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STATE Parliament is set to pass new legislation making it a criminal offence to "insult" Gaming Minister Michael O'Brien. Fines of up to $11,945 will be given to anyone found guilty of upsetting the minister and his staff under the extraordinary new offence.

The Dutch justice ministry has announced it will close eight prisons and cut 1,200 jobs in the prison system. A decline in crime has left many cells empty.
During the 1990s the Netherlands faced a shortage of prison cells, but a decline in crime has since led to overcapacity in the prison system. The country now has capacity for 14,000 prisoners but only 12,000 detainees.

Let victims of crime track case online, says thinktank

IPPR report calls for details on the progress of cases to be published to bolster public confidence in criminal justice system

TrackMyCrime, a pioneering website set up by Avon and Somerset police, was singled out for praise by the Institute for Public Policy Research. Photograph: Rob Wilkinson/Alamy

Victims of crime in England and Wales should be able to track their case online from the moment it is reported to the point when justice is served, a thinktank has said.

"Although many anarchists are law abiding, there is a history in the Pacific Northwest of some anarchists participating in property destruction and other criminal activity in support of their philosophy," the affidavit reads, according to the newspaper.

The justice ministry said judges were ready to work around the clock to implement the pardon because they have to visit each of more than 30 prisons and assess every prisoner who may qualify for release.

Supporters of the amnesty say it will reduce prison overcrowding.

David Gregory gets off without charges, despite knowing and flouting the law. Mr. Haddad, not so much. Some more equal than others strikes again.Nathan Haddad, a decorated combat veteran, was arrested earlier this month in New York for possessing unloaded 30-round magazines. Mr. Haddad, who has been recognized by the Army for his selfless acts of generosity to fellow soldiers, was charged with five felony counts of possession of “high-capacity” magazines. (Second link describes how he refuses a plea deal.

According to a Cornell University study, unattractive defendants are 22 percent more likely to be convicted than good-looking ones. And the unattractive also get slapped with harsher sentences — an average of 22 months longer in prison.

A man who was caught by MPAA investigators camcording the hit movie The Dark Knight in a US theater during July 2008 has been sentenced. The 42 year-old from Grandview, Missouri, was ordered to serve 24 months in federal prison and pay $24,738 in fines.

A convicted criminal who was serving out his sentence in a monastery has escaped for the second time. He’s asked authorities to return him to prison, saying life with the with Capuchin monks is too punishing.