Size of minority population impacts states' prison rates, study finds

Source: Science Daily

Summary:
States with a large minority population tend to incarcerate more people, research has concluded. States with large African-American populations are more likely to have harsher incarceration practices, worse conditions of confinement and tougher policies toward juveniles compared with other states. These findings, experts say, provide support for long-standing arguments that the criminal justice system is used as a mechanism for controlling members of the population who are perceived as threats because of race.

...The authors found that less generous welfare spending is a dominant driver of greater state punitiveness in terms of political and symbolic punishment, such as greater use of "three strikes" laws and the death penalty. This, they said, suggested that states may decide whether to deal with marginalized populations through the penal system or the welfare system. In addition, states with lower rates of poverty were also more punitive in the area of political and symbolic punishment, the authors found.

Regarding incarceration practices, higher levels of citizen engagement and higher rates of property crime are associated with less punitiveness, the authors said. States with a large African-American population tend to have more punitive incarceration practices. The violent crime rate was a significant and positive driver of punishments for "immorality" crimes, such as prostitution, gambling and drug abuse on the theory that doing so acts as a deterrent against more serious crimes. For juvenile justice, states with a higher violent crime rate and states with a larger African-American population were likely to have more punitive policies, the study said.

Read more: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/10/141014114748.htm?utm_source=feedburner

Did You Know The FBI Has Been Raiding Charter Schools?

"While fawning over Campbell Brown and Michelle Rhee, the media talkers have turned their back on a huge story: a pattern of charter school corruption so egregious, the FBI has had to intervene. "

I can't post more w/o purchasing a license, but it's worthwhile to go to the link & read:
http://crooksandliars.com/2014/08/did-you-know-fbi-has-been-raiding-charter

So, ha ha, charter schools have turned out exactly as we thought, another opportunity for corrupt corporations & corrupt pols to come together & destroy the public school system for money.

Missouri police 'shoot second man' in city where teenager was killed

Source: The Guardian

A second man has been shot by police in the Missouri city where an unarmed black 18-year-old was shot dead last weekend, according to multiple reports.

Police officials told local reporters that the man was shot in Ferguson by a St Louis County officer after pointing a handgun at him soon after 1am on Wednesday, following fresh demonstrations over the death on Saturday of Michael Brown.


Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/13/missouri-police-shoot-man-city-teenager-killed

Tea Party Wave Stripped Southern Black Legislators Of Power

My father the iconoclast

Irv, a Jewish progressive agnostic, liberated a concentration camp as a young army lieutenant. He well understood the effects of unchecked hatred.

When I was 5 he put me on his lap & propped the Margaret Bourke-White book of pictures from the Holocaust on my legs. "These are your people. This is what was done to them." The book dug into my thighs w/ a vengeance, but I said nothing for I knew my pain was nothing compared to what I was seeing.

We moved from Philly to S. Florida when I was 4. I was solemnly told that if I was ever at a friend's house & heard their parents say anything bad about black people I was to come right home, because they hated me too.

We never had milk as a beverage b/c Irv said the milk lobby were liars & milk would kill you. We never had white bread or white rice. Dessert was fruit, usually picked from a back yard tree. Did I raise my son w/o sugar & vegetarian? You bet I did!

I was taught to speak out, that silence was collusion. I grew up shy, but knees knocking I stand up in class, auditorium, wherever, & say what's on my mind: At a storyteller's conference: "I know you bill yourself as a feminist storyteller, please explain to me & the other people here exactly what's feminist about the story you just told" to a male storyteller who told a horrifically sexist tale. "Please get back on topic, I find what you're saying about your dog upsetting" to a psychology professor who told of conditioning his dog to enjoy spankings. Yep, my dad taught me to do that. Sometimes people come up afterwards & thank me; sometimes they hate my guts. Shrug! I'm Irv's daughter.

There was no censorship in my parent's house. When I decided to read the works of Freud at age 13 (what could it possibly have meant to me?) that was cool, I just had to read in the family room.

He died just before Florida was the deciding factor in GWBush's election, which would not have made him happy. Up until his last years he attended elder hostels & other classes. I got used to him calling me wanting to discuss the plays of Ibsen or revisionist views of Eisenhower.

To say Irv was the biggest influence in my life is an understatement. You see, I never really had a chance to be anything other than a progressive, peacenik, atheist, vegetarian, natural foods eating feminist. For that I'm forever grateful.