Note: This is the fourth piece in a series examining criminal justice in America. Read the earlier parts here, here, and here. Most people sitting in local jails have not been convicted of a crime, and some of them never will be. Nationally, nearly 500,000 people are imprisoned while they await trial, according to a […]
United States
Learning English in the Heartland
Rural schools rarely have the resources necessary to provide adequate support for English Language Learners (ELLs). International immigration into rural areas has significantly increased in recent years, but barriers to providing sufficient support for the children of immigrants in rural public schools still remain. What effect does inadequate ELL education have on the experience of […]
Treatment in a Failing Healthcare System
This article is part three in a series. Find the first part here and the second here. As I have already discussed in this series, opioids can have a detrimental effect on towns and communities. By now, we know the effects of opioids, but our country’s current healthcare system makes treatment options inaccessible and inefficient. The most realistic approach […]
Explaining the “Failing” Fourth Estate
Post-truth, fake news, the failing New York Times, very fake news, and “democracy dies in darkness.” Politics has never been more obsessed with the medium through which it is reported. Since President Trump took the oath of office on the west front of the Capitol, periphery of his right eye trained on the sparse Washington Mall […]
Indiana “Rand Paul” Jones and the Temple of Healthcare Reform
On December 23, 2015, the United States Senate cast a final vote, 52–47, to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The repeal bill, proposed by Congressman Tom Price, was similar to bills proposed by Republicans on a regular basis since the Affordable Care Act became law in 2009. It intended to roll back the major measures […]
The New Bear Flag Rebellion
On the evening of November 8, millions of Californians watched their country elect Donald Trump to the presidency. Their disbelief and frustration quickly manifested into one cry that echoed across social and news media with fervor: secession. Disheartened Californian college students and San Francisco liberals shared “Yes California!” on Facebook with excitement, and Silicon Valley […]
Maine Under Ranked-Choice: Revisiting 2014
On November 8, Maine voted to switch to a ranked-choice voting system. Though overshadowed by other results of that election, the switch will create a dramatic change in the underlying structure of the state’s political institutions. Under ranked-choice voting, voters receive ballots which offer them three slots to rank candidates in any order that they […]
Race and Inconsistent Drug Policies
This piece, which will focus on the dynamic of race in drug systems, is the second of three articles dedicated to the social and political aspects of the opioid epidemic. Many politicians and officials have proclaimed that opioid drug addiction is “non-discriminatory,” in that it affects people of all demographics. But before the epidemic became […]
Aging Inmates, Little Release
Note: This is the third piece in a series examining criminal justice in America. Read the introduction here and the second piece here. American prisoners are getting old. Harsh sentencing laws from the 1980s and 1990s mean that more inmates are reaching retirement age behind bars. These aging inmates are forcing some prisons to provide […]
Small Towns, Big Problems
Over the course of a decade, the opioid epidemic has crept into our homes, schools, and neighborhoods, disrupting communities, destroying lives, and leaving users stuck in a never-ending cycle. It has contributed to the deaths of twenty-seven thousand people each year, surpassing cocaine as the leading cause of drug related deaths in the United States. […]