14%

Channel Description:

Latest Articles in this Channel:

01/19/10--07:15: They Got It Wrong Behind The Rabid Barks For Justice (chan 1289555)

As I've been reporting for a while, the recession has forced several states to reconsider their awe-inspiring, bankruptcy threatening, criminal justice budgets. Some have made the right decision and crafted plans that reduce their prison populations, others went the other way and reduced spending by privatizing prison services. In California the debate over how to tackle the budget crisis is still raging, and a group calling itself "Families to Amend Three Strikes" has just entered the fray. Given the State's $20 billion deficit, and the fact their prisons are filled to nearly double capacity, you'd think they would find some support in the legislature. But it is not to be so: "State Sens. Jeff Denham of Atwater and Dave Cogdill of Modesto said they oppose early release of inmates as a budget-saving measure. "Opening our prison doors early will only open a floodgate of crime, and that's a risk no...


01/20/10--08:21: I Pulled Into Nazareth, I Was Feelin' About Half Past Dead (chan 1289555)

Tax season is upon us, providing some with a fresh opportunity to fleece the poor of what little they have. The Woodstock Institute has just released a new report on "refund anticipation loans (RALs)," which are high-cost loans provided by for-profit lenders that give tax return filers immediate access to their anticipated returns. The report's findings, in a nut shell, are that poor people are disproportionately seeking quick access to their expected returns. "Nationwide, the highest percentage of RAL consumers are taxpayers that qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), the government’s largest anti-poverty program." That wouldn't be so bad except that RALs reduce expected returns by about 10%. Nationwide (in 2006, the year the study was based on) taxpayers spent approximately $900 million on them. That's $900 million transferring from working people to lending institutions that are accepting virtually no risk because the loans they are granting will...


02/01/10--11:34: Without A Gun And A Badge, What Do Ya Got? (chan 1289555)

I opened this post with the intention of giving officer Kevin Maloney some respect for breaking the Blue Wall of Silence by testifying this afternoon in open court that he saw a fellow officer sodomize a handcuffed man (Michael Mineo) in the Brooklyn subway. Then I remembered Chris Rock's rule: You don't thank people for doing what they're supposed to do. And it struck me hard that in this day and age--and in a circumstance like this where a restrained and unarmed man is violated for no reason but malice--it's still a pleasant surprise when a cop doesn't lie to protect another cop.


02/01/10--12:59: You Tell Me The World's Changed; Once I Made You Rich Enough, Rich Enough To Forget My Name (chan 1289555)

Close your eyes and conjure an image to accompany the word 'poverty.' When I do that I get sheets of cardboard laying over subway grates, people pushing grocery carts wearing baggy coats stuffed with newspaper for insulation, and the inside of a welfare office filled with the stink of purgatory. I'll wager good money most people get similar images, because aside from a brief period in the 1960s when the country decided to care about the Appalachians, poverty has been thought of as a predominantly urban problem. Seems like that might change, soon. A fascinating new study from the Brookings Institute is claiming that between 2000 and 2008 the poverty rate grew fastest in the nation's suburbs. During that time the number of people below the poverty line in central cities grew by 581,694 (5.6%), and the number of people below the poverty line in suburbs grew by 2,500,194 (25%)....


02/03/10--06:55: Cuz I'm A Teenager With A Little Bit Of Gold And A Pager (chan 1289555)

Bob Herbert had an excellent column in the NYT the other day. And I reccomend it to everyone. In it he chews through the NYPD's stop and frisk records for 2009, documenting that: "We already have the data for the first three-quarters of the year, and they are staggering. During that period, more than 450,000 people were stopped by the cops, an increase of 13 percent over the same period in 2008. "An overwhelming 84 percent of the stops in the first three-quarters of 2009 were of black or Hispanic New Yorkers. It is incredible how few of the stops yielded any law enforcement benefit. Contraband, which usually means drugs, was found in only 1.6 percent of the stops of black New Yorkers. For Hispanics, it was just 1.5 percent. For whites, who are stopped far less frequently, contraband was found 2.2 percent of the time. "The percentages of stops...


02/17/10--10:07: Never No Good News, Just More Strife (chan 1289555)

Seeing it has been a minute, how about a little news roundup? Merced, CA, is in the process of siting an encampment to which they will banish all of their homeless sex offenders. Seems like a difficult process, involving a lot of NIMBYism, and the desire to make the lives of the homeless in question as untenable as possible: "Many of the services used by camp residents are across town, and the homeless usually have to walk or bike to use them." Financial concerns have forced Texas to announce cuts to their prison system totaling $294 million, which would result in a projected loss of 3,100 jobs, including prison guards and parole officers. Unsurprisingly, "Legislative leaders immediately called for the prison system and other public safety agencies to be spared from the proposed cuts." Michigan's Governor wants to release 7,500 prisoners early ("Most of the savings would come by allowing...


02/18/10--04:21: So Much Cash, Up In My Bathroom Is A Ready Teller (chan 1289555)

Sometimes the little things are so telling. During the Clinton administration, the IRS was instructed to compile an annual report of the income of the country's top 400 earners. For some reason the Bush administration ordered that the report not be released to the public, and it was all but forgotten until the IRS posted it online without announcement on February 16. Just one of the thousands of little administrative decisions every president makes...but to me it says so much about the character of the president who made it. Unsurprisingly, it turns out Bush era plutocrats got richer, and paid fewer taxes. David Cay Johnston has an analysis of the report, which covers 2007: In 2007 the top 400 taxpayers had an average income of $344.8 million, up 31 percent from their average $263.3 million income in 2006, according to figures in a report that the IRS posted to its...


02/18/10--06:53: Now We're Wondering What They Were Dyin' For (chan 1289555)

The American Prospect ran a piece of mine this morning, and I recommend it to you. It's about the antiwar movement, which is a little off-beat for me, but I think I get around the issue just fine despite that. And, I must note, this was one of the more satisfying pieces I've worked on lately because my investigation revealed that my original thesis was completely wrong. I love having my mind changed during the writing process--it means I'm actually learning something. I began looking into this piece last November. Obama had announced that he was considering a serious escalation in Afghanistan a couple months earlier, and I was surprised that the antiwar movement had barely responded during what seemed like the ideal strategic opening--what better time to hit the streets than while the president was considering all of his options, and had not committed to any specific course of...


02/18/10--12:23: Cool Me Off With Your Big Crime Fighters And Your Newspaper Writers (chan 1289555)

Spencer Ackerman, one of my nearest and dearest, was kind enough to link to my antiwar movement piece this morning, and to offer some thoughts on it. His main critique is as follows: One criticism of Colin’s piece, and it’s something we discussed over dinner recently: I’m not so sure that an antiwar movement needs to be an in-the-streets presence to be effective. It's a fair question to raise and, being honest, one that I'm not certain I have an intellectually consistent answer for. In the article I sort of edged around the issue and, rather than endorse the idea that social movements must have a mass face, I wrote: By moving away from protests, the repertoire the public and media most associate with it, the anti-war movement is taking a big gamble. But if it successfully combines attention-grabbing street antics with congressional lobbying efforts and new claims that relate...


04/23/10--06:47: I Ain't Doing Nothing But Moving On (chan 1289555)

Been a long time, I know. But now I contact you with some good news. Recently, I was invited to write about criminal justice issues for a group blog hosted by Change.org. I accepted, and my first post was just published. (You can find it here: New Study Says...) So, from now on my criminal justice writing can be found here. Everything else (poverty, homelessness, welfare issues, boxing, hip hop, etc) will continue to appear on 14%. I am hoping that the pressure of a regular blogging deadline will promote better work practices and force me to write more regularly. We'll see.