House-Senate conference committee members Wednesday finalized a $547.3 million appropriation to fund state prisons, public safety and other justice system functions for the 2014 fiscal year that begins July 1. The overall funding level in Senate File 447 was an increase from the House’s $534.5 million proposal and Gov. Terry Branstad’s $535.2 million plan for [...]
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Uniformed peace officers from around Iowa joined Gov. Terry Branstad, Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds, public safety leaders and family members in adding three names to a state memorial that was recently moved and rededicated at a new location near the Statehouse Friday. The list of peace officers killed in the line of duty over the [...]
continue »The emerging story of three women who were kidnapped and imprisoned for a decade in a tight-knit Cleveland neighborhood seems too fantastic to be believed, and that’s one of the reasons predators are able to trap, traffic and enslave untold numbers of missing girls.
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By Jim McCarragher —- Johnson County’s 112-year-old historic courthouse and 30-year-old jail are outdated, and represent a threat to public safety, security and access to justice. The $43.5 million bond referendum on May 7 would pay for a new, much-needed Justice Center that combines the Sheriff’s office, jail and court-related offices, all [...]
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Hopes for passenger rail in Eastern Iowa were derailed, or at least sidetracked, when funding for a feasibility study was rejected by the Iowa House Tuesday. Arguing that passenger rail will never be self-supporting and only possible with continuing state subsidies, majority Republicans blocked a Johnson County lawmaker’s attempt to secure $5.5 million in each [...]
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DES MOINES – The Senate Ways and Means Committee likely will mark the end of the road this session for legislation that would allow all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) to be licensed to operate on secondary roads in Iowa. Committee chairman Sen. Joe Bolkcom, D-Iowa City, said Tuesday that safety and other concerns raised about provisions [...]
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It was impossible to look away Friday, as police scoured Boston for the second suspect in Monday’s marathon bombing. The city was locked down; time stood still as we tethered ourselves to televisions, refreshed and re-refreshed Web pages, wanting to know the moment there was something — anything — to know. A gripping end [...]
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Majority Democrats in the Iowa Senate approved a $560 million budget that would fund more prison guards and state troopers and open new prison and residential corrections facilities. Senate File 447, which passed on a 26-23 party-line vote, would boost spending by $36.1 million in justice systems areas of corrections, public safety, public defense, human [...]
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As officials look for answers to the Boston Marathon bombing, in this week’s edition of ‘Insights on Iowa’, Jennifer Hemmingsen talks with social worker Cynthia Vaske and journalism professor Frank Durham about saturation news coverage of traumatic events, why we can’t stop watching and how that changes our view of the world. [Audio clip: view full post [...]
continue »In last Sunday’s column, I talked about the frustrating lack of resources for The ANCHOR Center, a groundbreaking residential facility that would directly address the problem of inmates with mental illness in our state’s prisons. In the third edition of The Gazette opinion staff’s Insights on Iowa podcast, launched this week, you can [...]
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