As a former correctional lieutenant at a high-security men’s prison in California, I came face-to-face with a moral dilemma that ultimately led me to resign. It wasn’t an easy decision, but I could no longer stand by and watch as corruption and injustice thrived within the very system I was sworn to uphold.  The tipping point came in 2022 with the implementation of California State Senate Bill 132, also known as the Transgender Respect, Agency, and Dignity Act. This new law, which legalized “gender self-identification” in state prisons, was not only misguided, but also fundamentally flawed in its execution. I was initially hopeful that the new policy would provide necessary protections and accommodations for inmates who identified as transgender. However, what I witnessed was a system rife with negligence and disregard for both inmate safety and the well-being of correctional staff. One of the most concerning aspects of this policy was the lack of proper protocols for housing male inmates who identify as women.  Under the new law, a male inmate can simply tell officers, “Call me Susie today.” If officers don’t call that inmate “Susie,” the inmate can have officers written up. Inmates can then demand to be moved to a women’s institution, and officers are required to start the paperwork. In a matter of days, that male inmate can be put on a bus headed for one of California’s two women’s prisons. It’s that easy.  Instead of conducting thorough risk assessments and considering the safety of all inmates, decisions were made haphazardly, putting vulnerable individuals at risk. As a correctional lieutenant, I witnessed firsthand the chaos and violence that ensued when inmates were placed in inappropriate housing assignments. At Centinela State Prison, where I worked for eight years, and at Richard J. Donovan State Prison, where I worked for another eight years, we housed serial rapists, serial child molesters, and murderers. This criminal behavior doesn’t stop when the men are put behind bars — it often continues inside prison walls. In 2020 at Donovan, for example, two correctional officers and five staffers were attacked by four male inmates. I responded and saw the blood and prison knives on the floor. That very well could have been me. Giving these criminals access to women’s prisons reminds me of one of the “Little Red Riding Hood” fairy tales, where a predatory wolf dresses up as a fragile, old lady with a little bonnet over his head. Just because he’s got granny’s clothes on, it doesn’t mean he’s anything like granny. As a lieutenant, I witnessed a lot of men manipulate the new law, claiming to be transgender to cheat the system. In many cases, they wouldn’t even hide their plan from prison staffers including myself. In one instance, there was a male housed inside the prison hospital. He was scheduled to have a “sex realignment surgery” in Beverly Hills, paid for with taxpayer money. While on patrol, I overheard him say, “When I come back, I’m going to prostitute myself on the yard. I’m going to make money.” When he returned, this inmate faced complications from his surgery. He then turned around and sued the state, saying the state purposely gave him a faulty surgery. The California Department of Corrections, as they always do, settled the case — with more taxpayer money.  There was also a clear lack of training and education provided to correctional staff regarding transgender issues. Many of my colleagues were ill-equipped to handle the unique challenges presented by inmates who identified as transgender, leading to conflicts and misunderstandings that could have been avoided with proper guidance. My female colleagues are also victims of the prison transgender policy. Under the law, a male inmate identifying as a woman can now pick and choose to have a female officer perform an unclothed body search on them. So now you have females forced to look at male body parts, and what do you know? The inmates are demanding it. Correctional staff are required to search inmates multiple times a day. Every time an inmate goes on a visit, goes to work in a vocational trade, exits his cell to go to the administrative segregation yard—they get strip searched on their way and their way back. Every time there is an incident and the inmate is placed in a holding cell, an unclothed body search is conducted. It is inhumane to force female prison staff to strip search the bodies of biological males. As a correctional lieutenant, I took an oath to uphold the law and ensure the safety and security of all individuals under my watch. However, less than a year into the implementation of this policy, I could no longer reconcile my values with the pervasive corruption and injustice I witnessed on a daily basis. After much deliberation, I made the difficult decision to resign. At the time I resigned, I had a number of accolades and was making $157,000 a year. I had a mortgage, two vehicles, and a 5-year-old daughter to support. It was not easy going back to eating soups and sandwiches, but as a veteran who served in Iraq, I don’t need much to survive. My resignation was not simply an act of defiance, but a statement against a broken system that prioritizes profits over people. California’s prison system is in dire need of reform, from top to bottom. We cannot continue to turn a blind eye to the rampant corruption and abuse that plague our correctional facilities. It is imperative that we hold those responsible for perpetuating injustice and corruption accountable for their actions. This includes administrators and policymakers who have failed to enact meaningful change, and who have subjected female inmates to cruel and unusual punishment. As I reflect on my time in the California prison system, I am reminded of the words of Edmund Burke: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” I could no longer remain silent in the face of such egregious wrongdoing. It is my hope that my resignation will serve as a wake-up call and spur much-needed action to reform our broken prison system. We owe it to the inmates, the staff, and society as a whole to do better. * * * Hector Bravo Ferrel is a recently retired correctional lieutenant from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, U.S. Army Combat Veteran, and YouTuber known as ‘That Prison Guard.’ He shared his story with the Independent Women’s Forum in the Cruel and Unusual Punishment series. The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences is eliminating the requirement for prospective tenure-track faculty members to submit a statement on how they will promote diversity, inclusion, and belonging. Dean of Faculty Affairs and Planning Nina Zipser announced the change Monday, stating that it came about in response to numerous faculty members who said the requirement could be confusing for foreign applicants and was “too narrow in the information they attempted to gather,” according to the Harvard Crimson. “This broader perspective acknowledges the many ways faculty contribute to strengthening their academic communities, including efforts to increase diversity, inclusion, and belonging,” Zipser wrote, defending the move. Instead, applicants who are finalists will be required to submit two other documents: a service statement focused on their “efforts to strengthen academic communities,” and a teaching and advising statement about how they will help create a “learning environment in which students are encouraged to ask questions and share their ideas.” Faculty members seeking promotions will also no longer be required to submit DEI statements, according to the Crimson. Harvard’s FAS, which includes the undergraduate school and some graduate schools, began requiring the statements five years ago, according to the Boston Globe. Critics argue that the statements are a way to test the political leanings of applicants. Harvard law professor Randall Kennedy made the case against DEI statements, accusing them of asking candidates to “support ideological commitments” and challenging academic freedom. “I am a scholar on the left committed to struggles for social justice. The realities surrounding mandatory DEI statements, however, make me wince,” Kennedy, who is Black, wrote in the Crimson. “The practice of demanding them ought to be abandoned, both at Harvard and beyond.” He added that the statements discourage applicants who are conservative.  “It does not take much discernment to see, moreover, that the diversity statement regime leans heavily and tendentiously towards varieties of academic leftism and implicitly discourages candidates who harbor ideologically conservative dispositions,” he wrote. Harvard has been under fire for its pro-DEI sentiment folllowing the ouster of former President Claudine Gay after accusations of plagiarism amid rising anti-Semitism under her leadership. Harvard named a DEI advocate Vivian Hunt to serve as its new president of the Board of Overseers. In her position she will have the ability to weigh in on the choosing of Harvard’s next president. Hunt has a history of advocating against treating people equally, according to a 2020 interview.  “A neutral position that is meritocratic, that is good at treating people evenly, isn’t good enough. It allows the bias that is in our systems … it allows it to perpetuate,” Hunt said. “You have to proactively stand for an antiracism environment.”

When a woman lost her gold class ring 70 years ago, she didn’t expect that she’d ever see it again. She certainly didn’t think a stranger with a metal detector would turn up with her lost memento decades later! A social media user posted the sweet story of how they reunited an elderly woman with her 1947 class ring. It all started when this person brought their metal detector to a golf course in order to see what they might find. In the post, the person explained that they came across the abandoned piece of jewelry in the dirt. If it weren’t for the numbers and letters engraved into the gold ring, they never would have found out who lost it 70 years ago. The first clue was a “P” decorating the front. On the sides were the numbers 4 and 7, indicating that the piece was a class ring from 1947. Screengrab from TikTok However, the most important hint was engraved on the band. These were the initials “P.A.S.” Armed with these letters, the stranger was able to look up who the item belonged to. That’s how he eventually found the elderly woman who had lost the gold ring 70 years ago! At this point, she was almost 90 years old. She was so glad to have her jewelry back! The video creator was also pretty thrilled to be able to give it to her. What an incredible find! “People always ask me what my favourite metal detecting find is, and this is always the one I mention first,” the person wrote in their social media caption. “I found this ring a few years back and was able to return it to the woman who lost it 70 years earlier. She was almost 90, and lived 10 hours away from me.” Screengrab from TikTok This woman was so grateful to the stranger who reached out to her with the good news that they’d found her 1947 class ring! “I was able to get in touch with her and hear the story of how it was lost,” the caption continued. “I sent it to her, and she was totally shocked to have it back on her finger. She offered me a reward, but the only reward I wanted was a picture of the ring back where it belonged.” Screengrab from TikTok This user shared a photo of the elderly woman wearing her ring, and she had the biggest smile on her face! It was so nice of this stranger to go out of their way to find out who had lost this gold ring 70 years ago. After all, it would have been so easy to just keep it for themself. This person deserves all kind of credit for their kindness! You can find the source of this story’s featured image here. The post Elderly Woman Reunited With Gold Ring She Lost 70 Years Ago! appeared first on InspireMore.

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New Zealand enjoys the company of 72,000 Filipino migrants, many of whom are women arriving to fill the nation’s teacher shortage. This pipeline of talented educators seeking better lives to the south has led a pair of women to start a flourishing support group to help navigate the immigration system, get teaching qualifications recognized in […] The post How Two Filipinos Helped Thousands of Migrant Teachers Settle in New Zealand appeared first on Good News Network.

Johnny Dangerously Set in the 1930s, an honest, good-hearted man is forced to turn to a life of crime to finance his neurotic mother’s sky-rocketing medical bills. Cast: 1984 viewing I saw this movie once… CONTINUE READING... The post 84 From ’84: Johnny Dangerously appeared first on The Retro Network.

The mayor of Sturgeon, Missouri resigns after a police officer shoots a blind, deaf Shih Tzu who escaped his owner's backyard.