Smarter on Crime

Courts Push Back on California Prisons

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By Bernice Yeung | Crowdfund this with Spot.Us
Part of the Prisons & Public Health news blog
How will California resolve its chronic prison overcrowding problems? With court-imposed deadlines ahead, the answer is as murky as ever. Sept. 18 Deadline Looms
In August, following class-action litigation filed by California inmates, a federal court found that the state’s prisoners were receiving Constitutionally sub-par health and mental health care because of overcrowding, and issued an order requiring the inmate population to be lowered by more than 40,000 over the next two years. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger filed a motion to delay the order, which the district court denied; a further appeal filed with the U.S. Supreme Court was also turned down last week.

Nation

Across the Heartland, U.S. Military Suicides Spike

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From Ohio to Texas, newspapers around the United States are running local stories on a surge in suicides and trauma involving members of the U.S. military. The Cleveland Plain Dealer is looking at the apparent suicide of Army Pvt. Keiffer Wilhelm. At Fort Hood, in Texas, multiple soldiers have committed suicide every year since the Iraq war began, the Austin American Statesman reports. The Indianapolis Star did a four-part series in September that detailed how Sgt.

Democracy & Civics

Public Transit Users Looking for a Lift

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Got a clunker? At least until late August, that could get you cash. Ride the bus or rapid transit? Too bad, so sad; you pay instead. Across the country, local governments are reducing service and raising fares for municipal bus, train and light rail lines, according to a new study by Transportation for America, a nonprofit advocacy group.

Smarter on Crime

Calif. Prison Woes Tracked in Newspaper’s Interactive Maps

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By Bernice Yeung | Crowdfund this with Spot.Us
Part of the Prisons & Public Health news blog
The Sacramento Bee has posted some new online maps in advance of the potential release of 27,000 California inmates due to budget cuts, and another 40,000 thanks to a federal court order to curb prison overcrowding. Last week’s map, “An overview of California prisons,” reveals the capacity of prisons throughout the state, as well as prisoner demographics and stats on their crimes, simply by rolling your mouse over each facility listed. According to the map, the California Medical Facility in Vacaville is the least overcrowded, at 118 percent of capacity. Meanwhile, the Deuel Vocational Institution in Tracy is the most overcrowded, operating at 233 percent above capacity. Earlier this month, the Bee also published the interactive map, “Counties with the most residents in prison,” which notes that Kings County has highest ratio of its residents in prison with 9.4 inmates per 1,000 county residents.

Democracy & Civics

Costa Rica's Ecotourism Marred by Development, Evictions

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Costa Rica’s lauded ecotourism industry is under new, and not always positive, scrutiny. Community-based ecotourism is getting raves for creating jobs in agricultural areas, where tourists delight in glimpsing and sharing a day in the life of a Costa Rican farmer, Inter Press Service reports. President Oscar Arias approved a law in July to support “agro-ecotourism” as a way to let small farmers and some indigenous communities share in the tourism boom. Yet another law protecting coastal resources is being used to remove impoverished communities living on beachfront plots on or near ecotourism destinations. Lacking titles to land they say their families have occupied for decades, residents near the Ostional Wildlife Refuge, a haven for sea turtles on Costa Rica’s northern Pacific coast, are set for removal.