Credit Cheryl Senter / NHPR
The New Hampshire Department of Corrections says that in order to comply with Gov. Chris Sununu s proposed budget, it would have to cut rehabilitative and educational programs that serve hundreds of inmates every year.
In a presentation to lawmakers this week, DOC Commissioner Helen Hanks said the state is looking at closing the Shea Farm Transitional Housing Unit for women in Concord and the Calumet Transitional Housing Unit for men in Manchester. These halfway houses currently serve around fifty inmates who typically are working in the community and awaiting parole hearings.
The closures would require major shifts at the Concord Transitional Work Center, a minimum security unit at the N.H. State Prison for Men. According to Hanks, 75 inmates would be moved back into higher security units at the prison in order to make room for those formerly at the halfway houses.
Members passed HB 197, a bill that would expand that state s stand your ground law. Under the current law, in certain situations, New Hampshire citizens have the right to use deadly force against another person outside their own home. This bill would now extend that right to their vehicles.
Rep. Daryl Abbas, a Republican of Salem, is the chairman for the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee. He spoke in support of the bill. If article 2A of the New Hampshire constitution allows a person the right to bear arms to protect yourself, your family, your property and your state, it s only natural that our written laws would allow you to protect yourself and your family to the same degree inside your vehicle as if you were inside your home,” Abbas said.
Lawmakers in the New Hampshire State House are considering several bills aimed at protecting students' free speech and curtailing what their sponsors see
Credit Concord Monitor
New Hampshire lawmakers are debating a bill that would prevent educators from teaching about systemic racism and sexism in public schools and state-funded programs.
HB 544, titled an act “relative to the propagation of divisive topics,” seeks to limit public schools, organizations or state contractors from discussing topics related to racism and sexism, and would specifically ban teaching that the state of New Hampshire or the U.S. is racist or sexist. Lawmakers discussed the bill in a hearing of the Executive Departments and Administration Committee that began Feb. 11 and continued Thursday.
“This puts guidelines on what are the limits, especially under the auspices of the state apparatus, what are the limits in presuming that someone was born to be an oppressor or someone was born to be oppressed because of their sex,” said Rep. Keith Ammon, a Republican from New Boston, who introduced the bill. “If that’s the assumption we are going to make as