How to Reduce Recidivism

Sometimes Atlanta has data which can be applied to the rest of Georgia. An Emory University press release of 26 Mar 2009 says Study Focuses on Barriers to Successful Prisoner Re-Entry Into Atlanta Communities:
Gaining employment was hindered by multiple obstacles: In addition to low levels of education and work experience, and the reluctance of employers to hire someone who has served time in prison, they also lacked the personal networks to help them identify and secure jobs. Those findings echoed the experiences of government and community-based reentry service providers.

However, “housing was identified as the most central issue and need people faced immediately upon their return or move to Atlanta,” said Owens. “For those released from prison without obtaining a guaranteed bed at a transitional house or shelter, and possessing only their $25 in ‘gate money,’ finding a place to stay that was secure, decent and accessible was often impossible.”

So it’s a difficult problem, but the first step is obvious.

And there’s a basic reason for doing something:

“In many ways, the success or recidivism of former inmates has a tremendous impact on the communities where they settle, but given the stigma attached, it hasn’t exactly been a cause championed by many. But, positive reentry is a necessity, not an option, when it comes to public safety, preserving families and the development and stability of neighborhoods,” said assistant professor of political science Michael Leo Owens, coauthor of the study “Prisoner Reentry in Atlanta: Understanding the Challenges of Transition from Prison to Community.” View the prisoner reentry study (PDF).
Helping prisoners re-enter the community reduces crime and increases employment, so it would seem like something everyone would want.

Prisoner Re-Entry

Prisoners have to be released from prison or the county jail into the same community, and can’t get a job because they’re ex-cons, and often not even an apartment. Result? Homeless ex-cons turning to crime. A New York Times editorial suggests Smart Answers to Recidivism:
Faced with soaring prison costs, states are finally focusing on policies that would help former prisoners stay out of jail after they are released. Some legislatures are reshaping laws that land parolees back inside for technical violations that should be dealt with on the outside. More than a dozen cities and counties have taken steps that make it easier for qualified ex-offenders to land government jobs, except in education and law enforcement and other sensitive areas from which people with convictions are normally barred by law.

Still, the nation as a whole needs to do much more about laws that marginalize former offenders — and often drive them back to jail — by denying them voting rights, parental rights, drivers licenses and access to public housing, welfare and food stamps, even in cases where they have led blameless lives after prison.

The specific example they consider is New Jersey, but Texas has also led in throwing people into jail and now is starting to try to do something about ex-prisoners once they get out. Paying as much per prisoner as would cost to send them to college, in a time of chronic budget shortfalls, is not very attractive. Georgia could also make changes to reduce recidivism, and reduce its prison population.

Longleaf Flood Prevention and Carbon Sequestration

dscn1384_candle_dead_leaves Instead of planting fast-growing slash or loblolly pines just to burn up in a biomass plant, how about plant the south’s iconic longleaf pine trees to capture and hold carbon from the atmosphere?
“Longleaf should be the centerpiece of land-based carbon sequestration efforts in the Southeast,” the report states, urging that national policymakers make the ecosystem as high a priority as the Everglades or Chesapeake Bay.
The report is Restoring the Longleaf Pine: Preparing the Southeast for Global Warming, Published December 10, 2009 by the National Wildlife Federation and two southeast forest conservation groups, America’s Longleaf, and The Longleaf Alliance.

People rightly worry about deforestation in the Amazon basin of Brazil, but forget or never knew that we already did that right here in the southeast: Continue reading →

Solar panels from Lowe’s or Home Depot

Chris Kahn writes in Mail Times about Solar power coming to a store near you:
Solar technology is going where it has never gone before: onto the shelves at retail stores where do-it-yourselfers can now plunk a panel into a shopping cart and bring it home to install.

Lowe’s has begun stocking solar panels at its California stores and plans to roll them out across the country next year.

This shows how far the highest of the high-tech alternative energy technologies has come. Solar power is now accessible to anyone with a ladder, a power drill, and the gumption to climb up on a roof and install the panels themselves.

You can’t get tham at Lowe’s of Valdosta yet.

The article also says Home Depot offers panels on its web pages.

In either case, to get the Georgia 35% state tax installation rebate you’d have to have them installed by a certified Georgia solar installer.

Even so, commodity solar panels in doit it yourself stores is a big step. If nothing else, it should keep prices down on panels bought through installers.

And if you really want to buy them yourself, what appear to be the same 80 watt Sharp panels Lowe’s lists on its web pages go for $343 at Affordable Solar online. The article says Lowe’s sells 175 watt panels; Home Depot lists those for $997.97. Affordable Solar list them for $594; plus shipping, of course. Solar Blvd lists them for $541.50. Or you can buy panels with more wattage, or more panels. If you want to buy your own solar panels, you can.

You can also find out your local rebates and sales tax exemptions online from DSIRE.

Open Government

White House press release:
The Open Government Directive, called for by President Obama on his first full day in office, puts accountability and accessibility at the center of how the federal government operates. It instructs agencies to share information with the public through online, open, accessible, machine-readable formats. Agencies are to inventory existing information and establish a timeline for publishing them online to increase agency accountability and responsiveness; improve public knowledge of the agency and its operations; further the core mission of the agency; create economic opportunity; or respond to need and demand as identified through public consultation.
Agency accountability and responsiveness! What a novel idea. Why I wonder if such a thing could be tailored to local governments?
Second, it aims to instill the values of transparency, participation, and collaboration into the culture of every agency by requiring every agency to formulate an Open Government Plan and website. Specifically, each agency will be required to develop its own, unique roadmap in consultation with the American people and open government experts, rather than prescribing a one-size-fits-all approach. Once again, these ideas came directly from the public’s suggestions.
Government listening to the public’s suggestions? Local government department accountability? As Gandhi is reputed to have said about western civilization: “that would be a good idea!”

DoJ Rejects Lowndes County Redistricting

The Valdosta Daily Times seems to have a reading comprehension problem:
In denying the Lowndes County Commission the right to expand under the current proposed “superdistrict” plan, the DOJ stated in its opinion, “Our analysis of the evidence precludes a determination that the county has met its burden of showing that the proposed plan was not adopted, at least in part, with the purpose of making minority voters worse off.” In addition to stating that the plan was done deliberately to disenfranchise black voters, the letter of explanation that the DOJ sent to the county Tuesday regarding its denial of the petition states that the proposed plan was not in compliance with the Voting Rights Act regarding discrimination.
Saying the county has not shown that it has not done something is not the same as saying the county deliberately did that thing.

The commission chairman seems to be forgetting his history:

Paulk said he is certain that the map met all of the criteria in the Voting Rights Act. The initiative was approved by the state’s General Assembly and voters approved the plan on Nov. 4, 2009.

In denying the proposal, Paulk says the DOJ is denying the right of the people to vote on a plan of their choosing, noting that it passed overwhelmingly in the majority minority districts.

“We had a democracy when we drew those maps, not the socialist government we have now,” Paulk said.

The county districts currently in use were required in 1984 as part of a court settlement under that well-known socialist, Ronald Reagan.

That’s a good point about the plan passing overwhelmingly in the majority minority districts, but it also passed when nothing else was on the ballot for the county (everything else was for the various cities in the county), so few people outside Valdosta, Hahira, and Dasher voted on it. This problem was noted beforehand by state representative Ellis Black:

“My concern is about the inequity where it’s a special election in the unincorporated areas but it’s a regular city election,” Black said. “I’m concerned about the impact on the turn out as there will be a greater emphasis on city voters more so than the unincorporated voters.”
The VDT quoted Ashley Paulk as saying he didn’t want to spend the money to hold a special election: “$40,880 minimum.” This from a county government that just spent $15 million for a bridge that few people use and $1.5 million to pave a road the majority of whose residents didn’t want paved. Is the will of the people in the unincorporated areas so unimportant? In any case, it looks like the county will now need to pay for developing another redistricting plan.

The VDT quotes Joe Pritchard, County Manager:

“We are satisfied that we did everything we possibly could to create a plan that met all of the criteria,” he said.
If so, apparently all they could do was not enough. Also, the plan the county government proposed was not the only possible plan.

Back in 1997 a plan was proposed that would have put two commissioners in each of the two districts. The voters voted it down, and for that one the VDT wondered if the voters got it right, because the SPLOST tax was the big issue at the time, not commission expansion.

Another way would be to split the current districts lengthwise, creating two out of each of them. I don’t think that possibility was ever seriously entertained by the current commissioners. Why not is mysterious.

The DoJ was aware of the possibility of splitting at least the existing minority district, and said so:

Moreover, the evidence establishes that this retrogression was avoidable. Several alternatives exist that meet the county’s stated criteria and do not have a prohibited retrogressive effect. For example, it is possible to create an illustrative plan that follows the county’s 3-2 configuration, but which, unlike the county’s proposed plan, creates a second district in which census data show that the African American community would be able to elect a candidate of choice. The most recent data indicate that African Americans constitute 53 percent of the registered voters in this illustrative district. Although the county’s contention that the 2000 Census data understate this district’s current African American population percentage appears to be correct, it does not alter our conclusion, based on an analysis of voter registration data from October 2009, that the district would not afford black voters the ability to elect candidates of choice to office.
That’s the paragraph in the DoJ letter immediately before the passage the VDT quoted. Neither the VDT nor the county government has chosen to put a copy of the DoJ letter on the web, but fortunately the DoJ did, so we don’t have to go by what we’re told to think; we can read the letter for ourselves.

The VDT article about redistricting history neglects to mention that another plan was put to a vote around 1983 that would have expanded the county commission to 9 members, if I recall the number correctly from the VDT article of that period I saw in the county museum. That plan was only narrowly defeated by the people of the county. Perhaps a similar plan, better prepared and presented, might fare better today. Thomas County, with about half the population of Lowndes County, has eight commissioners.

Current commissioners are aware of that mid-1980s plan, and at least one of them objects to it because it would have created a district entirely within Valdosta, which is already represented by the Valdosta City Council. This makes me wonder if all the voters in the current county commission districts who happen to live inside Valdosta (or Hahira, or Remerton, or Dasher, or Lake Park) don’t count? That would be ironic, since they’re the ones who just voted for the plan these same commissioners favored.

The county government also did everything it thought it possibly could to create a new county waste disposal plan last year, but external reality intervened in that case, too. The county couldn’t get bids for its plan at the minimum it required. This was just as well, since there were strenuous objections to the county’s plan, voiced by hundreds of people at the meetings the county held not to get early input, rather to tell the people what the county government had decided.

The incoming chairman, Ashley Paulk, came up with a new, simpler plan that addressed most of the objections of the old waste disposal plan and that’s the one now working fine. The current waste plan was sort of an emergency solution arrived at without much external input.

Here’s a chance for the new chairman to once again demonstrate the adaptability of the county government. Given that circumstances have repeatedly indicated that the county government’s solution to a problem isn’t necessarily correct just because the county government believes it is, perhaps this time a transparent process for citizen participation could be used so that the people and the DoJ could be convinced that a solution is correct.

Deidra White elected to Valdosta City Council, District 2

Deidra White Prepares to Speak According to the Valdosta Daily Times
Deidra White will fill the District 2 seat currently held by Mayor Pro Tem Willie T. Head on the Valdosta City Council.

White defeated Dr. L.W. Williams in the runoff election with 56.87 percent of the vote, or 178 votes and Williams received 43.13 percent of the votes, or 135 votes.

The VDT says she said:
“My main focus is to make decisions that will help and not harm the people of the community,” White said.

Through the election and then the runoff White said she learned the process is very exhausting and tiring.

“No one can do it on their own, it takes many people from many different areas of the community to make something like this happen,” she said.

Here is her victory speech:

Local Thanksgiving

Here in Lowndes County and the surrounding area we have plenty of things to be thankful for:
  • A growing local food community, anchored by Jason DeLoach’s F.M. Guess Pecan Company of Valdosta, the Packhouse Market of Hahira, and of course Jim Fiveash’s Food Store of Hahira. Let’s not forget the Valdosta Farmer’s Market (1500 South Patterson Street) and Farmer Brown’s Produce. There’s even at least one local CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) starting up.
  • Long distance transportation: Interstate 75 near I-10, numerous state highways, and an airport.
  • Delta Airlines (I never thought I’d be writing this) for competitive airfares (except during holidays). And landing on one of the longest runways in the state.
  • Railroads going in every direction carrying freight, which can also carry passengers whenever state and local people and governments get organized to do it.
  • Businesses moving in to take advantage of the transportation; working towards enough good jobs that young people don’t have to move away to find one.
  • County and city governments that are at least a little bit sceptical about exactly which businesses they encourage to move in.
  • Moody Air Force Base, by far the biggest employer, bringing diversity to the community both in serving personnel and in later retirees.
  • Two hospitals: South Georgia Medical Center and Smith Northview Hospital.
  • There’s even a Valdosta Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) including the counties of Lowndes, Brooks, Lanier, and Echols, with a combined population of about 130,000. This is enough people to try things without waiting for Atlanta or Washington to tell us what to do.
  • Valdosta State University, one of two large regional campuses of the University of Georgia System, and one so active politically that it got its own voting precinct this year, the only college precinct in the state.
  • Live election results during each election, on the Lowndes County website. It’s the only county in the state that does this!
  • Georgia Military College, a liberal arts junior college.
  • Valdosta Technical College, or whatever it’s being called since the state reorganized it.
  • Thriving downtowns in Valdosta and Hahira. First Friday, Winterfest, Honeybee Festival: those are doing more to attract attractive businesses than any number of road projects.
  • Grand Bay Wildlife Management Area, preserving a little bit of the original ecosystem of the area; you know, pine trees, live oaks, wiregrass, pitcher plants, cypress swamps, alligators, great blue herons, and bobcats. Maybe you don’t. Go and see!
  • Trees, for forestry, and for themselves. See Patterson Street (a little planning kept it from looking like Ashley Street), and the oldest longleaf pines in the county are on the VSU campus; older than Valdosta. There are even a few left elsewhere in the county. Protecting forests is not just the right thing to do, it’s good business.
  • Rain, so trees and crops will grow.
  • Sunshine, much more than Germany, for example, so we can do solar if we want to.
  • Winning sports teams in Lowndes County and Valdosta high schools and VSU caused ESPN to name Valdosta TitleTown. Maybe that winning attitude can carry over to improving academics.
  • Theatre at the Dosta, VSU, and the high schools. If theatre was a sport, we’d be winning that, too!
    Dites-moi
    Pourquoi
    La vie est belle,
    Dies-moi
    Pourquoi
    La vie est gai?     		    Tell me why
    The sky
    is filled with music,
    Tell me why
    We fly
    on clouds above?
We live in an area with many advantages. You can probably list more of them.

Why stop with what we’ve got? Why not play up our advantages of transportation, natural environment, local culture, etc., and attract jobs for young people and make the place even better for everybody?

Germany: As much new solar power as 3 large coal or nuclear plants

Germany leads the world in solar installation, according to Erik Kirschbaum in Reuters 23 Nov 2009:
Germany, the world’s leader in photovoltaic which turns sunlight into electricity, had 5.3 GW installed at the end of 2008, including a previous record 1.6 GW added in 2008.

That was about a third of the world’s total of 15 GW. Three GW installed this year would produce as much power as three large coal-burning plants or three nuclear power plants.

Remember, Stuttgart gets about as much sunlight as Pittsburgh. And that’s in the sunny south of Germany. Georgia gets as much sunlight as Cyprus in the Mediterranean or Algiers in Africa.

Longterm local jobs that cannot be exported: solar installation

A press release by Southface promises:
Long-term jobs that cannot be exported will also come from developing workers skilled in the installation of solar photovoltaic (PV) arrays, and solar heating and cooling (SHC) systems.
How will that happen?
October 29, 2009 –
Led by the Florida Solar Energy Center (FSEC), a research institute of the University of Central Florida, six southern states, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands will join together to create a “Southern Regional Resource and Training Program” to train a robust workforce in the installation of solar technologies for the burgeoning solar industry. Southface will deliver solar installation training through its new Green Jobs Training Center, and will serve on the program’s advisory board.
Southface is based in Atlanta. This is supposed to be a regional program, so maybe we can get some of these jobs right here in Lowndes County. The DoE says:
Southeast
* University of Central Florida ($2,800,000)
This project will create the Southern Alternative Energy Training Network, which will develop industry-recognized and staff-alternative energy training centers throughout the southern U.S. The resulting programs will create a trained pipeline of workers to meet current and future employment demands needed by the solar industry.
UCF is the coordinator, but there’s no reason a training center couldn’t be in Valdosta. Who at VSU should be involved in this?