California better reckonize!

That bitch has been out there behaving like a first-rate famewhore on the red carpet – totally hogging the ‘We Suck at Solvency’ spotlight! But she better step to the side because hers isn’t the only game in town anymore!

Oh ho no!

A new study by the Pew Center found that double-digit budget gaps, rising unemployment, high foreclosure rates and built-in budget constraints have brought Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island and Wisconsin to the precipice of joining Cali in the pageant of impovrished places pockmarking the American landscape.
::: Ten’s a crowd! :::

These states are fucked financially for basically one of three reasons:
1. They rely too heavily on one type of industry
::: diversity of DIE :::

2. They have a history of persistent budget shortfalls
::: finance FAIL :::

3. They face legal constraints that make it too hard to implement major changes, such as tax increases
::: judiciary JAM-UP :::

And it’s all a big ol’ bunch of SUCKS TO BE THEM until you realize that this mess is five slices of Serious Shit Pie  because these piss-poors combine to account for more than one-third of the entire, whole and complete nation’s population and economic output.

!! STICKY SITCH ALERT !!

“Decisions these states make as they try to navigate the recession will play a role in how quickly the entire nation recovers,” one of the Pew peeps professed.

NO PRESSURE GUYS … but, uhh, could you get with the A program, so all of America doesn’t have to keep suffering?!?

Pretty please with a big ol’ stimulus check on top?

SOURCE

Photo from http://askehbl.wordpress.com

Climate change is a uniquely global problem and requires a uniquely global response. The challenge in the run up to Copenhagen is to find a way for an entire world to unite around a plan that is both fair and effective.

~ Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, writing about Denmark Climate and Energy Minister Connie Hedegaard, in Time 100 (May 11, 2009)

The Pew Center does really cool research. Their Pew Social & Demographic Trends site has very nice interactive map of marriage and divorce statistics.  You can see how Texas stacks up next to our neighbors on when and how often we marry and divorce.

The Pew Internet and American Life Project has produced The Mobile Difference, a report into the gadget preferences and mobile lifestyles of groups within the US population. The report defines two sets of five cohorts.

Adults ‘Motivated by Mobility’ (39%):

Digital Collaborators (8%) who prefer to use technology to collaborate and share their creativity with others.

Ambivalent Networkers (7%) who are heavy users of mobile devices, but who can be irritated by how they impact on their lives.

Media Movers (7%) who like to create or seek out and record interesting digital ‘nuggets’ to pass them around their online social networks.

Roving Nodes (9%) who use mobile devices to manage their lives, especially through email, SMS and websites.

Mobile Newbies (8%) who are new to the mobile digital world, but like to be a part of it, especially using their new mobile phones.

Adults who are the ‘Stationary Media Majority’ (61%):

Desktop Veterans (13%) who prefer landline and other cabled access for regular access to digital information.

Drifting Surfers (14%) who are light users, familiar with a range of technology but who say they would be happy without it.

Information Encumbered (10%) who find that there can be too much information online and often feel inadequate to deal with technological problems.

The Tech Indifferent (10%) who are unenthusiastic about digital lifestyles, although most have a mobile phone.

Off the Network (14%) who do not have the technology – they may never have had it, or the may have become disenchanted with it.

The following online quiz  may help determine what kind of tech user you are

This article originally featured in China Dialogue.

Forging a new partnership between the United States and China can help address climate change, but only if regulatory and market shortcomings can be overcome.

A new alignment on energy and the environment between China and the United States sounds like a formula capable of delivering real solutions on climate-change issues. China’s abundant scientific research-and-development resources and manufacturing capacity not only help carbon sink testing and the scaling up of renewable energies become more feasible, but also less costly.

However, the potential cost effectiveness of reducing emissions in China could prove more of a liability than a benefit where the environment is concerned. Systemic regulatory and market shortcomings demonstrate the difficulty of managing and preventing environmental degradation and guaranteeing public health in a developing country context. One example is in the power sector, where in some cases emissions performance has not matched infrastructure upgrades as expected because the use of low-grade coal has gone unmonitored. Does the new US administration have the will to face the prospect that a low-cost approach might be inimical to a low-carbon strategy? Will they ensure careful planning and responsible oversight?

The recent release of a joint Asia Society and Pew Center on Global Climate Change report (see “Road to rapprochement” by Banning Garrett and Jonathan Adams), followed by secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s trip to China, generated considerable US interest in enhancing US-China coordination on energy and the environment.

Grand bilateral collaboration undoubtedly can help reduce the rate of growth of emissions in both countries, and bring much needed efficiency improvements to China’s outdated power production and transmission infrastructure. And a powerful US-China nexus may help break post-Kyoto gridlock at Copenhagen in December. However, a partnership between the world’s largest carbon dioxide emitters is not the “holy grail” for preventing further environmental degradation. Though full of promise, the “China advantage” comes with its own pitfalls.

The China advantage, from the perspective of an emissions mitigation-minded policymaker, is in the development and deployment of clean technologies more cheaply than in the US. This is due to several factors. First, as a 2007 McKinsey report demonstrated, building new, cleaner power plants in places like China is usually cheaper than retrofitting old plants, such as those in the US.

Second, savings come from lower legal costs. Legal considerations that would stall or altogether prevent certain activities in the US are absent in China. For example, attempts to test clean technologies in the US are often riddled with logistical, political and legal obstacles. Nascent and feeble private property laws in China de facto enable the government to exercise eminent domain without significant legal pushback or the same expense as in the US. This makes China a comparatively attractive place to test new technologies, including ambitious clean energy demonstrations of carbon capture and sequestration and an advanced electric grid.

However, the lack of legal barriers can present significant environmental liabilities. For instance, the structure of the Chinese legal system makes it difficult or impossible for individuals to file and succeed in a lawsuit against the state or a private company; and, further, the rules of civil procedure do not permit individuals to file class action lawsuits. In the absence of individual legal recourse, there is little incentive for the private or state actors involved to minimise the risk of pollution associated with such demonstrations.

Finally, China’s manufacturing sector offers a cost-cutting strategy. It is no secret that China’s manufacturing capacity far outstrips that of the US, in terms of cost, across many industries. Optimists often fantasise about the conversion of China’s existing widget factories into production sites of clean energy and energy efficiency equipment. However, the reality is that China’s manufacturing sector offers a cost advantage precisely because environmental costs like treatment of industrial waste are often not factored in to the cost of production. This is due, in part, to lax local government monitoring and enforcement of environmental regulations. Indeed, instances of environmental negligence exist even amongst power producers who have invested considerable capital in efficiency upgrades and cleanup technologies.

“Greener Plants, Greyer Skies?”, a year long study by MIT’s Industrial Performance Center, surveyed 85 power plants (with a total of 299 generating units) across 14 provinces in China. Through a survey of plant managers and specialised personnel, the researchers found that although a sizable share of power plants have installed state-of-the-art equipment, disuse or misuse had compromised the effectiveness of their efforts.

The report overturns the assumption often held by outsiders that the problem lies in lacking or ineffective governance. Rather, the pervasiveness of expensive equipment – almost 80% of the plants had installed “clean coal” SOx scrubbers on at least one of their power generating units – suggests that commercial and political levers are providing the needed pressure for improvements in infrastructure.

The problem, it turned out, was how energy infrastructure was being operated and the types of coal used.

Rising fuel costs and government-set feed-in pricing have strained power producers considerably, prompting them to seek cost-cutting measures. One way plants do this is by substituting cheaper, substandard coal. However, when lower quality coal runs through the generating units, the capacity of cleanup systems is degraded. Likewise, emissions “depend almost entirely on the quality of the coal they use,” said the report’s lead author, Edward Steinfeld, rising when lower quality, high-sulphur coal is burned.

The report also found that smokestack scrubbers and other equipment, which accounted for upwards of one-third of total plant expenses to operate, were idled to save costs.

Substantial improvements in standards are not enough. Moreover, pouring money into Chinese infrastructure improvements, which the US may already be considering, will be a wasted opportunity unless the government can enforce rules on operation and fuel procurement. The ability to monitor plant operations, combined with energy pricing reform (by setting the price of power artificially low, the government actually punishes cleaner, more efficient producers that are less unprofitable), are crucial prerequisites for environmental improvements in China’s power sector.

Looking ahead

Washington has awoken from an eight-year slumber and begun to consider international solutions appropriate to an international problem. The new administration has already demonstrated its intentions to take decisive action on climate policy; namely, by including one of the world’s major stakeholders and emitters. However, we have yet to see whether collaboration on energy and climate will involve appropriate monitoring and regulation in order to ensure responsible, effective environmental solutions.

The nature of the US-China engagement currently under discussion demands the establishment and enforcement of tougher standards more stringent than those governing other bilateral arrangements, such as trade agreements. Already, China has sent the encouraging signal of a commitment to make progress on environmental protection legislation. Since 2007, Beijing has formulated power sector standards on SOx emissions and energy efficiency. In coming years, the government plans to decommission old plants and implement stringent emissions requirements for new plants that come online.

However, as the MIT study demonstrates, these standards will be meaningless without on-the-ground capacity to monitor and evaluate policy outcomes. The US should understand the market conditions and other limitations in China and help to build institutional capacity. Of course, anchoring bilateral activities with better oversight would eliminate some of the cost advantage that makes China an appealing partner on energy and climate collaboration. But the alternative would mean a cost of wholly greater proportions, which neither the environment nor humanity is prepared to bear.

• Ninety-four percent of registered Latino voters plan to vote in the November election. Ninety-five percent of all registered voters planned to do so.
• The most important issues to Hispanics are education, the cost of living, jobs and healthcare. Less important are crime, the war in Iraq and immigration.

The Pew Center study was conducted by an independent research company contacting people on both landlines and cellular telephones in both English and Spanish (to reduce nonresponse error). Researchers used random digit dialing.

During the survey, respondents were asked about 80 primarily closed-ended questions. The wording was unbiased. The questions used different levels of measurement, such as interval and ratio to gauge responses. However, because the survey was so lengthly it could have resulted in participant fatigue, or “maturation.”

At a 95 percent confidence level, margin of error was reported to be 2.8 percent for the total sample and 4.4 percent for the registered voters group.

I thought this study may be applicable to our second-generation subgroup as it is informative of the issues that are relevant to the Hispanic population. Additionally, voting in a presidential election is another big part of coming-of-age in America.

Leslie Patton

Populations an economic lifeline for rural regions
By Keith B. Richburg; By Laura Crimaldi
Boston Herald
Monday, March 2, 2009

An astonishing one in 24 Bay State adults were either behind bars or under community supervision at the end of 2007, costing taxpayers $1.25 billion, according to a national study published today.

The report, prepared by the Pew Center on the States, ranked Massachusetts fifth in the country in terms of the number of adults in prison or jail or under the supervision of probation or parole. The study said that $1.25 billion was spent on corrections at the state and federal level in 2007 statewide.

“In any year, spending $1.25 billion dollars on corrections is stunning. In a fiscal crisis, this kind of spending is unacceptably foolish. If finances is what finally moves the state to revamp its correctional policies, so be it,” said Leslie Walker, executive director of Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services.

The Executive Office of Public Safety and Security, which oversees the state’s prisons and parole system, could not immediately provide comment on the study. State workers are not required to come into work today until noon.

The state with the highest number of adults involved with the correction system was Georgia, where one in 13 adults or 562,763 people were in the penal system in 2007, the Pew study said. There were 206,241 people involved in the penal system in Massachusetts.

The state ranks even higher when it comes to parolees and probationers living in the community.

Massachusetts had the third highest rate of community supervision with 1 in 28 adults or 179,854 people answering to parole and probation officers at the state and federal level.

Parole is a more cost-effective way of monitoring offenders, the study said. It costs $130.16 to incarcerate an adult for one day. That same figure pays for 18 days of parole supervision in the community, the report said.

The Pew Center said that for every dollar Massachusetts spent on prisons in 2008, it spent four cents on parole. The report, entitled One in 31: The Long Reach of American Corrections,” looked at prison populations at the federal, state and county level.

“At long last research that has proven what advocates have been saying for years: Let’s invest in people, not prisons,” said Lyn Levy, executive director of SPAN Inc., a non-profit service provider for ex-offenders. “It’s not only the right thing to do; it’s cost effective, it works, and it makes us safer.”

Nationally, Pew found that the exploding number of people on probation or parole has ballooned the American corrections system population to more than 7.3 million, or 1 in every 31 adults.

While most of those offenders live in the community as a probationer or parolee, the Pew report found that nearly 90 percent of state corrections dollars are spent on prisons.

In terms of the number of adults in a jail or prison, the state ranks much lower nationally at number 47. There were 26,387 adults behind bars in 2007 or 1 in 190 people.

The District of Columbia had the highest incarceration rate in that category with 1 in 50 adults or two percent of its population in a prison or jail.

The Pew report affirms state Department of Correction figures that indicate an exploding prison population. Last year, the state began installing bunk beds in single cells at the maximum security Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley to address systemwide overcrowding.

In 1982, one in 127 adults were invovlved in the Bay State correction system, Pew found.

The DOC, which runs 18 prisons, has a spending plan of $543 million for the fiscal year that ends in June. Gov. Deval Patrick’s budget proposal for Fiscal 2010 proposes a modest decrease in spending to $542 million.

The Parole Board supervises 8,000 parolees annually, according to its Web site. Its budget for this year is $19.4 million.

Office of the Commissioner of Probation figures show that the probation system supervised 256,952 people in Fiscal Year 2008. More than 28 percent of those probationers are juveniles or involved in the Probate and Family Court.

Probation’s operating budget is $142 million. Its proposed spending plan for the fiscal year that begins on July 1 is $151 million, according to the governor’s budget Web site.

lcrimaldi@bostonherald.com

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?&articleid=1155690&format=&page=1&listingType=Loc#articleFull

The National Wildlife Federation (NWF) reported this week that climate change is happening faster than predicted. Every day the media publishes stories like this, highlighting the scientific and policy achievements made by groups like NWF, a U.S. non-profit. It’s amazing what non-profits, think tanks, and NGOs can accomplish in terms of science, policy, and grass-roots initiatives in climate change.

Engaging in a valuable service that governments alone can’t shoulder, the Pew Center on Global Climate Change conducts its own climate change research. Its recent report on U.S.-China climate cooperation (in sidebar) blends original research with policy recommendations. Climate Central, a U.S. NGO, uses savvy communications and media to bring science to the public in an understandable way. In early 2009, the NGO joined with The University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment tapping into its faculty of scientists. Together, their plans include developing easily understandable outreach programs and media productions for the general public, including informing policy makers, that are based on global climate change scientific research.

However, opponents of climate change are rife and strong. For example, U.S. and British scientists attacked ExxonMobil for its role in funding dozens of nonprofits devoted to climate change denial, which it engaged in despite purporting biodiversity conservation efforts on its website. It’s understandable that big oil companies like ExxonMobil would fear climate change efforts in order to keep their dollars and oil flowing and this case exposes how the NPO/NGO public image as nonpartisan and impartial entities can be and is exploited. Thankfully, other non-profits are stepping up with ad campaigns and lobbying efforts such as the Environmental Defense Action Fund, NRDC, and even smaller organizations like 1Sky.

In general, NGOs often function with minimal interference from exploitative influences and provide direct services that complement and stand in for government efforts. Groups like Atlanta-based CARE, an international NGO focusing on global poverty, often show more progress-per-dollar than their official counterparts. In Northern Ghana, CARE works directly with women and marginalized communities to mitigate their vulnerability to climate change, which will affect the poor the most even though they are contributing the least to its cause. Challenge to Change, a British NGO that works primarily in Vietnam, helps communities adapt to climate change and cope with severe weather. In Quang Tri province on the coast and the mountainous Ha Giang province, Challenge to Change provides typhoon and flood relief, raises awareness and works with Vietnamese NGOs towards bottom-up, social justice solutions.

Does the Obama administration have the will to face the prospect that a low cost approach might be inimical to a low carbon strategy, and ensure careful planning and responsible oversight? Or will US officials, keen on building a strong bilateral partnership, overlook the consequences of a business-as-usual scenario in China, permitting environmental degradation as the means to ambitious political ends?

US-China alignment on energy and the environment may sound like just the formula capable of delivering real solutions on climate issues. China’s abundant scientific R&D resources and manufacturing capacity not only help carbon sink testing and scaling up of renewable energies become more feasible, but also less costly. But the potential cost effectiveness of reducing emissions in China could prove more of a liability than a benefit, where the environment is concerned. Toxic runoff from China’s growing solar industry and imported electronic waste recycling offer just two examples of the difficulty of managing and preventing environmental degradation and guaranteeing public health in a developing country context.

The recent release of a joint report from the Asia Society and Pew Center on Global Climate Change, followed by Secretary of State Clinton’s trip to China, have generated considerable US interest in enhancing US-China coordination on energy and the environment.

Could grand bilateral collaboration help reduce the rate of growth of emissions in both countries and bring much needed efficiency improvements to China’s outdated power production and transmission infrastructure? Undoubtedly. Would a powerful US-China nexus held break post-Kyoto gridlock in Copenhagen come December? Maybe. Is a partnership between the world’s largest carbon dioxide emitters likely to be a holy grail for preventing further environmental degradation? Not likely. Though full of promise, the China advantage comes with pitfalls.

The China Advantage

The China advantage, from the perspective of an emissions mitigation-minded policymaker, is development and deployment of clean technologies more cheaply than in the US. This is due to several factors. First, as a 2007 McKinsey report demonstrated, building new, cleaner power plants – in China, say – is usually cheaper than retrofitting old plants – namely, those in the US.

Second, savings come from lower legal costs. Legal considerations that would stall or altogether prevent certain activities in the US are absent in China. For example, attempts to test clean technologies in the US are often riddled with logistical, political and legal obstacles. Nascent and feeble private property laws in China de facto enable the government to exercise eminent domain without significant legal pushback or the same expense as in the US. This makes China a comparatively attractive place to test new technologies, including ambitious clean energy demonstrations of carbon capture and sequestration and an advanced electric grid. However, the lack of legal barriers can present significant environmental liabilities. For instance, the structure of the Chinese legal system makes it difficult or impossible for individuals to file and succeed in a lawsuit against the state or a private company; and, further, the Rules of Civil Procedure do not permit individuals to file class action lawsuits. In the absence of individual legal recourse, there is little incentive for the private or state actors involved to minimize the risk of pollution associated with such demonstrations.

Finally, China’s manufacturing sector offers a cost-cutting strategy. It is no secret that China’s manufacturing capacity far outstrips the US, in terms of cost, across many industries. As an eco-optimist, I often fantasize about the conversion of China’s existing widget factories into production sites of clean energy and energy efficiency equipment. Having spent a considerable amount of time in Chinese factories, however, I am all too familiar with the reality that China’s manufacturing sector offers a cost advantage precisely because environmental costs, like treatment of industrial waste, are often not factored in to the cost of production. This is due, in part, to lax government monitoring and enforcement of environmental regulations. Indeed, instances of environmental negligence have already surfaced in China’s emerging clean energy industry.

A New Gold Rush: Polysilicon Dreams

One very appropriate example is in China’s budding photovoltaic (PV) industry. Insufficient production capacity of polysilicon, the intermediate good needed to make PV panels, has stunted a scaling up of solar manufacturing in the last few years and driven up the cost of panels. China has aimed to meet that demand by bringing facilities online in just a year, shaving one to two years off the industry standard. A2008 Washington Post article reports:

In China, polysilicon plants are the new dot-coms. Flush with venture capital and with generous grants and low-interest loans from a central government touting its efforts to seek clean energy alternatives, more than 20 Chinese companies are starting polysilicon manufacturing plants.

One of those companies is Luoyang Zhonggui Hi-Tech Company, located in China’s Henan province, and a key supplier of polysilicon to the country’s solar poster child and a leading solar company globally, Suntech Power. One of the ways that Luoyang Zhonggui, and likely its competitors, have found it possible to bring manufacturing facilities online so fast and cheaply, according to the same Washington Post article, is by managing pollution recovery constraints by simply not managing them at all: dumping the toxic by-product silicon tetrachloride liquid, four tons of which is generated for every one ton of polysilicon, on surrounding farmland.

A recent white paper published by Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC), a watchdog group that monitors and advocates against contamination associated with the high-tech industry, highlighted the importance of responsible supply chain management in the solar industry. The paper points out that lacking environmental oversight associated with the electronic industry’s growth in previous decades has left a legacy of toxic pollution in communities both near and far.

The exportation of electronic waste to China and other developing countries, and the informal recycling industry that has cropped up around it, presents a significant problem to public health and wreaks significant havoc upon the environment long after the product’s use cycle. A 2007 study published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives found that lead levels in the blood of children in Guiyu, the epicenter of e-waste recycling in China, were twice the level deemed acceptable by the US Center for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC).

While the EU and most OECD countries have ratified a 1992 international agreement on restricting trade in hazardous waste known as the Basel Convention and taken additional measures to prevent e-waste exporting, the US lags behind. In January 2007, EPA rules against exportation of one specific stream of electronic waste – cathode rays tubes (CRTs) found in TV and computer monitors – took effect. Since then, a Government Accountability Office (GAO) sting operation and report revealed that illegal exporting continues to occur, even to a large degree. In fact, the US Department of Commerce estimates that between 50 and 80 percent of e-waste collected for recycling ends up in China and other developing countries.

While the wave of toxic e-waste remains a formidable problem, and toxic dumping concerns have already arisen in China’s solar industry, the SVTC nevertheless contends that the solar industry can still develop in a sustainable manner. In order to deliver a “truly clean and green” sector, however, oversight must occur throughout the product’s lifecycle.

Looking Ahead

Washington is beginning to wake up from an eight-year slumber and consider international solutions appropriate for a truly international problem. The new administration has already demonstrated its intentions to take decisive action on climate policy; namely, by including one of the world’s major stakeholders and partner-in-crime emitters. Early in his campaign, Barack Obama indicated support for federal laws on e-waste. His implicit admission that Americans are responsible for what happens to goods after we use them represents a markedly different approach to the global dimensions of consumption and waste. However, we have yet to see whether he will take steps to ensure that the pre-use — or manufacturing – phase is closely monitored and regulated, particularly in the environmental industry.

The nature of the US-China engagement currently under discussion demands the establishment and enforcement of standards more stringent than those governing other bilateral arrangements, such as trade agreements. Already, China has sent an encouraging signal of a commitment to making progress on environmental protection through legislation. Earlier this week, the State Council, China’s cabinet, signed into effect legislation on the management of electronic waste. The new law delineates manufacturer responsibility for safe production and collection of e-waste. Standards such as these, if properly enforced, would eliminate some of the cost advantage that makes China an appealing partner on energy and climate collaboration. But the hypocritical alternative – maintaining a lax regulatory environment and outsourcing environmental degradation – would constitute a cost of wholly greater proportions, which neither the environment nor humanity is prepared to bear.

If you like what you see here, check out Stepping up Efforts to Control E-Waste: China Passes Electronic Disposal Law and Clinton to Address Climate Change, Energy in China.

If you haven’t had your head buried in the sand for the last few months, you know that the United States is suffering a recession. Families, businesses, and government alike are looking for ways to cut costs, and interestingly enough, the tremulous state of the economy has inspired the Pew Center to issue a new report that encourages states to reduce their spending on corrections as 1 in every 31 adults in America is either imprisoned, on probation, or on parole.

The Pew Center’s Public Safety Performance Project, famous for its study revealing that 1 in 100 adults in the United States is behind bars, breaks down correctional expenses for offenders as such:

• Inmates: $29,000 per year
• Parolees: $2,750 per year
• Probationers: $1,250 per year

These costs are surprisingly high. Prisoners understandably require housing, food, and medical care, but $29,000 is more than many unimprisoned people earn a year to support themselves and their families.

But what’s perhaps most surprising about these figures are the costs of keeping offenders on parole and probation. It takes a significant amount of money to monitor an individual even outside of prison. While a few thousand dollars per person per year may not seem much, when you consider the number of people in the correctional system, it definitely adds up for state governments paying the bills:

• 2,293,157 inmates x $29,000= $66,501,553,000 per year
• 824,365 parolees x $2,750= $2,267,003,750 per year
• 4,293,163 probationers x $1,250= $5,366,453,750 per year
• Grand total: $74,135,010,500 (74 billion!) per year

These costs are directly attributable to a tripled increase in the correctional population in the last 25 years (from two million individuals to over seven million). However, while the financial costs of this ballooning population are staggering, the growing numbers of inmates, parolees, and probationers provoke an even greater expense– public safety.

The Public Safety Performance Project rightly asserts that building more prisons does not keep people safer. As an alternative, it proposes funnelling lower risk offenders through community corrections programs that hold offenders directly accountable to their communities and offer rehabilitative services that reduce recidivism (the prison re-entry rate) and thus new crimes.  Offering individuals incentives to stay crime and drug free, along with incentives for community corrections agencies to improve their success rates, would save state governments millions of dollars in year by reducing the prison population and keeping individuals out of the traditional, costly correctional system. Community programs that have found success are numerous, including the New York City Justice Corps and Hawaii’s HOPE Probation.

For more information about community corrections programs in your state, click here.

Democracy Now

Study: 7.3 Million Americans Now in Prison, on Parole or Probation

Prison Spending Outpaces All but Medicaid

One in every 31 adults, or 7.3 million Americans, is in prison, on parole or probation, at a cost to the states of $47 billion in 2008, according to a new study.

Criminal correction spending is outpacing budget growth in education, transportation and public assistance, based on state and federal data. Only Medicaid spending grew faster than state corrections spending, which quadrupled in the past two decades, according to the report Monday by the Pew Center on the States, the first breakdown of spending in confinement and supervision in the past seven years.

The increases in the number of people in some form of correctional control occurred as crime rates declined by about 25 percent in the past two decades.

As states face huge budget shortfalls, prisons, which hold 1.5 million adults, are driving the spending increases.

States have shown a preference for prison spending even though it is cheaper to monitor convicts in community programs, including probation and parole, which require offenders to report to law enforcement officers. A survey of 34 states found that states spent an average of $29,000 a year on prisoners, compared with $1,250 on probationers and $2,750 on parolees. The study found that despite more spending on prisons, recidivism rates remained largely unchanged.

Pew researchers say that as states trim services like education and health care, prison budgets are growing. Those priorities are misguided, the study says.

“States are looking to make cuts that will have long-term harmful effects,” said Sue Urahn, managing director of the Pew Center on the States. “Corrections is one area they can cut and still have good or better outcomes than what they are doing now.”

Brian Walsh, a senior research fellow at the conservative-leaning Heritage Foundation, agreed that focusing on probation and parole could reduce recidivism and keep crime rates low in the long run. But Mr. Walsh said tougher penalties for crimes had driven the crime rate down in the first place.

“The reality is that one of the reasons crime rates are so low is because we changed our federal and state systems in the past two decades to make sure that people who commit crimes, especially violent crimes, actually have to serve significant sentences,” he said.

Over all, two-thirds of offenders, or about 5.1 million people in 2008, were on probation or parole. The study found that states were not increasing their spending for community supervision in proportion to their growing caseloads. About $9 out of $10 spent on corrections goes to prison financing (that includes money spent to house 780,000 people in local jails).

One in 11 African-Americans, or 9.2 percent, are under correctional control, compared with one in 27 Latinos (3.7 percent) and one in 45 whites (2.2 percent). Only one out of 89 women is behind bars or monitored, compared with one out of 18 men.

Georgia had 1 in 13 adults under some form of punishment; Idaho, 1 in 18; the District of Columbia, 1 in 21; Texas, 1 in 22; Massachusetts, 1 in 24; and Ohio, 1 in 25.

Peter Greenwood, the executive director of the Association for the Advancement of Evidence Based Practice, a group that favors rehabilitative approaches, said states started spending more on prisons in the 1980s during the last big crime wave.

“Basically, when we made these investments, public safety and crime was the No. 1 concern of voters, so politicians were passing all kinds of laws to increase sentences,” Mr. Greenwood said.

President Bill Clinton signed legislation to increase federal sentences, he said.

“Now, crime is down,” Mr. Greenwood said, “but we’re living with that legacy: the bricks and mortar and the politicians who feel like they have to talk tough every time they talk about crime.”

Mr. Greenwood said prisons and jails, along with their powerful prison guard unions, service contracts, and high-profile sheriffs and police chiefs, were in a much better position to protect their interests than were parole and probation officers.

“Traditionally, probation and parole is at the bottom of the totem pole,” he said. “They’re just happy every time they don’t lose a third of their budget.”

Amanda Lenhart of the Pew Internet & American Life Project delivers a succinct presentation about Teens Online Stranger Contact and Cyberbullying. Interesting data and analysis. Presented as part of the April 30, 2008 meeting of the Internet Safety Technical Task Force in Washington DC.

Dear Earth,

I know it’s been a while since my last letter and I hate to be the bearer of even more bad news for you because I know you’ve been under your weather for a really long time, buuuut - remember how I told you the folks at the Pew Research Center were doing a survey to figure out what people think President O’Beautiful’s priorities should be?

Well, they’re done and … gosh, I, I just don’t know how to say this other than just to come right out with it …

About those priorities?
You’re not one.

I mean, your movie was off the chain and all – and you know how hot Al Goregous makes me (kind of like the way burning fossil fuels and deforestation make you feel) – but the bottom line is that we’re all just beginning the long journey out of the darkness of this New Great Depression and, well, you don’t put food on the tab … oh wait - ok, you sort of  do … ummm, uhh, what I meant to say is that you don’t pay the bills.
Yeah, that’s what I’m trying to say.

You don’t pay the bills, and so we have to make fixing the economy Priority Numero Uno right now.

Now, I know we made a big deal about you there for a while and, gosh, I sure hope you don’t take this too hard … it’s just that there’s just so much to fix!!

What with the economic situation, the health care situation, the education situation, the social security situation, the crime situa … well, just all the other situations we’ve been so so busy not fixing for the last eight years.

But you are important to me!!
You are!

Increased heating bills, higher cooling bills, rising insurance bills, ever-expanding grocery bills … I know you’re a part of making all of those bills higher … if only you could help pay for them …
… but you can’t and so folks were all ‘Global Warming Schmobal Schmorming, Earth Schmerth! – I need to get straight up PAID, bitch!’ when it was time to prioritize.

Soooo … you know, like, I’m sorry and all and I really do hope you feel better soon.
Maybe next year … right?!?

Yeah … ok … well, umm, see you at the rally in April …

XOXO,
Cookie

SOURCE

It was announced yesterday that one of the world’s richest men, Mexican Carlos Slim, is lending The New York Times 250 million dollars to help the parent company finance its current debt load. The cash injection grants the company precious time to manage a major credit balloon payment due May of this year. The terms, or mention of the deal, was not easily seen in the NYT, yet the news was front and center in Mexican papers.

I am not an economist so I can’t speak to the financial impact of this deal. As a person committed in her work to considering both sides of the border together, its my great hope that the Slim/NYT partnership will lead to broader and more balanced coverage of Mexico, perhaps returning to and building upon pre-9-11 media that saw Mexico, our mutual history, shared border and all the people who live on both sides, as advantage, and incentive to be patient as we came to better understand one another.

The last eight years has been a nightmare for anyone considering immigration. For cultural exclusionists, alarms bells blazing, emboldened by an acquiescing administration, terror motivated their actions. For cultural inclusionists utterly dumbfounded after so much progress, sadness and fight overtook hope that strides from previous years could be built upon rather than stomped down into the ground.

I have long felt that U.S. coverage of Mexico has been fenced in, with limited and extremely select information, documentation and entertainment crossing our media borders. In my opinion, this approach does more harm than good. For many centuries now, our neighbors to the south have been treated in the media as little more than misunderstood cousins, often the economic scapegoat in faltering economies, secretly ushered in when money is flush, urged to come in, pushed out, urged to come back, come on! get out!

I believe strongly that our media must do a better job of expanding coverage to go beyond the same old stories on Mexico.

Consider the statistics on the coverage of topics about Mexico, Mexicans and other Latinos by visiting http://www.latinosandmedia.org/ which has very specific research examining trends in media coverage of issues vital to the Latino community. This site is made possible by the dedicated work of Austin-based Federico Subervi, whom I met several years ago at a media conference. Also visit the Pew Center for Research site (http://pewhispanic.org/) for additional facts, statistics and information. Check out ListaLatina for discussion and coverage of current issues impacting the Latino community at http://www.latinalista.net/palabrafinal/.

I hope to see an opening of the media border between both countries. Given the promoted promise of global communications, its time we seize an opportunity to expand understanding of and communication with our southern neighbor.

If you are interested, read the Spanish Language article here: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/ultimas/2009/01/19/presta-carlos-slim-250-mdd-a-the-new-york-times

In 1965, Congress passed the landmark Voting Rights Act, which ended various measures used in the South to prevent African-Americans from voting. The legislation is widely viewed as one of the greatest achievements in the history of the civil rights movement.

And yet today there is a group of people who are still systematically discriminated against and repeatedly prevented from voting in election after election. That group consists of the men and women of our armed forces serving overseas.

I first wrote about this back in July in response to a column by Bob Novak. Novak explained that there was a bipartisan effort in the House to remedy the persisting logistical problems that prevent many military members from casting their votes.

That effort seems to have failed to bear fruit, but a new study by the Pew Center details how bad the problem has become. According to the study, in 2006 only one-third of military ballots requested were actually cast and counted. Even worse, they found that “the voting rules in 25 states and the District of Columbia made it nearly impossible for service members stationed abroad to cast ballots in the 2008 election.”

This is the 21st century – surely modern technology should be able to solve this problem. And indeed, the Pew Center concludes its report with four simple recommendations that it feels would be effective in doing so. But what is appalling is that if these numbers applied to any other group in America – Hispanics, say, or African-Americans – there would be massive pressure in the media and from activist groups to end what they would call an outrage. Sadly, however, our military members enjoy no such concern for their civil rights.

This is especially appalling because it is precisely those who are risking their lives in defense of America who most deserve to have their voices heard at the ballot box. Author Robert Heinlein once controversially wrote about a future society in which military veterans were the only citizens allowed to vote, and people joined the military precisely in order to earn that privilege.

You can go here to find out whether your state is doing enough to allow military members to cast their votes. If not, consider e-mailing your state’s Secretary of State and legislative leaders with a link to the Pew Center’s report. Change has to come from somewhere.

Saturday Night & Sunday Morning

Die Performance von John McCain in der Show Saturday Night Live ist für viele einer der besseren Beiträge in der laufenden Kampagne (vgl. den Beitrag und bes. die Nutzerkommentare in der New York Times). McCain hatte den Abend gemeinsam mit Sarah-Palin-Double Tina Fey als Werbebeitrag des Verkaufssenders QVC eröffnet. Dabei wurden allerlei Memorabilia aus der Kampagne angeboten, eine vielleicht etwas grobschlächtige Analogie zum selling of the president als gängige Wahlkampfstrategie. Nichtsdestotrotz, die gut sechsminütige Sequenz war teilweise mit beißendem Spott und Selbstironie ausgestaltet. Ein Höhepunkt war sicher die Vorstellung der (von Cindy McCain wortlos präsentierten) Geschmeide-Serie McCain Fine Gold – einer nicht unsubtilen Referenz an den McCain-Feingold Act zur Reform der Kampagnenfinanzierung (vgl. bes. dazu den umfänglichen Beitrag auf SpOn .

Dass SNL sich nicht vollständig in den Dienst der Kandidaten stellt, wurde allerspätestens bei einem Alleingang von Fey/Palin deutlich, die sich zur Seite drehte und dort ein T-Shirt mit der Aufschrift “Palin 2012″ präsentierte (und nebenbei auch weitere Karriereoptionen andeutete: “Ich bleibe nicht in Alaska, vielleicht werde ich die weiße Oprah Winfrey”). Im weiteren Verlauf der Sendung stellte McCain dann noch mit teilweise bitterer Selbstironie einige mögliche Strategien für die letzten Kampagnentage vor, mit solch schönen Namen wie Double Maverick (“which means I simply go berserk”), The Charleston (“we limit our Campaign to Charleston only”) oder The Sad Grandpa (“Obama has plenty of time to become President – this year it´s my turn”).

Trotz des in großen Teilen positiven Feedbacks (wenig überraschend ist der SNL-Auftritt das derzeitige Hauptthema unter Twitter-Nutzern) konzentrieren sich die Sonntagsausgaben der Zeitungen auf andere, konventionellere Elemente der Kampagnen. In den ersten Zusammenfassungen wird die historische Qualität des Wahlkampfs und die Tragweite der Wahl beschworen (New York Times, Boston Globe, SF Chronicle), Obamas “lange und eindrucksvolle Kampagne” gewürdigt (Guardian) oder ein Blick auf die aktuelle Lage in den wichtigsten Swing States geworfen (RealClearPolitics). Dabei stellen sich viele Beobachter die naheliegende Frage, inwiefern die Umfragen nun tatsächlich eine Auskunft darüber geben, wer am Dienstag tatsächlich wählen gehen wird (Washington Post, Chicago Tribune).

…meanwhile, on the Internet

Ein weiteres Argument, warum der SNL-Auftritt von McCain (aber vielleicht sogar auch das teure Obama-Infomercial vom vergangenen Mittwoch) möglicherweise keine allzugroßen Wirkungen entfalten, liefert ein am 31. Oktober erschienener Bericht des Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. Im zentralen Kampagnenmonat Oktober nannte ein Drittel der Befragten das Internet als Hauptquelle für Wahlinformationen. Selbst wenn das Fernsehen, das drei Viertelals bevorzugtes Nachrichtenmedium nutzen, die öffentliche Wahrnehmung der Kampagnen noch immer dominiert, so zeigt sich insbesondere in den Veränderungsraten die Dynamik der Online-Nutzung. Die Werte für die “alten Medien” stagnieren, während das Internet im Vergleich zum Jahr 2004 um satte 24% zulegen kann. Daraus resultiere bereits eine unmittelbare Konkurrenzsituation zu den Printmedien, folgert die Untersuchung:

The internet now rivals newspapers as a main source for campaign news. And with so much interest in the election next week, the public’s use of the internet as a campaign news source is up even since the primaries earlier this year. In March, 26% cited the internet as a main source for election news, while the percentages citing television and newspapers remain largely unchanged.

Bei aller Vorsicht, die bei solchen Umfragen geboten ist, illustriert der Report die weithin vermutete generational gap bei der Online-Nutzung mehr als anschaulich und ähnelt darin auch den Erfahrungen aus der ARD/ZDF-Onlinestudie:

Not surprisingly, the internet is a considerably more popular source for campaign news among younger Americans than among older ones. Nearly three times as many people ages 18 to 29 mention the internet as mention newspapers as a main source of election news (49% vs. 17%). Nearly the opposite is true among those over age 50: some 22% rely on the internet for election news while 39% look to newspapers. Compared with 2004, use of the internet for election news has increased across all age groups. Among the youngest cohort (age 18-29), TV has lost significant ground to the internet.

Dazu passt eine gerade veröffentlichte Umfrage von Nielson Online im Auftrag der Newspaper Association of America, die einen Zuwachs der Nutzung von Zeitungs-Websites um 16% im dritten Quartal 2008 meldet (im Vorjahresvergleich) . Der Zusammenhang mit der Wahl (und der Finanzkrise) scheint auf der Hand zu liegen, wird aber nicht explizit erwähnt.