A new criminal justice program in Stark County is proving useful at keeping people out of jail and off drugs and alcohol. It’s called a pretrial recovery program, and for non violent offenders, they can stay out of jail if they agree to drug and alcohol monitoring. The program started early in 2022, and the
Read & Share sourced from: Dickinson Press
A human trafficking story that started with the deaths of an immigrant family near the Manitoba/North Dakota border last winter continues with criminal charges in India against some of the suspects alleged responsible. The Indian couple, Jagdish Patel and his wife Vaishali Patel along with their two children froze to death a year ago while
Read & Share sourced from: CBC
What’s the newest way to get drugs into prison? Put a stamp on them and send it. Of course, you’ll have to soak the paper and envelope in liquid narcotics, first. Stephen Montemayor with the Star Tribune has the full story on innovation in evasion that’s got Minnesota corrections officers on their toes. Why does
Read & Share sourced from: Star TribuneThe Minot Police Department issued the following news release through their Facebook page this morning. — Official News Release, Minot Police Department — The Minot Police Department responded to a report of gunshots in the parking lot of the Lamplighter lounge at approximately 1:40 a.m. on 12/30/22. On arrival officers discovered a 36 year old
Read & Share
April Baumgarten with Inforum.com has some great reporting on the resentencing of a Minot man convicted of murder. Chris Vickerman was found guilty of murdering his father on May 10, 2019. But his 100-year sentence handed down by Judge Doug Mattson turned some heads the criminal justice world and was overturned by the ND Supreme
Read & Share sourced from: InForum
Through lives lost to overdoses or changed forever due to addiction and numerous cascade effects such as increases in property crime and demand for services, the costs of the opioid epidemic are staggering. And who’s bearing the cost? People, families, and local places are carrying a lot of it. And now they’re using the legal
Read & Share sourced from: NPR
In a ranking of juvenile drug arrests, North Dakota had the 3rd highest total of 27 violations per 10,000 kids. Only South Dakota and Wyoming ranked worse. April Baumgarten with Inforum has the full story.
Read & Share sourced from: InForumIt’s not often you’ll find a ‘Mother Jones’ article referenced on The Minot Voice. The reporting there makes many North Dakotan’s angry because we quickly draw adversarial lines opposed to their editorial positions. But occasionally, they cover a story that’s worthy of consideration. This is one of those examples. North Dakota’s top corrections officers took
Read & Share sourced from: Mother Jones
One of the common gripes heard around Minot is related to the uptick in crime. But the problem isn’t unique to Minot. One hundred miles south of us in Mandan, the population has grown dramatically since the last census. And along with it, there’s been an increase in crime and a need to add new
Read & Share sourced from: Bismarck TribuneIn our country and more and more in our state, we put people in jail. For a long time, we’ve viewed incarceration as the only solution to the problem of criminal activity and recidivism. But is it? More importantly, is there a better solution? A recent trip to Norway by our state’s top correction officers
Read & Share sourced from: Mother Jones
Minot area criminal defense attornies and the Ward County State’s Attorney’s office have been squabbling in court recently. The incidents have brought considerable media coverage, and now a ruling against the State’s Attorney’s office. Andrea Johnson with The Minot Daily News has the coverage, but it’s not available online so you’ll have to find it
Read & Share sourced from: Dickinson Press
The battle over who pays what is an eternal one in government, and when it comes to housing inmates serving sentences the payor is often a matter of where the inmate is staying. Is it in a state correctional facility or a county one? And shifting policy as well as a lot of new beds
Read & Share sourced from: Bismarck Tribune
Self-driving cars are coming; there’s nothing to be done about it. Automation, in general, is going to radically remake the way we live our lives and our society, and if we look at self-driving cars as one of the early dominoes, the challenge then becomes what are the second, third, and fourth cultural dominoes that
Read & Share sourced from: Motherboard
In today’s Minot Daily editorial, Mike Sasses, editor of the Minot Daily provides some perspective on the new challenges created by opioid and drug abuse that’s more and more prevalent. When a judge has to consider whether granting someone bond may endanger their own life, we know we have a difficult problem to solve. Read
Read & Share sourced from: Minot Daily News
From the macabre category and Troy Larson with the Ghosts of North Dakota comes, we rediscover the story of a North Dakota serial killer.
Read & Share sourced from: Ghosts of North Dakota
The opioid drug crisis is one of those issues that might not hit home unless you have a personal experience with a family member or friend, but the trickle-down impacts of the problem are effecting all of us in less obvious ways. And one area where the crisis is putting pressure on our systems is
Read & Share sourced from: The Washington Post