BTC Issues In the News

Federal Agencies Host National Forum on Youth Violence Prevention

Washington — At the direction of the president, the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education officially launched the National Forum on Youth Violence Prevention (the forum) along with participating localities and other federal agencies. articipating cities have pledged to develop or enhance comprehensive plans to prevent youth and gang violence in their city, using multi-disciplinary partnerships, balanced approaches, and data-driven strategies. The cities' comprehensive plans will be presented at a Youth Violence Summit to be held in Washington next spring. These plans will aim to reduce violence, improve opportunities for youth, and encourage innovation at the local and federal levels.  Read more.

Running in the Shadows:  Recession Drives Surge in Youth Runaways

By IAN URBINA

Published: New York Times, October 26, 2009

MEDFORD, Ore.   ... Over the past two years, government officials and experts have seen an increasing number of children leave home for life on the streets, including many under 13. Foreclosures, layoffs, rising food and fuel prices and inadequate supplies of low-cost housing have stretched families to the extreme, and those pressures have trickled down to teenagers and preteens. Read more.

Behind the Laughter

By Bob Herbert
Published:  New York Times, October 12, 2009

The inner cities have been in recession for decades.  They're in a depression now.  Myriad issues desperately need to be addressed: employment, education, the foreclosure crisis, crime, alcohol and drug abuse, health care (including mental health treatment and counseling), child care for working parents and on and on and on.

Conan's jokes would carry a silver lining if they could somehow prompt more people to think more seriously about what's really going on in cities like Newark.  Read more.

Wider Health-Care Access Pays Off

By David Wessel
Published:  Wall Street Journal, October 8, 2009

The current health-care debate focuses, for good reason, on the unsustainable pace at which costs are rising, the reasons the U.S. gets less for each health-care dollar than other countries, and the appropriate role for government in financing, overseeing and providing health care. That is when it isn't a tug of war between competing health-business interests or ugly name-calling between right and left.

Amid all this, it is easy to lose sight of one big, underlying issue: the enormous value of broadening access to quality health care, both to individuals and the entire society. In new research drawing approving attention ...  Read more.

Study Finds High Rate of Imprisonment Among Dropouts
By SAM DILLON
Published:  New York Times, October 9, 2009

On any given day, about one in every 10 young male high school dropouts is in jail or juvenile detention, compared with one in 35 young male high school graduates, according to a new study of the effects of dropping out of school in an America where demand for low-skill workers is plunging.

The picture is even bleaker for African-Americans, with nearly one in four young black male dropouts incarcerated or otherwise institutionalized on an average day, the study said. That compares with about one in 14 young, male, white, Asian or Hispanic dropouts.

Researchers at Northeastern University used census and other government data to carry out the study, which tracks the employment, workplace, parenting and criminal justice experiences of young high school dropouts. Read more.

An Underconsidered Benefit of Health Reform: Fewer Prisoners
By Tracy Velazquez
Published:  washingtonpost.com, October 8, 2009

As Congress debates the costs of reforming our health-care system, it should consider one significant collateral cost of not acting: maintaining the world's highest rate of incarceration. Every year, thousands of people are locked up in U.S. prisons and jails because they do not have access to health care to treat mental illness and drug addiction. Read more. 

A Modern Safety Net

By Shelley Waters Boots and Karin Martinson
Published:  The American Prospect, September 17, 2009

We need to update our social contract for the real lives of working families in a brutal economy.  Read more.

Big Spenders?  They Wish

By Peter S. Goodman
Published:  New York Times, September 12, 2009

Millions of Americans have lost homes, jobs and savings to the financial crisis and recession. While greed and extravagance played roles, many lived beyond their means because their paychecks shrank. This article is adapted from “Past Due: The End of Easy Money and the Renewal of the American Economy,” by Peter S. Goodman, a reporter for The New York Times. The book, to be published Tuesday by Times Books, explores the origins of the crisis and suggests ways to reinvigorate the economy.  Read more. 

Students and Homelessness

Education Slide Show
Published: New York Times, September 6, 2009

For children whose families have become homeless, the turmoil of their personal lives adds challenges to their studies.  Read more.

Budget Cuts Eroding Progress in Juvenile Justice

By Peter S. Goodman
Published:  New York Times, July 9, 2009

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Her first night inside the razor wire at the state juvenile prison came as a 14-year-old in the mid-1970s, when she was locked up for running away from home. Her next experience came the following decade, when she began work as a correctional officer.

As Velvet McGowan tells it, care was a word not then in the lexicon of the South Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice. Teenagers were warehoused like problematic inventory, with as many as 80 crammed into spaces built for 40. Social services were meager. Violent outbreaks occurred daily.

Two decades later, Ms. McGowan oversees the girls’ prison, where she focuses on turning around troubled lives. New programs have expanded counseling and education, cutting the repeat offender rate. New facilities have extricated the state from a federal lawsuit brought in response to once appalling conditions.

But what South Carolina built over many years in eradicating its shameful past is being undermined by the deep economic recession. In the last year, the state has cut the financing for its juvenile justice system by one-fifth, forcing 285 layoffs and the closure of several facilities, including five group homes that focused on counseling. Read more.

To Cut Costs, States Relax Prison Policies

Published: New York Times, March 24, 2009

CARSON CITY, Nev. — For nearly three decades, most states have dealt with lawbreakers in two ways: lock more of them up for longer periods, and build more prisons to hold them. Now many governments, out of money and buried under mounting prison costs, are reversing those policies and practices.  Read more.