire that this was why some men and women went back to work; they hated the &#8220;deal&#8221; but decided to risk their own safety and return to the prisons because they couldn&#8217;t afford the health care termination.
Notably, the deal struck on March 6 needed 85% of those on strike to return to work by Monday for it to go into effect and end the strike. DOCCS Commissioner Daniel Martuscello admitted on Monday that this threshold was not met, with thousands still on strike. He deemed the strike &#8220;over,&#8221; anyway.
“We are committed to building a dedicated, resilient workforce and attracting the next generation of correctional leaders,” Martuscello said. “We will work to ensure the new department will be safer and more effective for everyone involved.”
<aside class="single__inline-module aligncenter wp-block-nypost-editor-primary-tag">
<div class="inline-module inline-module--more inline-module--explore-more inline-module--more--thirds">
Hochul has had to summon the National Guard to work in dozens of New York prisons during the strike, and thousands of members will have to continue to help since the already-understaffed prisons have been cut by another 2,000 workers.
</div>
</aside>
&#8220;The New York state Department of Corrections fired 2,000 officers yesterday, and was already down 2,000 officers,&#8221; journalist and radio host Bob Lonsberry posted Tuesday morning. &#8220;The last academy class graduated 57 officers and was held in July 2024.&#8221;
&#8220;They will have to graduate 35 academies to replace the 2,000 just fired,&#8221; he added. &#8220;Though the average is two academies a year, if they run the 8-week academy continuously, they can do six academies a year, meaning they can catch up to their dramatically understaffed level of a month ago in six years.&#8221;
<div id="attachment_889653" style="width: 1184px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-889653" class="wp-image-889653 size-full" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Screenshot-2025-03-11-at-6.52.12-AM.png" alt="" width="1174" height="554" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Screenshot-2025-03-11-at-6.52.12-AM.png 1174w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Screenshot-2025-03-11-at-6.52.12-AM-300x142.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Screenshot-2025-03-11-at-6.52.12-AM-1024x483.png 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Screenshot-2025-03-11-at-6.52.12-AM-768x362.png 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 1174px) 100vw, 1174px" />Screenshot: Bob Lonsberry on X</div>
NY Rep. <a href="https://x.com/lawler4ny/status/1899275409595719711">Mike Lawler</a> (R) criticized Hochul for the move on X, calling it &#8220;a total failure of leadership.&#8221;
&#8220;Gov. Hochul,⁩ who continues to use taxpayer money to provide free housing, clothing, food, education, and healthcare to illegal immigrants, just fired over 2,000 Corrections Officers and took away their healthcare,&#8221; he posted. 
Another NY representative, Nick Langworthy, <a href="https://x.com/RepLangworthy/status/1898131040830734456" target="_blank" rel="noopener">called</a> for a federal investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor into Hochul&#8217;s &#8220;harmful labor practices against New York State corrections officers.&#8221;
&#8220;I am calling for a federal investigation by the Department of Labor into Governor Hochul’s harmful labor practices against New York State corrections officers, relating to the suspension of health insurance benefits and excessive mandatory overtime for corrections officers,&#8221; the congressman said. &#8220;I will not stand by while corrections officers are being denied a right to reasonable working conditions and policies to keep them safe.&#8221;
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/woman-cant-get-chemo-after-hochul-cuts-health-insurance-for-correctional-officers" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Woman Can’t Get Chemo After Hochul Cuts Health Insurance For Correctional Officers</a>

New York State Governor Kathy Hochul

‘Total Failure Of Leadership’: Hochul Fires Thousands Of Corrections Officers Striking For Safety

Hochul Fires Thousands Of Corrections Officers Striking Over Unsafe Conditions

strike

It&#8217;s always interesting when the news media, whose job is supposedly to keep us informed, fails to even mention one of the most important stories that&#8217;s unfolding in the country. As we&#8217;ve seen, the press will devote days of coverage to the plight of federal bureaucrats who can&#8217;t respond to a simple email. The idea appears to be that these bureaucrats, as government employees, are entitled to special protections, simply by virtue of working for the government.
But for reasons that no one has explained, these same mainstream media outlets have demonstrated no sympathy — or even the slightest interest — in the ongoing shutdown that&#8217;s unfolding in New York&#8217;s state prison system. Corrections officers in virtually every single one of New York&#8217;s prisons are now on a so-called &#8220;wildcat&#8221; strike, meaning a strike that&#8217;s not approved by the union or allowed by law. This is a strike that&#8217;s now in its second week. Nine out of ten corrections officers in the state have walked off the job, saying the working conditions have become extremely unsafe. Prison guards are now constantly being assaulted, and they&#8217;ve had enough. As a result, the National Guard has been called in, as part of a desperate bid to prevent a deadly prison takeover, like the one that led to mass casualties in Attica back in the 1970s.
Some of these National Guard units are currently staying in the cells at these prisons in New York. And as of now, it seems likely they&#8217;ll be there for a while. Even though New York has offered to double the overtime pay of any correctional officer who goes back to work, it doesn&#8217;t look like many of them are taking the government up on that offer.
So how did we arrive at a situation where government employees are encouraged to complain on CNN about an email from Elon Musk, while government employees who say their lives are in danger every time they go to work are being ignored? That doesn&#8217;t quite make sense. And it&#8217;s especially confusing when you consider the fact that, ordinarily, the fact that corrections officers are refusing to report to duty at roughly 38 of New York&#8217;s 42 prisons would be exactly the kind of story that the news media would be interested in. It&#8217;s clearly the setup for a potentially significant disaster, and normally the media loves a story like that. But not this time. Why might that be?
If you look into what these correctional officers are demanding, the media blackout starts to make a little more sense. But before I get into the specifics, I want to provide some context first. And I&#8217;ll do that by asking a simple question: If you had to guess the average life expectancy of a correctional officer in this country, what would you estimate it to be? For reference, the life expectancy for the general population is around 77 years, which is already relatively low, and it&#8217;s still dropping. Law enforcement officers, as a category, have a life expectancy of around 66 years. And that&#8217;s obviously pretty bad. But for correctional officers, life expectancy is even lower. In fact, it&#8217;s much lower. The average life expectancy for a correctional officer in this country is just <a href="https://news.siu.edu/2024/06/062624-siu-researchers-find-prison-guards-suffer-ptsd-and-other-issues-but-get-little-help.php#:~:text=The%20average%20life%20expectancy%20of,the%20most%20recent%20data%20available." target="_blank" rel="noopener">59-years-old</a>. A major reason for that is the stress that the job entails, which leads to a very high rate of suicide.
So already, the baseline is not good. The work conditions, in general, are not exactly ideal. But instead of addressing those work conditions in any meaningful way, in 2022, New York passed something called &#8220;The Human Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement Act,&#8221; or HALT Act. This is a law that had its origins in the George Floyd era, and it makes it far more difficult for prison guards to confine dangerous inmates to solitary confinement.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1544-criminals-are-taking-control-over-our-prisons-and-nothing-is-being-done-member-exclusive" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show</a></h3>
In particular, the law completely <a href="https://www.nysenate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2021/senate-passes-halt-solitary-confinement-act" target="_blank" rel="noopener">prevents</a> prison guards from putting anyone aged 21 or younger into solitary confinement, for any reason. Yes, they consider 21-year-olds to be a &#8220;special population,&#8221; as if they&#8217;re children. So they can&#8217;t be locked away by themselves. That would be unthinkable. Additionally, no matter how old an inmate is, the law states that the maximum amount of time an inmate can be placed in solitary confinement is just 15 days. In other words, even if you&#8217;re a 25-year-old gangbanger in peak physical condition, and you&#8217;ve decided to constantly assault prison guards and shank other inmates, then you won&#8217;t be put in solitary confinement for more than two weeks. After that, you&#8217;re free.
New York Democrats passed this law on the theory that solitary confinement is a form of &#8220;legalized torture.&#8221; Of course, if you&#8217;re a sane person, then the idea of being forced to interact with other inmates in a New York state prison, outside of solitary confinement, probably sounds a lot like torture. And also, keep in mind, we&#8217;re talking about an extremely dysfunctional group of people here. The only people going into solitary are criminals who ended up in prison, and then committed additional offenses after they were incarcerated. No one is &#8220;torturing&#8221; these people. We&#8217;ve simply run out of places to put them.
But New York&#8217;s political leaders disagreed. They decided that it&#8217;s more important to have &#8220;compassion&#8221; for criminals than compassion for prison guards, or for anyone else. And the results have been clear. In the three years since the HALT Act was passed, inmate-on-inmate assaults have increased by nearly 170%. There&#8217;s also been a 75% increase in attacks by inmates against prison staff. That&#8217;s why, during this strike, the correctional workers have said that their top priority — their main demand — is repealing the HALT Act. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="002 Prison Strike" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/x1RxWFBLE0Q?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
We give government employees a hard time — rightfully so — but these are government workers who actually perform a necessary job. In fact, it&#8217;s not just necessary. Civilized society can&#8217;t exist without these people. These correctional officers are not putting together mandatory DEI training sessions at the Pentagon. They&#8217;re not auditing people over $600 they received on Venmo. They&#8217;re nothing like the government workers <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1543-incompetent-federal-employees-panic-when-asked-what-they-do-all-day-member-exclusive" target="_blank" rel="noopener">we talked about yesterday</a>. They&#8217;re our last line of defense that&#8217;s keeping extremely dangerous criminals locked up, far away from the rest of us. And yet they&#8217;ve been ignored and, it seems, completely abandoned by the leadership in their state. If anything, the state has been actively sabotaging their ability to do their jobs.
And they&#8217;ve had some help along the way. In fact, local news stations in New York are still producing sob stories for these criminals. Just the other day, a local news station in Buffalo aired this segment about a convicted murderer who says that the prison guards are wrong, and that we really need the HALT Act to remain in place. Here&#8217;s his reasoning. This is one of the most deranged segments you&#8217;ll ever see on a news station. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="003 HALT Act" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CQCjfUEo6oI?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Notice how the reporter just kind of casually slips in the whole &#8220;second-degree murder&#8221; thing in the middle of the segment. They introduce Jerome as this reasonable guy who&#8217;s upset with solitary confinement. He says it&#8217;s comparable to getting his fingernails pulled out. He calls it torture. Then they drop the fact that he&#8217;s killed another person, just to get it out of the way. They also don&#8217;t mention anything he did while he was incarcerated, which might explain why he was placed in solitary. Instead, they just move right along to the analogy he makes, where he says that normal people wouldn&#8217;t want to live in their bathroom for any amount of time.
The logic is pretty solid, right up until you realize that Jerome Wright has committed murder, manslaughter, robbery and burglary. Once you kill another human being, along with a slew of other very serious crimes, then you don&#8217;t get to complain about your accommodations in prison. On the other hand, if you don&#8217;t murder another human being, then you don&#8217;t have to live in your bathroom. You can live anywhere you want. It&#8217;s one of the perks of being a non-murderer. That&#8217;s how the system works. We don&#8217;t want to encourage people to commit murder. We want to discourage it. And one of the ways we do that is by placing murderers in places they don&#8217;t want to be. (And by the way, when Jerome Wright was paroled, he tested positive for cocaine during a drug test, then signed a confession admitting he had used cocaine. But we&#8217;re supposed to believe that was all a big misunderstanding as well. The Washington Post wrote up a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/05/23/new-yorks-crushing-parole-system-snags-an-activist-deacon-mentor/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">whole sob story</a> about it. So this guy is never responsible for anything that happens to him, essentially. While he&#8217;s busy killing people and failing drug tests, it&#8217;s our job not to disappoint him. And we just keep failing.)
On the bright side, I can think of one solution that would solve Jerome Wright&#8217;s problem, and the problems created by many other murderers like him. It turns out that no one — not a single person — has been executed in the state of New York since 1963. The state has essentially abolished the death penalty. That means that all of the worst, most violent people in the state just stay in the system forever until they die of old age. If we actually had a sensible system of capital punishment that we used on the worst kinds of criminals, then the chaos in our prisons could be greatly reduced, at the very least. Certainly people like Jerome Wright wouldn&#8217;t complain about their bathroom-sized cells anymore. And prison guards wouldn&#8217;t be assaulted every day. Seems like a win-win.
Then again, no one&#8217;s floating that as a possible solution here — just like no one in the mainstream press is talking about this prison strike at all. And they&#8217;re not talking about the strike because it&#8217;s yet another example of how so-called &#8220;criminal justice reform&#8221; is, in fact, a disaster waiting to happen. Once again, we&#8217;re seeing how &#8220;compassion&#8221; for criminals, in the end, causes suffering for innocent people. That is the lesson of the HALT Act, and the ongoing crisis unfolding in New York. And before criminals completely seize control of the prison system in one of our largest states, it&#8217;s a lesson more people in power need to learn — and quickly.

Abandoned prison

Criminals Are Taking Control Over Our Prisons And Nothing Is Being Done

New York Democrat Gov. <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-corrections-officers-strike-in-ny" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Kathy</a> Hochul on Tuesday repeatedly attacked corrections officers across the state for striking over unsafe work conditions and long mandated shifts that officers say can last numerous days at a time.
About 15,000 corrections officers statewide are on strike and protesting over their concerns about safety being ignored for too long, officers say. Specifically, officers have cited Democrat-backed legislation, such as the HALT Act, and the closing of numerous prisons, for creating an unsafe work environment. 
Speaking to the press about the escalating strike, Hochul confirmed that she&#8217;s taking legal moves to have striking officers arrested.
&#8220;Has anyone been arrested?&#8221; a reporter <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW0GUYp9sfg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">asked</a> the governor, to which she responded, &#8220;The proceedings have started. I think we have 380 people on the first list through the attorney general’s office and they’re being served by state police as we speak. This is in violation of law.”  
Hochul suggested that she had state troopers serve papers with the threat of arrest to striking officers as a scare tactic, but since they didn&#8217;t back down, she&#8217;d continue down the path to having these officers arrested &#8220;in batches.&#8221;
The governor brought up Marcos Gonzalez Soler, who serves as Deputy Secretary for Public Safety, for more details on the legal proceedings. He suggested all 15,000 would be addressed legally if need be.
“We will go to catch every single one of them until they’ve returned to work,&#8221; Gonzalez Soler told the media.
Hochul further claimed that officers are the ones creating safety issues and repeatedly said that she doesn&#8217;t know what striking officers want.
The work stoppage started on February 17, with officers from <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/02/17/us-news/2-ny-prisons-thrown-into-chaos-as-corrections-officers-launch-illegal-strike-after-violent-uprising/">two New York prisons</a> striking over unsafe conditions. The movement quickly swelled in support, and now nine out of ten officers across 38 of the state’s 42 prisons are participating. 
The strike has not been sanctioned by the New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association (NYSCOPBA), which is the government-affiliated union for corrections officers, making this a “wildcat strike.” Hochul has repeatedly called the strike “illegal,” citing violation of the Taylor Law. 
The strike was sparked just days after officials locked down the Collins Correctional Facility in Erie County due to an inmate uprising, and a <a href="https://www.nysenate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2025/pamela-helming/statement-senator-helming-doccs-staffing?utm_source=chatgpt.com">memo</a> was circulated by the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS), with Commissioner Dan Martuscello <a href="https://www.wwnytv.com/2025/02/13/memo-70-staffing-ny-prisons-is-new-100/">writing</a> that &#8220;70% of our original staffing model is the new 100%&#8221; and to “identify where we can eliminate and/or realign posts and associated duties.” The DOCCS has since said that the posts referenced in the memo would mainly apply to “vacant positions.”
The governor has deployed 6,500 National Guard members to run the prisons and is working to consolidate inmates due to the lack of coverage. Hochul has ordered the state to stop paying for health insurance for those on strike, and the DOCCS is docking two days of pay for every day an officer remains on strike. 
Mediation between the two sides began on Monday, with a reported offer from the state for two times the hourly rate for overtime, the nixing of that controversial staff-reduction memo, and suspension of certain provisions in the HALT Act. However, the New York State Senate <a href="https://www.mynbc5.com/article/new-york-senate-blocks-halt-act-repeal/63913462">blocked</a> a proposal to repeal the HALT Act on Tuesday.
Officers, though, reportedly want more guarantees for safety and are skeptical of promised concessions due to Hochul’s comments and actions. 
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Governor Kathy Hochul addresses ongoing New York prison strikes" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CW0GUYp9sfg?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&nbsp;
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-corrections-officers-strike-in-ny" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Everything You Need To Know About The Corrections Officers Strike In NY</a>

Hochul Presser Spirals With Arrest Threats For Striking Officers: ‘Catch Every Single One Of Them’

Menu