Featured

California Prisons Report: A Look Inside with Hastings Scholar Hadar Aviram

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Despite a year of legal sanctions and budget cuts, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation takes an upbeat tone in its new annual report. Inspirationally titled “Corrections Moving Forward” [25 mb PDF], the report opens with a letter from the CDCR secretary Matthew Cate, who writes that “in the midst of significant challenges, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) has quietly had a remarkable string of successes in the last year. While it is easy to focus on the negative, there have been many positive developments at our agency.”

Featured

The Buzz is Catching

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Second-hand smoke? Not an issue for electronic cigarettes, which emit nicotine-infused vapor. That’s good news for nonsmokers, and those who want to skirt anti-smoking laws. But should the FDA regulate them as “drug delivery devices” for nicotine addicts? Photo: Izuaniz

Nation

Regulators Swipe at Electronic Cigarettes

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Smokeless electronic cigarettes may win converts, following new Centers for Disease Control evidence that secondhand smoke can raise the risk of heart disease by up to 30 percent in nonsmokers. The devices are battery operated, and dispense with burning tobacco; instead, users inhale a nicotine-infused vapor as the tip of the e-cigarette glows with a small red light. Proponents say that hit of nicotine doesn’t have the same health risks, especially for non-users. E-cigarettes have no odor and produce no smoke from combustion, which means e-smokers can get around smoking bans in public places. But no smoke doesn’t mean no fire.

Smarter on Crime

A Pound of Cure: Tracy Velazquez on Prisons and National Health Care Reform

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By Bernice Yeung | Crowdfund this with Spot.Us
Part of the Prisons & Public Health news blog
In a recent Washington Post op-ed, Tracy Velazquez of the Justice Policy Institute said national health-care reform could keep people out of jail. “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,” she wrote. “Prisons, jails, and juvenile facilities are now some of the largest providers of mental health services in the country.” In conversation with Newsdesk.org, Velazquez, whose Washington, D.C.-based think tank considers “tough on crime” policies to have largely failed, said the costs of incarceration greatly outweigh the price of preventive health care. Bernice Yeung: Tell us more about the connection between health care reform and criminal justice policy.

Environment

Future National Seashore?

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Rising tides may destroy Everglades National Park in Florida, sherpas fear melting ice will cause glacial lakes to burst their banks in a “mountain tsunami” and wipe out Mt. Everest’s climbing trails … how will climate change ruin your vacation? Photo: Everglades National Park/Heartajack