November 26, 2021
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This report presents data collected from state, federal,
and private adult correctional facilities on the
characteristics of facilities by type, operator, size,
physical security level, capacity, court orders, and
programs. Data on the prison custody population is
presented for demographic characteristics, sentence
length, and custody security level by facility type and
operator. Also, the report includes data on facility
security staff by sex and prisoner-to-security-staff
ratios. Some highlights from the report include that at
midyear 2019, there were 1,079 public confinement
facilities operated by either state or federal authorities
and 82 private confinement facilities. At midyear 2019,
there were 376 maximum, 451 medium, and 287 minimum
security confinement facilities. Among all prisoners in
confinement facilities at midyear 2019, about 82% were in
state, 11% were in federal, and 7% were in private
facilities. Among all prisoners reported in
community-based facilities at midyear 2019, about 49% were
in state and 51% were in private facilities.
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Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of
Justice
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Black youth in the U.S. experience disproportionate
contact with police even when accounting for criminal or
delinquent behavior. While the literature supports the
link between racism and adverse health outcomes, less is
known about the impact of policing on the well-being of
Black youth. A total of 16 quantitative studies including
19,493 participants were included in the review and
demonstrated an association between police exposure and
adverse mental health, sexual risk behaviors, and
substance use. A total of 13 qualitative studies including
461 participants were included in the review, which
corroborated and contextualized the quantitative evidence
and provided additional health outcomes, such as fear for
life or hopelessness.
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Source: JAMA Pediatrics
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More than 11 million people in the United States are deaf,
hard of hearing, late-deafened, or deaf-blind. Research
indicates deaf people report experiencing victimization at
higher rates, but a lack of accessible resources and
trauma-informed services for American Sign Language (ASL)
speakers makes it difficult for deaf people to report
crimes and access support. In response to these issues,
the District Attorney of New York County provided funding
to support Barrier Free Living’s Deaf Services program,
with the goal of increasing access to direct services for
domestic violence survivors who are deaf and increasing
local stakeholders’ awareness of deaf survivors’ needs. In
this brief, the authors present interim findings on
services, communication, and the perspectives of multiple
local stakeholders. The authors find that Barrier Free
Living requires all staff to complete an ASL course and
that interpreters are regularly used in staff meetings,
consumer workshops, and interactions between consumers and
staff. In addition, program consumers reported positive
experiences with the program. Factors that support
enhanced services for deaf survivors include
institutionalized and ongoing staff training around deaf
communication and culture, strong collaboration and
communication between staff at all levels, the consistent
use of interpreters, and supportive partnerships with
community organizations. Factors that impede the provision
of enhanced services for deaf survivors include the lack
of sufficient funding, the need to sustain programs
implemented with time-restricted grant money, staff
turnover, and difficulties finding qualified deaf staff.
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Source: Urban Institute
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This report is based on the U.S. Department of Education's
Office of Educational Technology survey of public schools
on the use of educational technology for instruction”
This report shows national data from a sample survey of
public schools about their use of technology for teaching
and learning during the 2019–20 school year. Questions
were asked about conditions before the coronavirus
pandemic started. This report presents data about public
school technology resources and ways that schools use
these resources to teach. The report found that 45% of
schools reported having a computer for each student. An
extra 37% reported having a computer for each student in
some grades or classrooms. Fifteen percent let students in
all grades take school-provided computers home and another
8% let students in some grades take them home. Roughly
half of schools strongly agreed that teachers in their
school want to use technology for teaching (49%). Schools
reported on a variety of challenges for teachers in using
technology for teaching and learning in the school. A
little less than two-thirds said that lack of time for
teachers to become familiar with new technologies and then
use them for teaching was a moderate (43%) or large
challenge (22%). Schools were asked about challenges their
teachers face in using technology for teaching purposes.
Twenty two percent said that outdated computers or
software was a moderate challenge. Another 12% said that
was a large challenge. Twenty six percent of schools said
that lack of support on how to use technology for teaching
was a moderate challenge and another 8% said it was a
large challenge.
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Source: National Center for Education Statistics, U.S.
Department of Education
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Student loans defer the cost of college until after
graduation, allowing many students access to higher
lifetime earnings and colleges and universities they
otherwise could not afford. Even with student loans,
however, the authors find that students psychologically
realize the financial costs of a college education long
before their loan repayments begin. This early cost
realization frames financial decisions between most pairs
of colleges as an intertemporal trade-off. Students choose
between investments with (1) smaller short-term costs but
smaller long-term returns (a lower-cost, lower-return
[LC-LR] college) and (2) larger short-term costs but
larger long-term returns (a higher-cost, higher-return
[HC-HR] college). The authors find that early cost
realization increases preferences for LC-LR
colleges—preferences that could reduce lifetime
earnings—in both simulations and experiments. Preferences
for LC-LR colleges are pronounced among financially
impatient students and in choice pairs of LC-LR and HC-HR
colleges where the equilibrium is set at a
low-discount-rate threshold. A return-on-investment
strategy, future uncertainty, and debt aversion cannot
explain these results. A decision aid synchronizing the
psychological realization of costs and benefits reduced
preferences for LC-LR colleges, illustrating that the
preference is constructed and receptive to interventions.
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Source: Journal of Marketing Research
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While past empirical studies have explored associations
between types of primary and secondary schools and student
academic achievement, outcomes beyond academic performance
remain less well-understood. Using longitudinal data from
a cohort of children (N = 12,288, mean age = 14.56 years)
of nurses, this study examined associations between the
types of schools participants attended in adolescence and
a wide range of subsequent psychological well-being,
social engagement, character strengths, mental health,
health behavior and physical health outcomes. Results in
this sample suggested little difference between attending
private independent schools and public schools across
outcomes in young adulthood. There were, however, notable
differences in subsequent outcomes comparing homeschooling
and public schools, and possibly some evidence comparing
religious schools and public schools. Specifically, there
was some evidence that attending religious schools versus
public schools was associated with a higher likelihood of
frequent religious service attendance and becoming
registered voters, a lower risk of overweight/obese, fewer
lifetime sexual partners, and a higher risk of
subsequently being binge drinkers; however, these
associations were not robust to correction for multiple
testing. Homeschooling compared with public schooling was
associated with subsequently more frequent volunteering,
greater forgiveness, and more frequent religious service
attendance, and possibly also with greater purpose in
life, less marijuana use, and fewer lifetime sexual
partners, but negatively associated with college degree
attainment and possibly with greater risk of posttraumatic
stress disorder. These results may encourage education
stakeholders to consider a wider range of outcomes beyond
academic performance in decision-making.
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Source: PLoS ONE
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This article proposes and evaluates four hypotheses about
U.S. pollution and environmental policy over the last half
century. First, air and water pollution have declined
substantially, although greenhouse gas emissions have not.
Second, environmental policy explains a large share of
these trends. Third, much of the regulation of air and
drinking water pollution has benefits that exceed costs,
although the evidence for surface water pollution
regulation is less clear. Fourth, while the distribution
of pollution across social groups is unequal, market-based
environmental policies and command-and-control policies do
not appear to produce systematically different
distributions of environmental outcomes. The author also
discusses recent innovations in methods and data that can
be used to evaluate pollution trends and policies,
including the increased use of environmental
administrative data, statistical cost-benefit comparisons,
analysis of previously understudied policies, more
sophisticated analyses of pollution transport, micro-macro
frameworks, and a focus on the distribution of
environmental outcomes.
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Source: National Bureau of Economic Research
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Public K-12 schools are open now for the academic year,
and instruction has returned to full-time in person,
despite some disruptions due to outbreaks of the highly
contagious COVID-19 delta variant. The anticipation has
been that with schools reopening, women with young
children—who have disproportionately dropped out of and
remained out of the labor force since the start of the
pandemic—will return to the labor force. However, the
small bit of evidence provided by the labor market data in
September
suggests that this is not the case, as the
aggregate labor force participation rate roughly moved
sideways and the rate for women ticked down. In this
article, the authors speak to this question by examining
the extent to which the switch to all-virtual and hybrid
schooling during the pandemic impacted the labor force
participation of women with young children. The authors
find that increases in the share of children in virtual or
hybrid schooling in a given state are associated with
decreases in labor force participation among women with
young children in that state. However, the effects are
modest. Moreover, in our data, remote schooling also
depresses the participation of men with young children,
all else equal, so it cannot entirely explain the
relatively low participation of women with young children
since the start of the pandemic. From a policy perspective
these findings indicate that the reopening of schools will
not be enough to return mothers’ labor force participation
back to its pre-pandemic levels.
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Source: Brookings Institute
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Capital has flowed inequitably to communities across the
U.S. for decades, often with a racialized motivation or a
racialized effect. This report analyzes investment flows
in Milwaukee from 2005 to 2019, studying what kinds of
money have been flowing, and for what purposes, into the
city’s neighborhoods. The report builds on previous
investment flow studies have conducted in other cities,
such as Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, and Minneapolis and
Saint Paul, as well as national studies. Analysis of
investment flows in Milwaukee by neighborhood race and
poverty rate reveals disparate market conditions among
neighborhoods and differential levels of wealth and access
to credit. In addition to capital flows inequities across
neighborhoods, the data show that the city overall needs
greater mainstream capital flows. In sum, high-poverty
neighborhoods and neighborhoods of color are being starved
of private market capital. There are many reasons for
this, including that project sizes are smaller and market
rents are lower in these communities. But while the city
as a whole has gained some ground, white and high-income
neighborhoods receive many times the investment that
neighborhoods of color and low-income neighborhoods
receive. Although mission-driven and public sources are
directed to such neighborhoods, those investment sources
cannot create a level playing field. Extensive and
sustained public and private action will be required to
generate financial opportunities for all Milwaukee
neighborhoods.
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Source: Urban Institute
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Approximately 2.3 million children under age 18 live with
a veteran who is disabled, according to analyses of data
from American Community Survey for 2015–2019. Prior
research suggests negative outcomes for children growing
up in military caregiving homes. The return of service
members who sustained or developed an illness or injury
because of their military service can be disruptive for
families as they learn to support them and establish new
norms for operating as a family. In the midst of this
disruption, families are often left wanting help.
Caregiving consumes the time and energy of the adult
caregiver, and children in many military caregiving homes
consequently take on additional responsibilities—ranging
from additional household chores to caregiving
responsibilities for their injured or ill service member
or veteran and responsibilities for siblings who would
otherwise have been cared for by the adults in the home.
Ultimately, children in military caregiving homes can get
lost in their family’s response to the needs of the care
recipient. National and local barriers limiting access to
speedy, high quality care for care recipients and their
families negatively impact the entire family’s well-being,
but families have ideas about how to overcome the
barriers. Navigating the federal system to access quality
care is a significant source of anxiety and distress for
military caregiving families. Caregivers offered solutions
that they believed could help improve family functioning
and support the well-being of children from military
caregiving homes, like providing affordable and accessible
child care and cultivating schools’ understanding of the
needs and impacts of caregiving. Four recommendations in
the report include (1) Develop quality programs and
interventions that support children in caregiving families
and focus on peer support, mental health, and
age-appropriate developmental opportunities; (2) Fund,
promote, and create supports for the entire family unit;
(3) Amplify national campaigns and coalitions to improve
understanding of care recipients’ visible and invisible
wounds and the needs of caregivers and children in
military caregiving homes; and (4) Partner with federal
and local agencies, including private organizations, to
reduce barriers to health care and provide centralized
comprehensive services focused on supporting caregiving
families.
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Source: Mathematica
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The COVID-19 pandemic–related recession and resulting job
loss raised significant concerns that the U.S. uninsured
population could increase, perhaps by millions. However,
predictions about coverage loss have not materialized.
Because this recession is the first economic downturn
since the federal Affordable Care Act's (ACA's) major
coverage provisions took effect in 2014, a possible
explanation for the lack of coverage loss is that the
ACA's safety-net provisions — such as Medicaid expansion
and Advance Premium Tax Credits (APTCs) for marketplace
coverage — did their job. Temporary provisions played an
outsized role in stabilizing coverage in 2020 and will
continue to play a large role in 2021. This analysis and
emerging evidence from other sources suggest that
temporary policies — notably, continuous Medicaid
enrollment and furlough coverage — are major contributing
factors to the success of the health insurance safety net.
The temporary extension and enhancement of APTCs likely
contributed to enrollment stability in 2021. Workers'
ability to retain job-based coverage after being laid off
may have been a substantial factor in holding national
insurance rates steady. On their own, the ACA's coverage
provisions might not have fully prevented insurance loss
during the COVID-19 pandemic. For New York state,
extending and enhancing APTCs — two temporary policies
that legislators have proposed making permanent through
the federal Build Back Better Act — could offset most of
the decline in insurance that would be expected because of
elevated unemployment in 2021, even without continuous
Medicaid enrollment.
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Source: RAND Corporation
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The fundamental dilemma in prescription drug policy is
often understood to be the tradeoff between establishing
incentives for innovation that produces new cures through
high product prices and the fact that high prices can and
do strain the ability of consumers and taxpayers to afford
the high prices to support that innovation. This is also
the tradeoff posed by the Congressional Budget Office’s
recent cost estimate of one of the leading proposals to
control drug pricing, H.R. 3, the Elijah E. Cummings Lower
Drug Costs Now Act. That bill proposes new negotiation
authority be extended to the U.S. Secretary of Health and
Human Services to establish drug prices and imposes limits
on drug price inflation. The implementation of these
policies is estimated to save the public sector almost
half a trillion dollars a decade – yet at the same time
declining pharmaceutical industry revenues are estimated
to result in 30 fewer drugs over multiple decades. Thus,
the dilemma facing policymakers is perceived to be that
controlling drug prices now necessarily means fewer new
drugs tomorrow. In this paper, the authors review
evidence-based approaches to address this dilemma and show
how they can improve affordability among drugs now and
dramatically increase pharmaceutical innovation in the
U.S. The authors find that pricing and coverage mechanisms
that reward product value can work in concert with other
policies aimed at improving innovation incentives. Some
savings from rationalizing spending on existing drugs can
be used to finance new initiatives, producing a package
that both saves money on net and improves the health and
well-being of us all.
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Source: Brookings 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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