September 25, 2020
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Part of the Bureau of Justice Statistics Criminal
Victimization Series, this report is the 47th in a series
that began in 1973. It provides official estimates of
criminal victimizations reported and not reported to
police from the National Crime Victimization Survey. It
describes the characteristics of crimes, victims, and
offenders. In addition, this year, the report provides
new classifications of urban, suburban, and rural areas,
with the goal of presenting a more accurate picture of
where criminal victimizations occur. Highlights from this
report include: the rate of violent crime excluding
simple assault declined 15% from 2018 to 2019, from 8.6
to 7.3 victimizations per 1,000 persons age 12 or older;
among females, the rate of violent victimization
excluding simple assault fell 27% from 2018 to 2019;
there were 880,000 fewer victims of serious crimes
(generally felonies) in 2019 than in 2018, a 19% drop;
from 2018 to 2019, 29% fewer black persons and 22% fewer
white persons were victims of serious crimes; and the
rate of violent victimization in urban areas (based on
the new classifications of urban, suburban, and rural
areas) declined 20% from 2018 to 2019.
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Source: Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of
Justice
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This report explores the factors that lead to persistent
racial disparities in the Massachusetts criminal system
by leveraging detailed administrative data from several
agencies, including the Massachusetts Trial Court, the
Department of Criminal Justice Information Services, and
the Department of Correction. These data provide a
useful, if incomplete, window into several different
stages of the criminal system from charging and bail to
adjudication and sentencing. In this report, the authors
focus particularly on understanding the factors that
contribute to the large disparities in incarceration
rates that motivated this work. Through their analysis,
the authors found that Black and Latin-x people are
overrepresented in the criminal caseload compared to
their population in the state. White people make up
roughly 74% of the Massachusetts population while
accounting for 58.7% of cases in the data. Meanwhile,
Black people make up 6.5% of the Massachusetts population
and account for 17.1% of cases. Latin-x people are
similarly overrepresented, making up 8.7% of the
Massachusetts population but 18.3% of the cases in the
sample. The authors use regression analysis to consider
several factors that may contribute to or explain the
substantial disparities they document, including the
defendants’ criminal history and demographics, initial
charge severity, court jurisdiction, and neighborhood
characteristics. The regression analysis indicates that
even after accounting for these characteristics, Black
and Latin-x people are still sentenced to 31 and 25 days
longer than their similarly situated White counterparts,
suggesting that racial disparities in sentence length
cannot solely be explained by the contextual factors that
the authors consider and permeate the entire criminal
justice process.
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Source: The Criminal Justice Policy Program, Harvard Law
School
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The idea of student-centered learning is not new;
teachers have long sought to design personalized,
competency-based environments that are tailored to
individuals and that empower students to drive their own
learning. What is new is the emergence of an online
learning ecosystem and, with it, the technical
possibility of equipping all students with a
student-centered model. Add to this mix COVID-19, which
has provoked unprecedented demand for reinventing what
teachers do, and it’s the perfect combination of
catalysts for a rapid conversion to student-centered
schooling. But a barrier remains. Most K–12 educators
today don’t have the skill sets necessary to run
student-centered schools. This report helps dismantle
that barrier by identifying specific student-centered
competencies for educators in the field that can be
stacked to create customized student-centered teaching
micro-credentials. In this report, the authors use the
Theory of Interdependence and Modularity as a framework
for analyzing solutions for student-centered professional
development, propose 66 educator micro-credentials for
student-centered teaching, profile 14 leaders who are at
the vanguard of student-centered teaching, and offer
recommendations for how to move the micro-credentialing
ecosystem forward. The authors argue that
micro-credentials could be the solution for making
student-centered professional development affordable,
easy to set up, and customizable. Example of
micro-credentials include working through conflict,
addressing individual student needs for blended learning,
and choosing foundational design pillars.
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Source: Christensen Institute
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Racial affirmative action policies are widespread in
college admissions. Yet, evidence on their effects before
college is limited. Using four data sets, the authors
study a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that reinstated
affirmative action in three states. Using nationwide SAT
data for difference-in-differences and synthetic control
analyses, the authors separately identify the aggregate
effects of affirmative action for whites and for
underrepresented minorities. Using state-wide Texas
administrative data, they measure the effect of
affirmative action on racial gaps across the
pre-treatment test score distribution. When affirmative
action is re-instated, racial gaps in SAT scores, grades,
attendance, and college applications fall. Average SAT
scores for both whites and minorities increase,
suggesting that reductions in racial gaps are driven by
improvements in minorities' outcomes. Increases in
pre-college human capital and college applications are
concentrated in the top half of the test score
distribution.
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Source: National Bureau of Economic Research
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The COVID-19 pandemic has caused seismic shifts for
postsecondary education. For rural colleges, the pandemic
exacerbated issues that have affected students and
communities for decades. Education gaps between rural
communities and their more urbanized counterparts are
well documented. While 41% of urban adults have a college
degree, only 28% of rural adults do. The college access
gap between rural and urban areas is sizable: In most
states, rural high school students achieve graduation
rates similar to urban and suburban counterparts, but
their college enrollment rates are much lower. This
report offers the following ideas to promote rural
equality beyond the pandemic: 1) rural colleges should
work to find ways to support local entrepreneurs and
create effective programs that will generate local jobs;
2) rural colleges and communities should consider
building telecommuting hubs (co-working spaces that offer
broadband and office space) to help students and
graduates stay in their communities while pursuing
high-wage remote work; 3) increase dual enrollment
programs in rural areas; and 4) find creative ways to
avoid closing rural colleges; 5) consider remote or
hybrid faculty positions to attract faculty with
expertise in high-demand fields who may be better paid in
urban settings.
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Source: MDRC
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As the United States reels from the COVID-19 pandemic’s
catastrophic economic damage, the tight labor markets
from early 2020 seem like a distant memory. The country
had 11.5 million fewer jobs this August than in February,
but, paradoxically, many business leaders continue to
center the problem with labor markets on “unqualified
individuals without the right skills.” Instead of
focusing on the skills gap, the authors argue that it’s
time to focus on closing the opportunity gap—not only for
the benefit of individuals who have been shut out of the
labor market, but for society as a whole. Cultivating and
investing in diverse talent can unleash regional
innovation, economic growth, and community well-being. A
more equitable economy that unlocks the potential in all
of the country’s talent will require structural changes,
supporting institutions, and updated regulatory
frameworks.
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Source: Brookings Institution
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Tracking and monitoring airport sustainability
performance, which aims to make development sustainable
to ensure that it meets the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet
their own needs, is an essential component of an
airport's sustainability program development process and
also the foundation for continuous development of airport
systems. This study identified airport sustainability
performance metrics under the Economic Vitality,
Operational Efficiency, Natural Resources, and Social
Responsibility focus area based on literature reviews and
industry inputs from a survey disseminated to the Florida
airports. A comprehensive web-based tracking system was
developed and incorporated into Florida Aviation
Database. The system allows airport managers to input and
archive data (such as the number of full-time equivalent
airport employees and the numbers of commercial and
general aviation aircraft based at the airport) and has
the capabilities of computing and analyzing airport
sustainability performance and comparing that across
different years or with other peer airports. A case study
was performed for two airports – Commercial Service
airport at St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport and
General Aviation airport at Immokalee Regional Airport –
to obtain the baseline sustainability performance
metrics. The tracking and monitoring system provides a
powerful tool to both airport managers and Florida
Department of Transportation staff to access and archive
sustainable performance data and to analyze airport
sustainability performance. It also increases airports’
awareness of collecting and documenting relevant data to
expand their performance tracking inventory.
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Source: Florida Department of Transportation
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A consistent body of research in the United States and
abroad finds that certain money management behaviors,
including having a habit of saving regularly, are
associated with better financial health and well-being in
the present and in the future, for households across the
income spectrum. And according to research by the
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, liquid savings is
the single factor that is most highly correlated with
financial well-being. The goal of this report is to
provide the growing number of funders, employers,
policymakers, financial institutions, and others who are
committed to helping households build liquid savings with
evidence and insights about the actual experience,
process, and value of savings for low and moderate-income
households. The report highlights an important
opportunity to recalibrate the understanding of
shorter-term savings through consideration of the savings
cycle—the building, using, and replenishing of savings
that is critical to support families working toward their
financial goals, weather financial shocks, and make
mobility-enhancing investments. With this savings cycle
in mind, policymakers, philanthropists, and program and
product designers including financial institutions,
employers, and benefit administrators can take a new
perspective, understanding savings as a flow variable as
much as a stock, in reviewing their solutions, success
metrics, and offerings. Developing high-quality products
and services that reflect how individuals engage with the
savings cycle, and removing barriers to access to them,
would support household financial stability in the short-
and medium-term, and put them on track for longer-term
economic mobility.
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Source: Aspen Institute
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The three decades following the Second World War saw a
period of economic growth that was shared across the
income distribution, but inequality in taxable income has
increased substantially over the last four decades. This
work seeks to quantify the scale of income gap created by
rising inequality compared to a counterfactual in which
growth was shared more broadly. The authors introduce a
time-period agnostic and income-level agnostic measure of
inequality that relates income growth to economic growth.
This new metric can be applied over long stretches of
time, applied to subgroups of interest, and easily
calculated. They document the cumulative effect of four
decades of income growth below the growth of per capita
gross national income and estimate that aggregate income
for the population below the 90th percentile over this
time period would have been $2.5 trillion (67%) higher in
2018 had income growth since 1975 remained as equitable
as it was in the first two post-War decades. From 1975 to
2018, the difference between the aggregate taxable income
for those below the 90th percentile and the equitable
growth counterfactual totals $47 trillion. The authors
further explore trends in inequality by applying this
metric within and across business cycles from 1975 to
2018 and also by demographic group.
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Source: RAND Corporation
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This report presents suicide death rates among persons
aged 10–24 for the United States and by state for 2000
through 2018 and percent change between 3-year periods of
2007–2009 and 2016–2018. Suicide rates are compared among
states for 2016–2018. Nationally, the suicide rate among
persons aged 10–24 was statistically stable from 2000 to
2007 and then increased 57.4%, from 6.8 per 100,000 in
2007 to 10.7 in 2018. Between 2007–2009 and 2016–2018,
suicide rates increased significantly in 42 states,
increased non-significantly in 8 states, and were not
possible to assess in the District of Columbia due to
small numbers. Significant increases ranged from 21.7% in
Maryland to a more than doubling of the rate in New
Hampshire. In 2016–2018, suicide rates for persons aged
10–24 were highest in Alaska, while some of the lowest
rates in the country were among states in the Northeast.
Florida had the third lowest percent increase in suicide
death rates among persons aged 10–24 years between
2007–2009 and 2016–2018 at 29.2%.
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Source: U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
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This report summarizes key findings from the 2019
National Survey on Drug Use and Health for national
indicators of substance use and mental health among the
civilian, non-institutionalized population aged 12 or
older in the United States. Key findings include that
among people aged 12 or older in 2019, 60.1% (or 165.4
million people) used a substance (i.e., tobacco, alcohol,
kratom, or an illicit drug) in the past month. In
particular, 50.8% (or 139.7 million people) drank alcohol
in the past month, 21.1% (or 58.1 million people) used a
tobacco product in the past month, and 13.0% (or 35.8
million people) used an illicit drug in the past month.
In addition, 0.3% (or 825,000 people) used kratom in the
past month. Among people aged 12 or older in 2019 who
used any tobacco product in the past month, 65.3% smoked
cigarettes but did not use other tobacco products, 13.8%
smoked cigarettes and used some other type of tobacco
product, and 21.0% used only non-cigarette tobacco
products. Thus, most of the past month tobacco users in
the United States were cigarette users. Among the 139.7
million current alcohol users aged 12 or older in 2019,
65.8 million people (47.1%) were past month binge
drinkers. Among past month binge drinkers, 16.0 million
people (24.4% of current binge drinkers and 11.5% of
current alcohol users) were past month heavy drinkers.
Among adolescents aged 12 to 17, the percentage who were
past month alcohol users declined from 17.6% (or 4.4
million people) in 2002 to 9.4% (or 2.3 million people)
in 2019. The percentage who were past month binge alcohol
users declined from 5.8% (or 1.4 million people) in 2015
to 4.9% (or 1.2 million people) in 2019. Among people
aged 12 or older, the number of past year initiates of
marijuana use increased from 2.2 million people in 2002
to 3.5 million people in 2019. The number of past year
initiates of cocaine use decreased from 1.0 million in
2002 to 671,000 in 2019.
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Source: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration, U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services
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A major focus of debate about rationing guidelines for
COVID-19 vaccines is whether and how to prioritize access
for minority populations that have been particularly
affected by the pandemic, and been the subject of
historical and structural disadvantage, particularly
Black and Indigenous individuals. The authors simulate
the 2018 U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC) Vaccine Allocation guidelines using data from the
American Community Survey under different assumptions on
total vaccine supply. Black and Indigenous individuals
combined receive a higher share of vaccines compared to
their population share for all assumptions on total
vaccine supply. However, their vaccine share under the
2018 CDC guidelines is considerably lower than their
share of COVID-19 deaths and age-adjusted deaths. The
authors then simulate one method to incorporate
disadvantage in vaccine allocation via a reserve system.
In a reserve system, units are placed into categories and
units reserved for a category give preferential treatment
to individuals from that category. Using the Area
Deprivation Index (ADI) as a proxy for disadvantage, they
show that a 40% high-ADI reserve increases the number of
vaccines allocated to Black or Indigenous individuals,
with a share that approaches their COVID-19 death share
when there are about 75 million units. These findings
illustrate that whether an allocation is equitable
depends crucially on the benchmark and highlight the
importance of considering the expected distribution of
outcomes from implementing vaccine allocation guidelines.
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Source: National Bureau of Economic Research
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This guide is meant to assist community-based
organizations that are interested in facilitating remote
community engagement activities. Although the guide was
developed as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, it can
also be used by organizations looking to broaden their
outreach strategy generally. In this guide, the authors
present a list of tools that can be used for facilitating
remote community engagement activities and aim to elevate
some best practices for any form of in-person or remote
community engagement. In the appendices, they provide a
few worksheets to help you plan your community engagement
activities and a list of supplemental resources on
inclusive community engagement methods.
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Source: Urban Institute
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Government Program Summaries (GPS) is a free resource for legislators and the public
that provides descriptive information on over 200 state government programs. To provide
fiscal data, GPS links to Transparency Florida, the Legislature's website that includes
continually updated information on the state's operating budget and daily expenditures
by state agencies.
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A publication of the Florida Legislature's Office of Program Policy Analysis & Government Accountability
PolicyNotes, published every Friday, features reports, articles, and websites with timely information of interest to policymakers and researchers. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations
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