9 January 2010
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Posted via email from the Un-Official Southwestern PA Re-Entry Coalition Blog
8 January 2010
what i haven't seen
Mazur checks out the year's best female acting and offers up a mostly alternative opinion to the boring Oscar-begging consensus picks including some you might not have heard about, yet.Do Jobs Programs Cause Crime?
With something approaching fifty years of economic and crime statistics consistently disproving any correlation between recessions and crime, not to mention the last 12 months of terrible economic news coupled with still-dropping crime rates, you’d think journalists might finally start questioning their knee-jerk pronouncements about “lack of opportunity” being the primary motivation for unlawful behavior.
But they won’t. Journalists simply can’t, I think, let go of the idea that young people (males, mostly) commit crime primarily because they are being unjustly deprived of economic opportunity. To let that idea go would result in nothing less than the catastrophic collapse of a myth on which rests perhaps a fifth or more of the emotional underpinnings of the fourth estate. It would require shifting culpability for criminal behavior from society at large, where journalists and policymakers are comfortable placing it, onto individuals who commit crimes (and in many cases their families and immediate communities, but no farther).
With the exception of some big city newsrooms, however, the rest of the world is moving on. Journalists who cling to the disproved crime-economy calibration are even starting to sound out of step with many crime experts, and not just conservative think tank ones like Heather Mac Donald who have long argued against “root theories” of crime. Even James Allen Fox of Northeastern University was quoted this week denying the correlation between recession and crime:
Prof. Fox said a common assumption that crime goes up during a recession is wrong. Historic data show there is little connection between economic conditions and crime, particularly violent crime.
Then again, this was an article in the Wall Street Journal. Almost exactly a year ago, in a now-widely derided editorial, the New York Times drew a very different inference from Fox’s statements on the economy:
Federal and state programs that are supposed to provide jobs, services and counseling have been poorly financed for years. They are likely to suffer further as cash-strapped states look for ways to save money. The timing couldn’t be worse.
Fewer jobs programs are going to equal more crime, the Times cried. They continued:
A new study by James Alan Fox and Marc Swatt of Northeastern University suggests that violent crime among young people may be rising, that the much-talked-about reduction in the crime rate in the 1990s may be over, and that much more must be done to prevent young people from succumbing to the gang culture. The study also shows that the murder rate for black teenagers has climbed noticeably since 2000 while the rate for young whites has scarcely changed on the whole and, in some places, has actually declined. While more financing for local police would be useful, programs aimed at providing jobs and social services are far more important.
The inconsistency here is not Fox’s: he was calling for varied interventions, including policing. But the Times is simply incapable of acknowledging the role of policing and incarceration in lowering crime rates. They can’t stop chanting “jobs or crime,” even though economic and crime trends in the 1960’s, 1970’s, 1980’s, 1990’s, and now 2000’s utterly belie that claim. Only one thing will stop crime, they insist (hysterically, it’s fair to say):
[T]he economic crisis has clearly created the conditions for more crime and more gangs — among hopeless, jobless young men in the inner cities. Once these young men become entangled in the criminal justice system, they are typically marginalized and shut out of the job market for life. President-elect Barack Obama’s administration and Congress will need to address the youth crisis as part of the country’s deep economic crisis. That means reviving the federal summer jobs programs that ran successfully for more than 30 years.
Ah yes, summer jobs programs. The single biggest graft incubator and inner-city political corruption cash cow since the mafia tipped its first garbage pail. Start a riot and burn down all the legitimate businesses in your neighborhood? Get a jobs program. Serial killer on the loose? Get a jobs program. Fiscal conservatives take over Washington? Get a jobs program to sop mayoral nerves. Big government liberals take over Washington? Jobs programs, jobs programs, jobs programs.
After years of observing jobs programs in Atlanta, which is an epicenter of such things, I came to the conclusion that jobs programs themselves are a cause of crime, and not just the proximate crimes that arise directly from the grants-giving process, like kickbacks, or pay for play, or just plain stealing, though such graft is not inconsequential. Beyond the immediate larceny, jobs programs grow a culture of extreme political corruption. They bankroll the most crooked, on-the-make actors in city and county politics, many of whom started out on the jobs side of community outreach and resurfaced a few years later peddling substandard mortgages and community redevelopment scams, scams that contributed mightily to the current economic crisis. When a critical mass of community leaders are on the make, when political appointees like chiefs of police are chosen by people who are themselves on the make, you get a culture where crime flourishes.
I’m no statistician, but somebody who is could probably create a nice chart correlating jobs program dollars with indictments for political corruption: in Atlanta, that chart would prominently feature former Mayor Bill Campbell, who built both his indictable inner circle and his “get out the vote” muscle on such programs, most notably the hundreds of millions of dollars in squandered and pilfered “empowerment zone” monies. Hundreds of millions of dollars buys a lot of bad actors, large and small, from the “community activists” who can be relied on to squeal and grandstand for a few thousand bucks, to the classes who expect a few hundred thousand in contracts for their spouses and children in return for political cover. These people didn’t care that some neighborhoods in the city were ringing with gunfire: that sound was merely cha-ching in their pockets as they held out their hands and Washington filled them with money.
Atlanta’s worst years, while crime skyrocketed and the mayor and his cronies ransacked city government, only came to an end after the jobs program money ran out, and chastened city leaders had to cope with the hangover. And with this reality: jobs programs don’t create jobs: they create programs. Once the grant money runs out, or, more likely, gets pocketed, there’s nothing left in its place.
The crack epidemic ended the same way: things got crazier and crazier and crazier until people burned out, or they went to jail and cleaned up their acts, or they died, and those who survived were more cautious not to go down that path again.
This time around, positive results are occurring in cities where police and courts, or the public, or all three engage in tactics that can be broadly named “broken windows” policing. A neighborhood group that patrols its own streets and takes on vandalism and abandoned buildings and shows up in court to testify is engaging in broken windows policing, even if the police aren’t officially involved and the judiciary is still dragging its heels. Atlanta is the best example of that happening at the community level — while New York, Los Angeles, and Orlando are proving the effectiveness of the “broken windows” theory directly through their police and courts.
In contrast, cities that continue to do things the “old way,” and, not incidentally, are still mired in the same old political culture — Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago — still have high homicide rates, give or take a few points.
I don’t know what, if anything, will “tip” the current pockets of high-crime, inner-city culture away from self-destruction this time. But empowering two-bit political hacks by handing them wads of money for fictional “jobs programs” will just make things worse.
No matter what the editorial board at the New York Times believes.
what to do...what to do?
Posted via email from the Un-Official Southwestern PA Re-Entry Coalition Blog
what brings us together
Posted via email from the Un-Official Southwestern PA Re-Entry Coalition Blog
Video: The Avon Barksdale Story (Trailer)
Here’s a trailer for the DVD release of a new documentary that details the life and times of real life Baltimore kingpin Avon Barksdale, the man on whom the infamous character from The Wire was based.
Hit the jump for the full press release.
(New York, NY)- E1 Music is excited to announce the release of The Avon Barksdale Story- Legends Of The Unwired – in March 2010. This gripping film won Best Docudrama at this year’s NY International Independent Film & Video Festival and reveals the raw truth about death, drugs, and violence in the streets of Baltimore, MD. In The Avon Barksdale Story, the real Nathan Avon “Bodie” Barksdale tells all to actor Wood Harris, who played his on screen character in HBO’s critically acclaimed series The Wire.
The Wire was based on the lives of real gangsters. The Avon Barksdale Story is the first to chronicle the actual lives of these real people. Barksdale’s real name, Nathan Avon Barksdale, and his nickname, “Bodie,” were both used in the series as composite characters. Avon Barksdale was The Wire’s first season’s central character. The storyline focused on the Barksdale clan and their ruthless hold on Baltimore’s underworld and the intense efforts of law enforcement to stop them. Barksdale was a real crime figure in Baltimore.
Barksdale says he consulted David Simon, the creator of The Wire, during the early filming of the highly successful mini-series. He says, “The Wire was one long commercial for this!”
During the drug wars of the ‘80s, long before The Wire’s drug kingpin Avon Barksdale entered the mind of David Simon, a young man (named Nathan Avon “Bodie” Barksdale) was in the belly of one of the most violent neighborhoods on Baltimore’s Westside. The Lexington Terrace Projects was one of the most notorious areas in the city making it the perfect backdrop for HBO’s The Wire. But unlike David Simon, an admitted outsider, this story possesses the intimate detailing which can only come from an insider’s view. The real Barksdale brings the riveting fact-filled account of his world now known as The Avon Barksdale Story – Legends of the Unwired. A must see story for all true fans of The Wire!
Previously: Raekwon & Snoop From The Wire Talk Homosexuality in Hip-Hop
Posted via email from the Un-Official Southwestern PA Re-Entry Coalition Blog
7 January 2010
Visit Beautiful St. Paul, Squatters!
St. Paul is hanging out the "welcome" sign for squatters. An article in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune, meant to illustrate how bad the problem really is, makes occupying an abandoned home sound mighty appealing.
"I can almost guarantee you that there are at least 1,000 homes available to squat in," says St. Paul's vacant buildings manager, sounding more like a representative from the Visitor's Bureau. In fact, the number of empty buildings in St. Paul, most of which are homes, jumped from 372 at the end of 2004 to more than 2,000 by 2009, according to the newspaper.
Take this home: "custom-built, 2,600-square-foot house near Battle Creek Park ... splendid, a beautiful combination of blond brickwork, glass blocks and fresh paint ... handsome split-level ... two fireplaces ... sprawling backyard, where deer regularly roam." Sounds lovely. Until recently it was home to squatters who didn't even bother to use the tanning bed in the home's exercise room.
One housing inspector told a story about a homeowner who returned to Nigeria when his house was foreclosed on. The new owner, a bank headquartered states away, wouldn't return her calls. Meanwhile, a woman had moved into the home and was living comfortably, with house plants and an ab workout machine, for six months before the inspector convinced the electric and water companies to shut off services.
Across town, a man appointed himself the landlord of an abandoned six-unit building and actually collected rent checks from other residents. Not a bad gig, if you can get it.
"If the grass is cut and there's not trash collecting in the yard and we're not getting nuisance complaints, we wouldn't know about it," said a city employee. Is that a promise?
On the Other Hand...
Back when the economy was flush, President Bush (yes, that President Bush) started the “prisoner re-entry” ball rolling with $330 million dollars in federal funding to go for housing, drug rehab, jobs, and various therapies for ex-cons. But now that we are a year into record unemployment for non-ex-cons, should the federal government still be offering tax breaks as a reward for hiring people with criminal records?
With one in ten people (probably more) unemployed, should committing a crime give people a leg up over other job applicants?
Consider one state with a (relatively) good financial outlook, Kansas. 24,000 people are on the unemployment roll in Kansas: the unemployment rate, around 6%, is far better than in many other places. But the state has also lost 60,000 jobs since last November. Nevertheless, taxpayers in Kansas seeking work are still subsidizing tax breaks for businesses who choose ex-cons over law-abiding job seekers.
Amazingly, the federal program offering tax breaks for hiring offenders even provides employers with “free insurance to protect them against losses including by theft, forgery or embezzlement.” You know, for when the rehabilitation doesn’t take.
I’m all for offering offenders the chance to clean up in prison: who wouldn’t be? But A.A. and N.A. programs cost nothing to run or attend, in or out of jail. There also seems to be no shortage of naive (often religious) volunteers eager to teach offenders how to dress right for a job interview.
But the minute there’s grant money involved, expect wrap-around freebies for “clients” and zero accountability regarding whether a single dime spent does any good at all. Here is a description of some of Kansas’ federal tax-funded re-entry expenditures, from a March 2009 article in U.S.A. Today:
In a hushed conference room overlooking the town’s main drag, eight convicted felons, including an aspiring amateur fighter, brandish bright Crayola markers. Their goal is to match their personalities to one of four colors. Tim Witte, 27, on probation for evading arrest, eyes the task as if sizing up a fellow middle-weight on Kansas’ gritty cage-fighting circuit. Witte and two drug offenders settle on orange. The color, indicative of a restless, risk-taking personality, is the hue of choice for most offenders, says Michelle Stephenson, the corrections officer leading the unusual exercise. . . Probation officers now help offenders find work, health care, housing, counseling, transportation and child care. During the past several months, for example, the office spent $110 to cover an offender’s utility payments; $500 for a rent payment; $600 for six bikes the office loans to get to job interviews; $77 for a YMCA membership to help an offender improve his physical condition and $320 for eight anger-management counseling sessions.
The coloring class, gym memberships, et. al. are part of a gamble the state is taking with violent felons. In an effort to cut costs, ex-cons are assigned to community-based “behavior modification” classes rather than being returned to prison for parole violations. So that guy breaking into your garage might just get sent to art class, instead of back to prison.
Gee, who needs an anger management class now?
Does any of this busywork actually rehabilitate criminals? Or are the few successes held forth for the press just the people who would have gotten their act together anyway? Even if the overseers of these programs weren’t utterly unreliable reporters, thanks to their nearly universal anti-incarceration ethos, there’s really no way to know.
For when states simultaneously set up crayola workshops for felons and instruct parole officers to send fewer violators back to prison and send the word down to prosecutors that more cases should be pleaded away, there are a million ways to make the results look good. With layers of politicians and government workers and non-profits, there’s always somebody willing to point at the crayon box and declare (for a fee, of course) that the patient has been cured.
Well, except for this guy. According to Kansas offender records, he absconded some time after U.S.A. Today introduced us to him in his coloring class.
Not in Kansas anymore?
Posted via email from the Un-Official Southwestern PA Re-Entry Coalition Blog
5 January 2010
Trouble Accepting
thanx for your timexxx
Posted via email from the Un-Official Southwestern PA Re-Entry Coalition Blog
30 December 2009
29 December 2009
Feminizing Women’s Sports Teams
In the book Strong Women, Deep Closets: Lesbians and Homophobia in Sports, Pat Griffin discusses the pressure on female athletes to constantly prove they, and their sport, are acceptably feminine, for fear of being labeled lesbians. Women who engaged in, and openly enjoyed, sports have often been viewed with suspicion or concern, ranging from beliefs that physical exertion might make them infertile to a fear that women’s sports teams serve as recruiting sites for lesbians. Some college coaches even try to get young women to play on their teams by hinting to their parents that other schools their daughter is considering are known for having a lot of lesbians and it might not be the “type of environment” where they want their sweet little girl to go.
Female athletes, and women’s sports teams, thus often feel a lot of pressure to prove their heterosexuality to quell homophobic fears and to make women’s sports appealing to a broad audience. One way to do so is to dissociate themselves from lesbians. Another is to emphasize the femininity of female athletes, signaling that they are, despite their athletic abilities, still physically attractive to, and interested in, men.
Stephen A. sent us a link to Florida State University’s women’s basketball website that made me think of Griffin’s work. The Meet the Team segment of the website includes images of the women dressed in formal dresses, with make-up and hair done, posing in or on limos:
Similarly, Texas A&M put out this promotional media guide, which features an image of the male coach surrounded by the team in sexy clothing:
While these types of materials have traditionally been for the media, they’re increasingly used as recruiting tools for players as well. Those who produce them argue that they’re just trying to put out something distinctive that will set them apart. And as Jayda Evans at the Seattle Times says, it’s not like men’s sports teams are never photographed off the court.
But as many researchers have pointed out, and as Evans herself discusses, female athletes are often photographed and discussed in ways that largely erase their athletic abilities. When men’s teams are dressed up for publicity materials, it’s usually for one or two images that are outnumbered by ones that highlight their sports participation. For female athletes, images that exclude any connection to sports often become nearly the entire story. And despite the fact that the creators often stress their interest in doing something unique and distinctive to set themselves apart, there is a very common set of elements in promotional materials for women’s sports: clothing, make-up, hair, and poses that sexualize the players and implicitly include a reassurance to parents, potential players, and fans that the women are pretty, charming, and feminine, regardless of what they do on the court or the field.That is, they are blending masculinity and femininity by being athletic and pretty, not giving up their femininity altogether.
Of course, part of an acceptable performance of femininity is showing that you want male attention, and that you actively try to make yourself appealing to men. So while these materials might do many other things, they also carry a particular message: these girls like to pretty themselves up, and that should reassure you that it’s not a team full of lesbians.
The effect of all this is that female athletes may feel pressured to keep their hair long, wear make-up even on the court, and emphasize any relationships they have with men or children to “prove” they are straight, and a lesbian who likes makeup and sexy clothing may face less suspicion and stigma than a straight woman who doesn’t.
Also see our posts on Serena Williams’s ESPN cover, Candace Parker “is pretty, which helps,” groundbreaking female sailor is also pretty, sexualizing female Olympic athletes, diets of champions, media portrayals of female athletes, and valuing dads in the WNBA.
(View original at http://contexts.org/socimages)
..if not here, where?
People make stupid decisions in their lives. Does that mean you just turn your back on them when they want to make it right? I'd rather have someone hooked on methadone than heroin living on my street. And believe me, they live on YOUR street.
Posted via email from the Un-Official Southwestern PA Re-Entry Coalition Blog
28 December 2009
27 December 2009
CCAC Job Prep Courses
CCAC to put workers on career fast track
By Mike Cronin, PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Related Articles
· Demands high for new job skills
Welders and EMTs, please apply.
Wastewater operators and information technology-support specialists, too.
"The jobs are on the state's high-priority list," said Judy Savolskis, interim vice president for work force development at Community College of Allegheny County. "If you're trained in one of these areas, you will probably find a job."
Beginning next month, CCAC will offer accelerated-certificate, diploma and other types of programs in 18 career areas, including those, said Mary Frances Archey, CCAC's vice president for learning and student development.
"When we started to see the economic conditions in the area, we knew individuals wanted to get back to work much faster than a traditional community-college student who takes semester-long classes," Archey said.
Students can acquire skills, or "retool" existing ones, in three to six months, Savolskis said.
That's a lot faster than many students perhaps thought they could obtain necessary training, said David Hoovler, CCAC's spokesman.
The compressed programs ensure that working people, and people looking for work, aren't "sidelined longer than is really necessary," Hoovler said.
"This program could change people's minds," he said. "It shows them what they can do."
Two programs are almost booked, Archey said: Phlebotomy, the practice of drawing blood, and welding.
Welding is so popular that CCAC offers a class that begins around midnight and continues until roughly 3 a.m., Savolskis said. Students can take welding during mornings, afternoons and evenings five days a week -- and several hours on Saturdays, she said.
"The thing about welding is that it is used in all types of occupations, from working on bridges to the automotive industry," Savolskis said.
Other areas, such as IT, offer people the opportunity to update abilities to current standards, she said.
"That's important for the employer and the employee."
CCAC officials plan to assess the effectiveness and popularity of the condensed schedule and the classes offered, and then decide whether to continue it, Archey said.
"It's possible we'll keep a certain portion of this format all the time. We're already talking about what we're going to do in the summer and next fall."
PROGRAMS
Computer and Business Programs
• Basic Computer-aided Drafting -- South campus (West Mifflin)
• Information Technology Support -- North campus (McCandless)
• Project Management Boot Camp -- West Hills center (Oakdale)
• Property & Casualty Insurance Career Preparation -- South campus
Health Care and Child Care
• Child Care -- Allegheny campus (North Shore)
• Emergency Medical Technician -- Allegheny campus
• Home Health Attendant -- Downtown center (Stanwix Street)
• Medical Office Manager -- Allegheny campus
• Nurse Aide Training -- Downtown center or Boyce campus (Monroeville)
• Phlebotomy -- Boyce campus
Green Programs
• Drinking Water Operator -- West Hills center (Oakdale)
• Wastewater Operator Certificate Program -- West Hills center
Manufacturing and Technical Programs
• Advanced Manufacturing/Integrated Systems Technology "Mechatronics" -- West Hills center (Oakdale)
• Electrical Motor Repair -- West Hills center
• Electrical Systems -- West Hills center
• Mechanical Systems -- West Hills center
• Programmable Electrical Controls -- West Hills center
• Welding -- West Hills center
Posted via email from the Un-Official Southwestern PA Re-Entry Coalition Blog
be here-Now!
Talk Gone Wrong
