truthout--2020-07-04--The Fourth of July Must Be a Day of Protest Against White Supremacy

Racial justice protests are happening across the country during this Fourth of July weekend to challenge acts of police brutality perpetrated against Black people .
These much-needed actions highlight not only modern-day police abuse but also the sordid history of white supremacy and racial violence in this country .
Instead of celebrating a false narrative of American struggle for liberty and justice for all , we should be out in the streets protesting against the continued killings by the police of Black people and we should wrestle with this country ’ s true history of racial violence and oppression that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reckoning .
The murders of Rayshard Brooks , George Floyd , Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor are the most recent additions to a far too numerous lists of victims of U.S. racial violence , the legacy of the nation ’ s white supremacist origins that remains part of its life blood .
Today when we have Black people killed by the police or self-appointed white vigilantes , many will yell that the system is broken .
But this displays a fundamental flaw in any analysis of what the purpose of policing has been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ embedded in the fabric of this country ’ s history .
From Columbus first bringing enslaved Africans to the Caribbean ( 1490s ) in the newly “ discovered ” lands ; to the Spanish-controlled settlement first using slave labor on the mainland of North America ( 1526 ) in what would later become South Carolina , bringing in 100 enslaved Africans , all who shortly after revolted and escaped ; to British colonial enslavement/indentured servitude ( 1619 ) starting in Jamestown that by the 1660s grew into the system of chattel slavery that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 200 years .
Racialized control and violence ( branding , rape , separation of families , whipping ) over Africans , later to be re-classified by many different names , has been the common thread of history for Black people in this country and hemisphere .
The subjugation of Black people was codified in the founding of this nation .
As part of the U.S. Constitution , Article 4 section 2 , known as the Fugitive Slave Clause , states a “ person held to service or labor ” ( read labor as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ state [ is ] to be returned to his or her master in the state from which that person escaped….
” This was later codified in the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act , which passed Congress and was signed by George Washington to give direction the constitutional statute .
To enforce such federal and local laws , a policing system in the South was slowly established .
Slave patrols of white volunteers were created to enforce the laws of slavery — from punishing enslaved Africans for “ breaking ” plantation rules to rounding up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ escaped , and crushing uprisings when enslaved Africans revolted in order to “ protect ” the private property of the master class .
When slavery ended , only after a bloody civil war , new laws were erected post-Reconstruction to re-enslave Black people .
In addition to a lopsided sharecropping arrangement that kept Black people forever in debt to the plantation owners , new vagrancy laws and Black codes were established and the prison leasing system was born .
As many as 200,000 Black people ( mostly men ) were arrested by the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ courts and sent back to plantation life .
This conspiracy of interest by white plantation owners , business people and white elected officials known as “ Redemption ” was both born as a way to gain cheap labor and to strip Black people of their voting and citizenship rights recently gained from the 14th and 15th Amendments .
When the police were not enforcing these laws in uniform , many in the South were a part of white terrorist groups like the Ku Klux Klan that killed , lynched , maimed and harassed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ supremacy .
This continued to be the norm for Black life for close to another 100 years in the South .
With the codification of Jim Crow laws , the police saw it as their duty , custom and culture to uphold these laws .
Although most forms of vigilante-style racial violence have been lessened from the period of overt slave catching , bounty hunting and terrorist lynch mobs , the notable exceptions still exist .
Many Southern states have gone out of their way to extend the definition of “ self-defense ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s home or protecting oneself from imminent threat with a proportional response , to “ stand your ground laws , ” which allow the use of deadly force for perceived danger .
White people have felt empowered to use these laws to stop Black people , like the slave catcher of the past , and interrogate them .
When these Black people don ’ t respond well to being forced to stop by strangers , these white men have shot them and claimed the defense of standing their ground even when they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to lynch mobs , these individuals feel it is their right to control and terrorize Black people .
Clearly , these laws were meant to give whites the feeling of acting “ under the color of law ” when confronting mostly young Black men .
The modern over-policing of Black communities started with the Great Migration North in the early 1900s onward , the pushing of Black people into certain communities , and white flight , followed by a decrease in most city services except for one city agency which increased its presence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ plenty of police patrolling the neighborhoods of the urban slum .
The primary contacts the state had with its Black citizens was through cops on the beat who , through the use of racialized violence , enforced the rules and laws of the street and corner life .
Places where I grew up myself included dilapidated apartments and high-rise public housing where there was never enough work , health care or space but always enough cops looking to make arrests and to control the movement of Black people .
Most urban uprisings of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were connected to incidents of police brutality in the community .
During this period , the aggressive tactics of the police gave us the form of police brutality and racialized violence we see today and the creation of the modern prison-industrial complex , where Black men in particular make up 6 percent of the U.S. population but 33 percent of the overall prison population .
The killing of Black people , the most horrific form of this violence , became a staple of white police enforcement and intimidation .
Prior to phone cameras @ @ @ @ @ @ @ such stories , most of the time these deaths became a memory for a mother , wife , brother , sister and child — but not the country .
Yesteryear ’ s white supremacy still informs the rules of engagement .
The police both historically and contemporaneously serve to control the physical movement of Black people , support a system of controlled labor through arrest policies and attempt to create an atmosphere of fear by wielding an overwhelming use of force .
In other words , the system is not broken but working @ @ @ @ @ @ @ slave-catching mechanism to prevent enslaved Africans from escaping the conditions of servitude in plantation life .
That system has developed into the professionalized and militarized system of control we have today that , instead of working for plantation and slave owners , has morphed into a system protecting the private property of the larger capitalist class while policing Black movement and aspirations .
There needs to be a rethinking of policing in this country , one that includes the calls for defunding and abolition , but also takes on the question of who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ apparatus is with us .
That power should be in the hands of the community being policed .
The Fourth of July is best used by mobilizing and organizing to tell America that it is time to reexamine its past and develop a new community-centered approach to ending racial violence and police brutality in this country .

Racial justice protests are happening across the country during this Fourth of July weekend to challenge acts of police brutality perpetrated against Black people. These much-needed actions highlight not only modern-day police abuse but also the sordid history of white supremacy and racial violence in this country. Instead of celebrating a false narrative of American struggle for liberty and justice for all, we should be out in the streets protesting against the continued killings by the police of Black people and we should wrestle with this country’s true history of racial violence and oppression that has led us to this much needed reckoning.
The murders of Rayshard Brooks, George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor are the most recent additions to a far too numerous lists of victims of U.S. racial violence, the legacy of the nation’s white supremacist origins that remains part of its life blood. Today when we have Black people killed by the police or self-appointed white vigilantes, many will yell that the system is broken. But this displays a fundamental flaw in any analysis of what the purpose of policing has been since its inception.
Racial violence is embedded in the fabric of this country’s history. From Columbus first bringing enslaved Africans to the Caribbean (1490s) in the newly “discovered” lands; to the Spanish-controlled settlement first using slave labor on the mainland of North America (1526) in what would later become South Carolina, bringing in 100 enslaved Africans, all who shortly after revolted and escaped; to British colonial enslavement/indentured servitude (1619) starting in Jamestown that by the 1660s grew into the system of chattel slavery that would remain in this land for following 200 years. Racialized control and violence (branding, rape, separation of families, whipping) over Africans, later to be re-classified by many different names, has been the common thread of history for Black people in this country and hemisphere.
The subjugation of Black people was codified in the founding of this nation. As part of the U.S. Constitution, Article 4 section 2, known as the Fugitive Slave Clause, states a “person held to service or labor” (read labor as enslaved African) “flees to another state [is] to be returned to his or her master in the state from which that person escaped….” This was later codified in the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act, which passed Congress and was signed by George Washington to give direction the constitutional statute. To enforce such federal and local laws, a policing system in the South was slowly established. Slave patrols of white volunteers were created to enforce the laws of slavery — from punishing enslaved Africans for “breaking” plantation rules to rounding up Black people who they believed to have escaped, and crushing uprisings when enslaved Africans revolted in order to “protect” the private property of the master class.
When slavery ended, only after a bloody civil war, new laws were erected post-Reconstruction to re-enslave Black people. In addition to a lopsided sharecropping arrangement that kept Black people forever in debt to the plantation owners, new vagrancy laws and Black codes were established and the prison leasing system was born. As many as 200,000 Black people (mostly men) were arrested by the police, tried and sentenced by the courts and sent back to plantation life. This conspiracy of interest by white plantation owners, business people and white elected officials known as “Redemption” was both born as a way to gain cheap labor and to strip Black people of their voting and citizenship rights recently gained from the 14th and 15th Amendments. When the police were not enforcing these laws in uniform, many in the South were a part of white terrorist groups like the Ku Klux Klan that killed, lynched, maimed and harassed Black people in the name of white supremacy. This continued to be the norm for Black life for close to another 100 years in the South. With the codification of Jim Crow laws, the police saw it as their duty, custom and culture to uphold these laws.
Although most forms of vigilante-style racial violence have been lessened from the period of overt slave catching, bounty hunting and terrorist lynch mobs, the notable exceptions still exist. Many Southern states have gone out of their way to extend the definition of “self-defense” from the castle doctrine of protecting one’s home or protecting oneself from imminent threat with a proportional response, to “stand your ground laws,” which allow the use of deadly force for perceived danger. White people have felt empowered to use these laws to stop Black people, like the slave catcher of the past, and interrogate them. When these Black people don’t respond well to being forced to stop by strangers, these white men have shot them and claimed the defense of standing their ground even when they are shooting unarmed Black people. Similar to lynch mobs, these individuals feel it is their right to control and terrorize Black people. Clearly, these laws were meant to give whites the feeling of acting “under the color of law” when confronting mostly young Black men.
The modern over-policing of Black communities started with the Great Migration North in the early 1900s onward, the pushing of Black people into certain communities, and white flight, followed by a decrease in most city services except for one city agency which increased its presence — the local police. There were plenty of police patrolling the neighborhoods of the urban slum. The primary contacts the state had with its Black citizens was through cops on the beat who, through the use of racialized violence, enforced the rules and laws of the street and corner life.
Places where I grew up myself included dilapidated apartments and high-rise public housing where there was never enough work, health care or space but always enough cops looking to make arrests and to control the movement of Black people. Most urban uprisings of the second half of the last century were connected to incidents of police brutality in the community. During this period, the aggressive tactics of the police gave us the form of police brutality and racialized violence we see today and the creation of the modern prison-industrial complex, where Black men in particular make up 6 percent of the U.S. population but 33 percent of the overall prison population. The killing of Black people, the most horrific form of this violence, became a staple of white police enforcement and intimidation. Prior to phone cameras and a news media interested in covering such stories, most of the time these deaths became a memory for a mother, wife, brother, sister and child — but not the country.
Yesteryear’s white supremacy still informs the rules of engagement. The police both historically and contemporaneously serve to control the physical movement of Black people, support a system of controlled labor through arrest policies and attempt to create an atmosphere of fear by wielding an overwhelming use of force. In other words, the system is not broken but working as intended when first introduced as a slave-catching mechanism to prevent enslaved Africans from escaping the conditions of servitude in plantation life. That system has developed into the professionalized and militarized system of control we have today that, instead of working for plantation and slave owners, has morphed into a system protecting the private property of the larger capitalist class while policing Black movement and aspirations.
There needs to be a rethinking of policing in this country, one that includes the calls for defunding and abolition, but also takes on the question of who has power and control over whatever policing apparatus is with us. That power should be in the hands of the community being policed.
The Fourth of July is best used by mobilizing and organizing to tell America that it is time to reexamine its past and develop a new community-centered approach to ending racial violence and police brutality in this country.
Tired of reading the same old news from the same old sources? So are we! That’s why we’re on a mission to shake things up and bring you the stories and perspectives that often go untold in mainstream media. But being a radically, unapologetically independent news site isn’t easy (or cheap), and we rely on reader support to keep the lights on.
If you like what you’re reading, please consider making a tax-deductible donation today. We’re not asking for a handout, we’re asking for an investment: Invest in a nonprofit news site that’s not afraid to ruffle a few feathers, not afraid to stand up for what’s right, and not afraid to tell it like it is.
Copyright © Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.


truthout--2020-07-04--We Must Understand the Sordid History of Voter Suppression to End Its Use

172 Six percent of country could vote in 1787 : “ How Things Have Changed in Philadelphia since the 1787 Convention , ” National Constitution Center , May 25 , 2016. constitutioncenter.org/blog/how-things-have-changed-since-1787 .
172 National Women ’ s Party : Terence McArdle , “ ‘ Night of Terror ’ : The Suffragists Who Were Beaten and Tortured for Seeking the Vote , ” The Washington Post , November 10 , 2017. washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/11/10/night-of-terror-the-suffragists-who-were-beaten-and-tortured-for-seeking-the-vote/ ?
utm_term=.659202fa071b ; “ First Picket of White House , ” NewseumED .
Accessed June 5 , 2019. newseumed.org/tools/historical-event/first-picket-white-house .
172 Native Americans , Asian Americans excluded from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Vote When ?
” Al Jazeera .
Accessed June 5 , 2019. interactive.aljazeera.com/aje/2016/us-elections-2016-who-can-vote/index.html .
173 Jelly bean test : Charles E. Cobb , Jr. , “ The Voting Rights Act , 45 Years Later , ” The Root , August 6 , 2010. theroot.com/the-voting-rights-act-45-years-later-1790880503 ; Associated Press , “ Exhibit Traces History of Voting Rights Act , ” MSNBC , August 5 , 2005. nbcnews.com/id/8839169/ns/us_news-life/t/exhibit-traces-history-voting-rights-act/ ; Ari Berman , Give Us the Ballot ( New York : Picador , 2015 ) : 33 .
173 All eleven Confederate states adopt poll tax @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Election Day , A History of the Poll Tax in America , ” Forbes , November 5 , 2018. forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2018/11/05/just-before-the-elections-a-history-of-the-poll-tax-in-america/ .

Notes to chapter 5 – Who Votes
172 Six percent of country could vote in 1787: “How Things Have Changed in Philadelphia since the 1787 Convention,” National Constitution Center, May 25, 2016. constitutioncenter.org/blog/how-things-have-changed-since-1787.
172 National Women’s Party: Terence McArdle, “‘Night of Terror’: The Suffragists Who Were Beaten and Tortured for Seeking the Vote,” The Washington Post, November 10, 2017. washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/11/10/night-of-terror-the-suffragists-who-were-beaten-and-tortured-for-seeking-the-vote/?utm_term=.659202fa071b; “First Picket of White House,” NewseumED. Accessed June 5, 2019. newseumed.org/tools/historical-event/first-picket-white-house.
172 Native Americans, Asian Americans excluded from vote: “Who Got the Right to Vote When?” Al Jazeera. Accessed June 5, 2019. interactive.aljazeera.com/aje/2016/us-elections-2016-who-can-vote/index.html.
173 Jelly bean test: Charles E. Cobb, Jr., “The Voting Rights Act, 45 Years Later,” The Root, August 6, 2010. theroot.com/the-voting-rights-act-45-years-later-1790880503; Associated Press, “Exhibit Traces History of Voting Rights Act,” MSNBC, August 5, 2005. nbcnews.com/id/8839169/ns/us_news-life/t/exhibit-traces-history-voting-rights-act/; Ari Berman, Give Us the Ballot (New York: Picador, 2015): 33.
173 All eleven Confederate states adopt poll tax: Kelly Phillips Erb, “For Election Day, A History of the Poll Tax in America,” Forbes, November 5, 2018. forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2018/11/05/just-before-the-elections-a-history-of-the-poll-tax-in-america/.


truthout--2020-07-04--No One Should Have to Die in Prison

No One Should Have to Die in Prison

Every year people die in the custody of Illinois Department of Corrections , the vast majority due in part to overincarceration .
COVID-19 is highlighting this fact because it is attacking the elderly and infirm , many of whom have spent decades enduring harsh prison conditions .
They die lonely deaths for no other reason than incarceration politics , and in a vain attempt to satiate the insatiable appetite some people have for revenge .
Gov .
J.B. Pritzker and others have recently voiced support for early releases of “ non-violent offenders , ” and insinuate that this shows they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ priority .
Not only is this insufficient to address mass incarceration , but if public safety is the main priority , then they should have no problem releasing ” violent offenders ” .
That ’ s because people convicted of violent offenses have lower recidivism rates and even a lower likelihood of committing violence if released .
The thousands of people currently serving long sentences are doing so due to racism , fear-mongering , dehumanization , political exploitation , and the false promise that harsher sentences are needed to deter crime .
Politicians @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to get elected for decades , telling the public over and over again that even longer and harsher sentences are the only way to deter people from committing crimes .
In Illinois , this facilitated the abolishment of parole , the passage of accountability and felony murder laws , Truth-In-Sentencing , the Habitual Criminal Act , gun add-ons , life without parole and de facto life sentences , and increased sentencing ranges for nearly every crime imaginable .
It might seem logical to assume that if you threaten someone with a severe enough @ @ @ @ @ @ @ committing a crime .
Unfortunately , this type of punitive deterrence is a myth , as has been shown by studies .
For punitive deterrence to work there are several prerequisites necessary .
The person has to know the consequence , believe they will be caught and face that consequence , and have the ability to rationally weigh the costs and benefits of committing a crime versus not committing it .
Punitive deterrence doesn ’ t work , because , not only do people not know what sentencing laws stipulate , but people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ caught , let alone charged and convicted .
Moreover , many people who commit crimes are juveniles or young adults with immature prefrontal lobes , and most are either under the influence of drugs or alcohol , are diagnosed with mental illness , or are simply acting in the heat of the moment , while in anger , without thinking clearly .
Deterrence is largely a myth .
Craig Findley , the chairman of the Illinois Prisoner Review Board , who has interviewed over 25,000 incarcerated Illinoisans , stated in a hearing on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ long sentences are not a deterrent to crime ” .
Nonetheless , every day men and women are receiving very long and inhumane prison sentences under the guise that they will deter people from committing crimes .
What is never mentioned when arguing for more severe sentences to deter crime is the inhumanity of the practice itself .
Each person who has their prison sentence increased ( and their life , as well as the lives of his or her family , increasingly destroyed ) to allegedly deter others , is irrationally being @ @ @ @ @ @ @ won ’ t commit a crime .
For the state to increase the pain and suffering of one individual to coerce the behavior of another is morally repugnant .
We currently have thousands of people sentenced to die in prison in a vain attempt to coerce others to follow the law .
Let me show you how incarceration politics has affected three of my friends ’ lives .
All three were sentenced to death by incarceration .
Darrell Fair , incarcerated with me in Stateville Correctional Center , was coerced at gunpoint into @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , an underling of Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge , who during his tenure tortured more than a hundred Black men .
Darrell was then wrongfully convicted and sentenced to spend 100 percent of a 50-year sentence in prison thanks to Illinois ’ s Truth-In-Sentencing law , passed in 1995 .
His liberty was violently stolen by a corrupt legal system , and his release has been continuously denied due to incarceration politics .
First , the system denied him release through Illinois ’ s lack of parole .
Then he was denied @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( TIRC ) , created to prevent such abuse , refused to examine non-Burge claims .
He was again denied release when the TIRC opened up to include non-Burge claims but was insufficiently funded .
The pattern repeated again when his case ’ s prosecutor , for months , neglected to divulge the fact the Detective McDermott refused to testify under oath that he did not assault and threaten Darrell .
Now , his release continues to be denied as the court is shut down due to the COVID-19 crisis .
Darrell is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a college degree and enormous community support .
Will society collectively shrug if he too contracts COVID-19 and dies , like society has shrugged off the thousands of other deaths over the past few decades in the Illinois Department of Corrections due to long sentencing and incarceration politics ?
Will society care more if people learn that his wrongful conviction will cost taxpayers millions of dollars ?
Many additional people could have already been safely at home with their families if politicians hadn ’ t played incarceration politics with the young adult parole @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Due to political calculations , the youth offender bill was not retroactive .
Had it been , at least two of my friends might still be alive .
James Scott and Joseph Wilson .
James was 18 when he committed the crime he was incarcerated for .
He was a kind of old man who had spent decades in prison and simply wanted to get out and reunite with his family .
Joseph was a writer , artist and entrepreneur , who had also served decades in prison and simply wanted to regain @ @ @ @ @ @ @ back to this community .
Both are now dead .
While COVID-19 may have prevented them from taking another breath , it was incarceration politics that put the bag over their head .
They will be sorely missed .
There are probably thousands of other people convicted as juveniles or young adults that deserve a chance to go home .
Instead , they are all sitting in prison , unable to protect themselves from COVID-19 let alone return home to help their families in these dire times .
If Illinois had not abolished @ @ @ @ @ @ @ three of my friends would likely have returned home to their families a decade or more ago .
They would be living full lives and contributing members to their communities .
I can say that because I know their character , not just the false label society placed on them .
Instead of sending them home , however , the state has spent billions of dollars to continue to incarcerate them .
These are just a few examples of the thousands of people who deserve a chance to return home , but who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ die in prison unnecessarily .
It is high time to stop playing politics with people ’ s lives .
We are tired of watching our friends die in here for no other reason than to benefit the political careers of yesterday ’ s politicians .
Many have noted that the COVID-19 situation in prisons is a moral test that our society is failing abysmally .
It is also shining a light on another abysmal moral failure : that of mass incarceration and incarceration politics in general .
A version of the above statement @ @ @ @ @ @ @ A People ’ s Tribunal : COVID-19 and the Crisis of Death by Incarceration , ” a Zoom webinar that took place June 4 , 2020 .
The event was organized by a coalition of groups led by Parole Illinois , an inside-outside prison project addressing the effects the long-term incarceration .
Listen to a recording of Dole reading the statement here .

Every year people die in the custody of Illinois Department of Corrections, the vast majority due in part to overincarceration. COVID-19 is highlighting this fact because it is attacking the elderly and infirm, many of whom have spent decades enduring harsh prison conditions. They die lonely deaths for no other reason than incarceration politics, and in a vain attempt to satiate the insatiable appetite some people have for revenge.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker and others have recently voiced support for early releases of “non-violent offenders,” and insinuate that this shows they still consider public safety as the main priority. Not only is this insufficient to address mass incarceration, but if public safety is the main priority, then they should have no problem releasing ” violent offenders”. That’s because people convicted of violent offenses have lower recidivism rates and even a lower likelihood of committing violence if released.
The thousands of people currently serving long sentences are doing so due to racism, fear-mongering, dehumanization, political exploitation, and the false promise that harsher sentences are needed to deter crime.
Politicians of both parties have used tough-on-crime rhetoric to get elected for decades, telling the public over and over again that even longer and harsher sentences are the only way to deter people from committing crimes. In Illinois, this facilitated the abolishment of parole, the passage of accountability and felony murder laws, Truth-In-Sentencing, the Habitual Criminal Act, gun add-ons, life without parole and de facto life sentences, and increased sentencing ranges for nearly every crime imaginable.
It might seem logical to assume that if you threaten someone with a severe enough consequence, they’ll refrain from committing a crime. Unfortunately, this type of punitive deterrence is a myth, as has been shown by studies.
For punitive deterrence to work there are several prerequisites necessary. The person has to know the consequence, believe they will be caught and face that consequence, and have the ability to rationally weigh the costs and benefits of committing a crime versus not committing it.
We currently have thousands of people sentenced to die in prison in a vain attempt to coerce others to follow the law.
Punitive deterrence doesn’t work, because, not only do people not know what sentencing laws stipulate, but people don’t believe they will be caught, let alone charged and convicted. Moreover, many people who commit crimes are juveniles or young adults with immature prefrontal lobes, and most are either under the influence of drugs or alcohol, are diagnosed with mental illness, or are simply acting in the heat of the moment, while in anger, without thinking clearly. Deterrence is largely a myth.
Craig Findley, the chairman of the Illinois Prisoner Review Board, who has interviewed over 25,000 incarcerated Illinoisans, stated in a hearing on parole that he likewise concludes that “long sentences are not a deterrent to crime”. Nonetheless, every day men and women are receiving very long and inhumane prison sentences under the guise that they will deter people from committing crimes.
What is never mentioned when arguing for more severe sentences to deter crime is the inhumanity of the practice itself. Each person who has their prison sentence increased (and their life, as well as the lives of his or her family, increasingly destroyed) to allegedly deter others, is irrationally being held accountable for whether others will or won’t commit a crime. For the state to increase the pain and suffering of one individual to coerce the behavior of another is morally repugnant.
We currently have thousands of people sentenced to die in prison in a vain attempt to coerce others to follow the law. Let me show you how incarceration politics has affected three of my friends’ lives. All three were sentenced to death by incarceration.
Darrell Fair, incarcerated with me in Stateville Correctional Center, was coerced at gunpoint into a false confession by Detective Michael McDermott, an underling of Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge, who during his tenure tortured more than a hundred Black men. Darrell was then wrongfully convicted and sentenced to spend 100 percent of a 50-year sentence in prison thanks to Illinois’s Truth-In-Sentencing law, passed in 1995. His liberty was violently stolen by a corrupt legal system, and his release has been continuously denied due to incarceration politics. First, the system denied him release through Illinois’s lack of parole. Then he was denied release when the Torture Inquiry Relief Commission (TIRC), created to prevent such abuse, refused to examine non-Burge claims. He was again denied release when the TIRC opened up to include non-Burge claims but was insufficiently funded. The pattern repeated again when his case’s prosecutor, for months, neglected to divulge the fact the Detective McDermott refused to testify under oath that he did not assault and threaten Darrell. Now, his release continues to be denied as the court is shut down due to the COVID-19 crisis.
Darrell is a 52-year-old with asthma. He has a college degree and enormous community support. Will society collectively shrug if he too contracts COVID-19 and dies, like society has shrugged off the thousands of other deaths over the past few decades in the Illinois Department of Corrections due to long sentencing and incarceration politics? Will society care more if people learn that his wrongful conviction will cost taxpayers millions of dollars?
Many additional people could have already been safely at home with their families if politicians hadn’t played incarceration politics with the young adult parole bill over the last few years.
Due to political calculations, the youth offender bill was not retroactive. Had it been, at least two of my friends might still be alive. James Scott and Joseph Wilson. James was 18 when he committed the crime he was incarcerated for. He was a kind old man who had spent decades in prison and simply wanted to get out and reunite with his family. Joseph was a writer, artist and entrepreneur, who had also served decades in prison and simply wanted to regain his freedom so that he could give back to this community. Both are now dead. While COVID-19 may have prevented them from taking another breath, it was incarceration politics that put the bag over their head. They will be sorely missed.
There are probably thousands of other people convicted as juveniles or young adults that deserve a chance to go home. Instead, they are all sitting in prison, unable to protect themselves from COVID-19 let alone return home to help their families in these dire times.
If Illinois had not abolished parole, among other measures, all three of my friends would likely have returned home to their families a decade or more ago. They would be living full lives and contributing members to their communities. I can say that because I know their character, not just the false label society placed on them. Instead of sending them home, however, the state has spent billions of dollars to continue to incarcerate them.
These are just a few examples of the thousands of people who deserve a chance to return home, but who are being forced to grow old and die in prison unnecessarily. It is high time to stop playing politics with people’s lives.
We are tired of watching our friends die in here for no other reason than to benefit the political careers of yesterday’s politicians. Many have noted that the COVID-19 situation in prisons is a moral test that our society is failing abysmally. It is also shining a light on another abysmal moral failure: that of mass incarceration and incarceration politics in general.
A version of the above statement was delivered by Joseph Dole at “A People’s Tribunal: COVID-19 and the Crisis of Death by Incarceration,” a Zoom webinar that took place June 4, 2020. The event was organized by a coalition of groups led by Parole Illinois, an inside-outside prison project addressing the effects the long-term incarceration.
Listen to a recording of Dole reading the statement here.
Tired of reading the same old news from the same old sources? So are we! That’s why we’re on a mission to shake things up and bring you the stories and perspectives that often go untold in mainstream media. But being a radically, unapologetically independent news site isn’t easy (or cheap), and we rely on reader support to keep the lights on.
If you like what you’re reading, please consider making a tax-deductible donation today. We’re not asking for a handout, we’re asking for an investment: Invest in a nonprofit news site that’s not afraid to ruffle a few feathers, not afraid to stand up for what’s right, and not afraid to tell it like it is.
Copyright © Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.


truthout--2020-07-04--Without Radical Community Education, We Won’t Move Beyond “Comfortable” Reforms

Many of us are reflecting on what it means to engage critically within our own communities as a way of supporting and being accountable to broader movements for justice .
In this moment , prioritizing community education — a process of learning and teaching together toward meaningful social change — is one of the many ways that those of us not directly targeted by anti-Black racism can collectively support and participate in movements to abolish policing , prisons , and all systems that profit off of and perpetuate anti-Blackness .
What does community education work look like ?
It requires @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thinking intentionally about what and how it means to be a partner in the struggle .
It means working deeply within the communities we are part of — in my case , largely white Jewish communities — since those of us who have benefited from white supremacy and its institutions need to understand the history , current realities , our complicity , and how to act with integrity .
It means that our learning is concretely tied to how we act , to what we do .
To ensure that our work is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ clarity as we can about the principles that propel that work forward .
I have been reflecting on community education projects I have been part of , such as Jews Against Anti-Muslim Racism ( focused on challenging anti-Muslim racism ) and Facing the Nakba ( addressing justice in Palestine ) .
In each initiative , the work we did within our own communities was shaped and informed by the broader movements we were part of , which were led by those most impacted by the unjust systems we were challenging .
As Jewish @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ourselves accountable to these movements for justice , which meant that our community education work was not done in isolation , but emerged in the context of our ongoing organizing with and within broader movements for justice .
Our resources and curricula grew out of the organizing , analysis and resources of those in the forefront of these movements for justice .
Our work was continuously evolving , encompassing an ongoing process of learning , reflection , deeper learning and greater reflection , always with an eye and commitment toward accountable , effective @ @ @ @ @ @ @ largely white Jewish communities I am interacting with , I am seeing greater acknowledgment about police brutality and anti-Black racism .
However , the conversations often slip into support for some form of police “ reform ” rather than engaging deeply with the ideas , visions and strategies being put forth by abolitionists .
As Critical Resistance notes , abolition of the prison-industrial complex “ is a political vision with the goal of eliminating prisons , policing , and surveillance and creating lasting alternatives to punishment and imprisonment.
” These conversations , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , in many ways remind me of discussions I ’ ve been part of ( also with largely white Jews ) about Palestine and anti-Muslim racism .
In conversations about Palestine , even when there is a recognition of Israel ’ s oppressive policies and practices , the discussions often begin and end at Israel ’ s occupation of the 1967 territories as the “ problem ” to be solved .
This analysis fails to address the actual heart and root of what happened , that is , the Nakba — the expulsion @ @ @ @ @ @ @ homes beginning before and during Israel ’ s creation of 1948 .
To not recognize this truth , and instead propagate the more “ palatable ” analysis of the problem starting in 1967 , leads to support of “ solutions ” that don ’ t address the foundations of injustice .
Similarly , while many within our communities have acknowledged the existence of Islamophobia , it is more often than not focused on individual attacks , and not on opposing state-sanctioned anti-Muslim violence as evidenced by the “ war on terror ” that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and across the globe .
To ignore state-sanctioned violence means failing to address the biggest perpetrators of anti-Muslim violence in this country — the U.S. government and its military .
Part of our community education work means making visible , and looking critically at , the profound differences between working toward reforms within violent systems , which so often only serve to perpetuate underlying injustices , and working to eradicate those systems and build alternatives .
These examples might reflect the difference between liberal vs. radical analyses , but I believe it also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ often and easily embrace solutions that keep us feeling comfortable , or that don ’ t really shake us up , while also feeling like we ’ re doing something to support social change .
These “ comfortable ” solutions stand in contrast to those that compel us to address systemic , structural issues at their core and challenge our role ( individually and collectively ) in perpetuating such systems of oppression .
So , our work is not to allow ourselves to feel comfortable , or self-satisfied , but to dig deeper @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that depth , responds to the calls from impacted communities , and enables us to participate in broader movements for true transformation .
Community education means developing learning opportunities together as well as curricula and pedagogies to support that learning , drawing upon the vast resources that have already been created from those who have worked long and hard on these issues for years and years .
Many of us may be new to issues of police and prison abolition , but there is a long history of organizers and community members , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been laying the groundwork for where we are today and who have been envisioning and working toward a just , prison-free , police-free world .
Some of that critical work comes from Mariame Kaba , Ruth Wilson Gilmore , Angela Davis , Critical Resistance , Dean Spade , Survived & Punished , Alex Vitale , Black and Pink , INCITE !
, Reclaim the Block , Dream Defenders , Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective , # 8toAbolition , and many others .
Our work requires not only understanding the ways these injustices are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ heart and very structures of our society , but also in how they play out within our communities , too often resulting in active support for , and participation in , oppression rather than liberation .
Serious engagement in community education can not be considered an “ add-on ” or intended as an academic exercise .
Rather , we need to prioritize it as an integral part of our ongoing organizing that requires challenging and pushing ourselves to deepen our knowledge , shape and inform our thinking , and , most importantly , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in work for justice .

Many of us are reflecting on what it means to engage critically within our own communities as a way of supporting and being accountable to broader movements for justice. In this moment, prioritizing community education — a process of learning and teaching together toward meaningful social change — is one of the many ways that those of us not directly targeted by anti-Black racism can collectively support and participate in movements to abolish policing, prisons, and all systems that profit off of and perpetuate anti-Blackness.
What does community education work look like? It requires honest, reflective examination. It means thinking intentionally about what and how it means to be a partner in the struggle. It means working deeply within the communities we are part of — in my case, largely white Jewish communities — since those of us who have benefited from white supremacy and its institutions need to understand the history, current realities, our complicity, and how to act with integrity. It means that our learning is concretely tied to how we act, to what we do.
To ensure that our work is meaningful, we must have as much clarity as we can about the principles that propel that work forward. I have been reflecting on community education projects I have been part of, such as Jews Against Anti-Muslim Racism (focused on challenging anti-Muslim racism) and Facing the Nakba (addressing justice in Palestine). In each initiative, the work we did within our own communities was shaped and informed by the broader movements we were part of, which were led by those most impacted by the unjust systems we were challenging. As Jewish partners in this work, we considered ourselves accountable to these movements for justice, which meant that our community education work was not done in isolation, but emerged in the context of our ongoing organizing with and within broader movements for justice. Our resources and curricula grew out of the organizing, analysis and resources of those in the forefront of these movements for justice. Our work was continuously evolving, encompassing an ongoing process of learning, reflection, deeper learning and greater reflection, always with an eye and commitment toward accountable, effective action.
Right now, within the largely white Jewish communities I am interacting with, I am seeing greater acknowledgment about police brutality and anti-Black racism. However, the conversations often slip into support for some form of police “reform” rather than engaging deeply with the ideas, visions and strategies being put forth by abolitionists. As Critical Resistance notes, abolition of the prison-industrial complex “is a political vision with the goal of eliminating prisons, policing, and surveillance and creating lasting alternatives to punishment and imprisonment.”
These conversations, and the nature of people’s responses, in many ways remind me of discussions I’ve been part of (also with largely white Jews) about Palestine and anti-Muslim racism. In conversations about Palestine, even when there is a recognition of Israel’s oppressive policies and practices, the discussions often begin and end at Israel’s occupation of the 1967 territories as the “problem” to be solved. This analysis fails to address the actual heart and root of what happened, that is, the Nakba — the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians from their land and homes beginning before and during Israel’s creation of 1948. To not recognize this truth, and instead propagate the more “palatable” analysis of the problem starting in 1967, leads to support of “solutions” that don’t address the foundations of injustice.
Similarly, while many within our communities have acknowledged the existence of Islamophobia, it is more often than not focused on individual attacks, and not on opposing state-sanctioned anti-Muslim violence as evidenced by the “war on terror” that targets and demonizes Muslims in the U.S. and across the globe. To ignore state-sanctioned violence means failing to address the biggest perpetrators of anti-Muslim violence in this country — the U.S. government and its military.
Our work requires not only understanding the ways these injustices are manifested, perpetuated and embedded within the very structures of our society, but also in how they play out within our communities.
Part of our community education work means making visible, and looking critically at, the profound differences between working toward reforms within violent systems, which so often only serve to perpetuate underlying injustices, and working to eradicate those systems and build alternatives.
These examples might reflect the difference between liberal vs. radical analyses, but I believe it also reflects something more: that we too often and easily embrace solutions that keep us feeling comfortable, or that don’t really shake us up, while also feeling like we’re doing something to support social change. These “comfortable” solutions stand in contrast to those that compel us to address systemic, structural issues at their core and challenge our role (individually and collectively) in perpetuating such systems of oppression. So, our work is not to allow ourselves to feel comfortable, or self-satisfied, but to dig deeper and deeper so that our organizing reflects that depth, responds to the calls from impacted communities, and enables us to participate in broader movements for true transformation.
Community education means developing learning opportunities together as well as curricula and pedagogies to support that learning, drawing upon the vast resources that have already been created from those who have worked long and hard on these issues for years and years. Many of us may be new to issues of police and prison abolition, but there is a long history of organizers and community members, particularly from Black communities, who have been laying the groundwork for where we are today and who have been envisioning and working toward a just, prison-free, police-free world. Some of that critical work comes from Mariame Kaba, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Angela Davis, Critical Resistance, Dean Spade, Survived & Punished, Alex Vitale, Black and Pink, INCITE!, Reclaim the Block, Dream Defenders, Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective, #8toAbolition, and many others.
Our work requires not only understanding the ways these injustices are manifested, perpetuated and embedded within the heart and very structures of our society, but also in how they play out within our communities, too often resulting in active support for, and participation in, oppression rather than liberation. Serious engagement in community education cannot be considered an “add-on” or intended as an academic exercise. Rather, we need to prioritize it as an integral part of our ongoing organizing that requires challenging and pushing ourselves to deepen our knowledge, shape and inform our thinking, and, most importantly, propel us to genuinely and courageously participate in work for justice.
Tired of reading the same old news from the same old sources? So are we! That’s why we’re on a mission to shake things up and bring you the stories and perspectives that often go untold in mainstream media. But being a radically, unapologetically independent news site isn’t easy (or cheap), and we rely on reader support to keep the lights on.
If you like what you’re reading, please consider making a tax-deductible donation today. We’re not asking for a handout, we’re asking for an investment: Invest in a nonprofit news site that’s not afraid to ruffle a few feathers, not afraid to stand up for what’s right, and not afraid to tell it like it is.
Copyright © Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.


truthout--2020-07-05--Hollowed-Out Public Health System Faces More Cuts Amid Virus

The U.S. public health system has been starved for decades and lacks the resources to confront the worst health crisis in a century .
Marshaled against a virus that has sickened at least 2.6 million in the U.S. , killed more than 126,000 people and cost tens of millions of jobs and $ 3 trillion in federal rescue money , state and local government health workers on the ground are sometimes paid so little that they qualify for public aid .
They track the coronavirus on paper records shared via fax .
Working seven-day weeks for months on end , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and even losing their jobs .
Since 2010 , spending for state public health departments has dropped by 16 % per capita and spending for local health departments has fallen by 18 % , according to a KHN and Associated Press analysis of government spending on public health .
At least 38,000 state and local public health jobs have disappeared since the 2008 recession , leaving a skeletal workforce for what was once viewed as one of the world ’ s top public health systems .
KHN and AP interviewed more than 150 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , analyzed spending records from hundreds of state and local health departments , and surveyed statehouses .
On every level , the investigation found , the system is underfunded and under threat , unable to protect the nation ’ s health .
Dr. Robert Redfield , the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , said in an interview in April that his “ biggest regret ” was “ that our nation failed over decades to effectively invest in public health.
” So when this outbreak arrived — and when , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ federal government bungled its response — hollowed-out state and local health departments were ill-equipped to step into the breach .
Over time , their work had received so little support that they found themselves without direction , disrespected , ignored , even vilified .
The desperate struggle against COVID-19 became increasingly politicized and grew more difficult .
States , cities and counties in dire straits have begun laying off and furloughing members of already limited staffs , and even more devastation looms , as states reopen and cases surge .
Historically , even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as Zika and H1N1 , it disappears after the emergency subsides .
Officials fear the same thing is happening now .
“ We don ’ t say to the fire department , ‘ Oh , I ’ m sorry .
There were no fires last year , so we ’ re going to take 30 % of your budget away.
’ That would be crazy , right ?
” said Dr. Gianfranco Pezzino , the health officer in Shawnee County , Kansas .
“ But we do that with public health , day @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s Toledo-Lucas County Health Department spent $ 17 million , or $ 40 per person , in 2017 .
Jennifer Gottschalk , 42 , works for the county as an environmental health supervisor .
When the coronavirus struck , the county ’ s department was so short-staffed that her duties included overseeing campground and pool inspections , rodent control and sewage programs , while also supervising outbreak preparedness for a community of more than 425,000 people .
When Gottschalk and five colleagues fell ill with COVID-19 , she found herself fielding calls about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , then working through her home isolation .
She stopped only when her coughing was too severe to talk on calls .
“ You have to do what you have to do to get the job done , ” Gottschalk said .
Now , after months of working with hardly a day off , she said the job is wearing on her .
So many lab reports on coronavirus cases came in , the office fax machine broke .
She faces a backlash from the community over coronavirus restrictions and there are countless @ @ @ @ @ @ @ worse ; possible county budget cuts loom .
But Toledo-Lucas is no outlier .
Public health ranks low on the nation ’ s financial priority list .
Nearly two-thirds of Americans live in counties that spend more than twice as much on policing as they spend on non-hospital health care , which includes public health .
More than three-quarters of Americans live in states that spend less than $ 100 per person annually on public health .
Spending ranges from $ 32 in Louisiana to $ 263 in Delaware , according to data @ @ @ @ @ @ @ State Health Expenditure Dataset project .
That money represents less than 1.5 % of most states ’ total spending , with half of it passed down to local health departments .
The share of spending devoted to public health belies its multidimensional role .
Agencies are legally bound to provide a broad range of services , from vaccinations and restaurant inspections to protection against infectious disease .
Distinct from the medical care system geared toward individuals , the public health system focuses on the health of communities at large .
“ Public health @ @ @ @ @ @ @ our job , nothing happens .
But that ’ s not really a great badge , ” said Scott Becker , chief executive officer of the Association of Public Health Laboratories .
“ We test 97 % of America ’ s babies for metabolic or other disorders .
We do the water testing .
You like to swim in the lake and you don ’ t like poop in there ?
Think of us.
” But the public doesn ’ t see the disasters they thwart .
And it ’ s easy to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ department was a well-known place in the 1950s and 1960s , when Harris Pastides , president emeritus of the University of South Carolina , was growing up in New York City .
“ My mom took me for my vaccines .
We would get our injections there for free .
We would get our polio sugar cubes there for free , ” said Pastides , an epidemiologist .
“ In those days , the health departments had a highly visible role in disease prevention.
” The United States ’ decentralized public health system @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with local funding , knowledge and delivery , was long the envy of the world , said Saad Omer , director of the Yale Institute for Global Health .
“ A lot of what we ’ re seeing right now could be traced back to the chronic funding shortages , ” Omer said .
“ The way we starve our public health system , the way we have tried to do public health outcomes on the cheap in this country.
” In Scott County , Indiana , when preparedness coordinator Patti Hall began @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ago , it ran a children ’ s clinic and a home health agency with several nurses and aides .
But over time , the children ’ s clinic lost funding and closed .
Medicare changes paved the way for private services to replace the home health agency .
Department staff dwindled in the 1990s and early 2000s .
The county was severely outgunned when rampant opioid use and needle sharing sparked an outbreak of HIV in 2015 .
Besides just five full-time and one part-time county public health positions , there was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s epicenter of Austin .
Indiana ’ s then-Gov .
Mike Pence , now leading the nation ’ s coronavirus response as vice president , waited 29 days after the outbreak was announced to sign an executive order allowing syringe exchanges .
At the time , a state official said that only five people from agencies across Indiana were available to help with HIV testing in the county .
The HIV outbreak exploded into the worst ever to hit rural America , infecting more than 230 people .
At times , the federal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ health efforts , to help prevent similar calamities .
But those promises were ephemeral .
Two large sources of money established after Sept. 11 , 2001 — the Public Health Emergency Preparedness program and the Hospital Preparedness Program — were gradually chipped away .
The Affordable Care Act established the Prevention and Public Health Fund , which was supposed to reach $ 2 billion annually by 2015 .
The Obama administration and Congress raided it to pay for other priorities , including a payroll tax cut .
The Trump administration is pushing to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the fund , said Carolyn Mullen , senior vice president of government affairs and public relations at the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials .
Former Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin , a Democrat who championed the fund , said he was furious when the Obama White House took billions from it , breaking what he said was an agreement .
If the fund had remained untouched , an additional $ 12.4 billion would eventually have flowed to local and state health departments .
But local and state leaders also did not prioritize @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Florida , for example , 2 % of state spending goes to public health .
Spending by local health departments in the state fell 39 % , from a high of $ 57 in inflation-adjusted dollars per person in the late 1990s to $ 35 per person last year .
In North Carolina , Wake County ’ s public health workforce dropped from 882 in 2007 to 614 a decade later , even as the population grew by 30 % .
In Detroit , the health department had 700 employees in 2009 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s bankruptcy proceedings .
It ’ s been built back up , but today still has only 200 workers for 670,000 residents .
Many departments rely heavily on disease-specific grant funding , creating unstable and temporary positions .
The CDC ’ s core budget , some of which goes to state and local health departments , has essentially remained flat for a decade .
Federal money currently accounts for 27 % of local public health spending .
Years of such financial pressure increasingly pushed workers in this predominantly female workforce toward retirement @ @ @ @ @ @ @ new hires away .
More than a fifth of public health workers in local or regional departments outside big cities earned $ 35,000 or less a year in 2017 , as did 9 % in big-city departments , according to research by the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials and the de Beaumont Foundation .
Even before the pandemic , nearly half of public health workers planned to retire or leave their organizations for other reasons in the next five years .
Poor pay topped the list of reasons .
Armed with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Julia Crittendon took a job two years ago as a disease intervention specialist with Kentucky ’ s state health department .
She spent her days gathering detailed information about people ’ s sexual partners to fight the spread of HIV and syphilis .
She tracked down phone numbers and drove hours to pick up reluctant clients .
The mother of three loved the work but made so little money that she qualified for Medicaid , the federal-state insurance program for America ’ s poorest .
Seeing no opportunity to advance , she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the redheaded stepchildren , the forgotten ones , ” said Crittendon , 46 .
Such low pay is endemic , with some employees qualifying for the nutrition program for new moms and babies that they administer .
People with the training for many public health jobs , which can include a bachelor ’ s or master ’ s degree , can make much more money in the private health care sector , robbing the public departments of promising recruits .
Dr. Tom Frieden , a former CDC director , said the agency “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ program that sent early-career professionals to state and local public health departments to build the workforce .
“ If we paid them at the very lowest level at the federal scale , ” he said in an interview , “ they would have to take a 10-20 % pay cut to continue on at the local health department.
” In Alaska , the Division of Public Health ’ s spending dropped 9 % from 2014 to 2018 and staffing fell by 82 positions in a decade to 426 .
Tim Struna , chief @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said declines in oil prices in the mid-2010s led the state to make cuts to public health nursing services .
They eliminated well-child exams for children over 6 , scaled back searches for the partners of people with certain sexually transmitted infections and limited reproductive health services to people 29 and younger .
Living through an endless stream of such cuts and their aftermath , those workers on the ground grew increasingly worried about mustering the “ surge capacity ” to expand beyond their daily responsibilities to handle inevitable emergencies .
When the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ U.S. this year , the depleted public health army struggled to hold it back .
As the public health director for the Kentucky River District Health Department in rural Appalachia , Scott Lockard is battling the pandemic with 3G cell service , paper records and one-third of the employees the department had 20 years ago .
He redeployed his nurse administrator to work round-the-clock on contact tracing , alongside the department ’ s school nurse and the tuberculosis and breastfeeding coordinator .
His home health nurse , who typically visits older patients , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ residents aren ’ t making it easy on them .
“ They ’ re not wearing masks , and they ’ re throwing social distancing to the wind , ” Lockard said in mid-June , as cases surged .
“ We ’ re paying for it.
” Even with more staff since the HIV outbreak , Indiana ’ s Scott County Health Department employees worked evenings , weekends and holidays to deal with the pandemic , including outbreaks at a food packing company and a label manufacturer .
Indiana spends $ 37 a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you get home , the phone never stops , the emails and texts never stop , ” said Hall , the preparedness coordinator .
All the while , she and her colleagues worry about keeping HIV under control and preventing drug overdoses from rising .
Other health problems don ’ t just disappear because there is a pandemic .
“ We ’ ve been used to being able to ‘ MacGyver ’ everything on a normal day , and this is not a normal day , ” said Amanda Mehl , the public @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , citing a TV show .
Pezzino , whose department in Kansas serves Topeka and Shawnee County , said he had been trying to hire an epidemiologist , who would study , track and analyze data on health issues , since he came to the department 14 years ago .
Finally , less than three years ago , they hired one .
She just left , and he thinks it will be nearly impossible to find another .
While epidemiologists are nearly universal in departments serving large populations , hardly any departments serving @ @ @ @ @ @ @ % of local health departments have an epidemiologist or statistician .
Strapped departments are now forced to spend money on contact tracers , masks and gloves to keep their workers safe and to do basic outreach .
Melanie Hutton , administrator for the Cooper County Public Health Center in rural Missouri , pointed out the local ambulance department got $ 18,000 , and the fire and police departments got masks to fight COVID-19 .
“ For us , not a nickel , not a face mask , ” she said .
“ We @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hand sanitizer made by the prisoners.
” Public health workers are leaving in droves .
At least 34 state and local public health leaders have announced their resignations , retired or been fired in 17 states since April , a KHN-AP review found .
Others face threats and armed demonstrators .
Ohio ’ s Gottschalk said the backlash has been overwhelming .
“ Being yelled at by residents for almost two hours straight last week on regulations I can not control left me feeling completely burned out , ” she said in mid-June @ @ @ @ @ @ @ risk .
In Prince George ’ s County , Maryland , public health worker Chantee Mack died after , family and co-workers believe , she and several colleagues contracted the disease in the office .
Pence , in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal on June 16 , said the public health system was “ far stronger ” than it was when the coronavirus hit .
It ’ s true that the federal government this year has allocated billions for public health in response to the pandemic , according to the Association @ @ @ @ @ @ @ That includes more than $ 13 billion to state and local health departments , for activities including contact tracing , infection control and technology upgrades .
A KHN-AP review found that some state and local governments are also pledging more money for public health .
Alabama ’ s budget for next year , for example , includes $ 35 million more for public health than it did this year .
But overall , spending is about to be slashed again as the boom-bust cycle continues .
In most states , the new budget @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , layoffs and pay freezes have already begun in some places .
Tax revenues evaporated during lockdowns , all but ensuring there will be more .
At least 14 states have already cut health department budgets or positions or were actively considering such cuts in June , according to a KHN-AP review .
Since the pandemic began , Michigan temporarily cut most of its state health workers ’ hours by one-fifth .
Pennsylvania required more than 65 of its 1,200 public health workers to go on temporary leave , and others lost their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ furloughed 26 out of 260 workers for eight weeks .
Frieden , formerly of the CDC , said it ’ s “ stunning ” that the U.S. is furloughing public health workers amid a pandemic .
The country should demand the resources for public health , he said , just the way it does for the military .
“ This is about protecting Americans , ” Frieden said .
Robert Brown , chair of Cincinnati ’ s Primary Care Board , questions why police officers and firefighters didn ’ t face similar furloughs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ willing to pay hundreds of millions in taxes over decades for the Bengals ’ football stadium .
“ How about investing in something that ’ s going to save some lives ?
” he asked .
In 2018 , Boston spent five times as much on its police department as its public health department .
The city recently pledged to transfer $ 3 million from its approximately $ 60 million police overtime budget to its public health commission .
Looking ahead , more cuts are coming .
Possible budget shortfalls in Brazos County @ @ @ @ @ @ @ department to limit its mosquito-surveillance program and eliminate up to one-fifth of its staff and one-quarter of immunization clinics .
Months into the pandemic response , health departments are still trying to ramp up to fight COVID-19 .
Cases are surging in states including Texas , Arizona and Florida .
Meanwhile , childhood vaccinations began plunging in the second half of March , according to a CDC study analyzing supply orders .
Officials worry whether they will be able to get kids back up to date in the coming months .
In Detroit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 40 % , as clinics shuttered and people stayed home , creating the potential for a different outbreak .
Cutting or eliminating non-COVID activities is dangerous , said E. Oscar Alleyne , chief of programs and services at the National Association of County and City Health Officials .
Cuts to programs such as diabetes control and senior nutrition make already vulnerable communities even more vulnerable , which makes them more likely to suffer serious complications from COVID .
Everything is connected , he said .
It could be a year before there ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , other illnesses , including mental health problems , are smoldering .
The people who spend their lives working in public health say the temporary coronavirus funds won ’ t fix the eroded foundation entrusted with protecting the nation ’ s health as thousands continue to die .
Contributing to this report were : Associated Press writers Mike Stobbe in New York ; Mike Householder in Toledo , Ohio ; Lindsay Whitehurst in Salt Lake City , Utah ; Brian Witte in Annapolis , Maryland ; Jim Anderson in Denver ; Sam Metz @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Ballentine in Jefferson City , Missouri ; Alan Suderman in Richmond , Virginia ; Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City , Oklahoma ; Mike Catalini in Trenton , New Jersey ; David Eggert in Lansing , Michigan ; Andrew DeMillo in Little Rock , Arkansas ; Jeff Amy in Atlanta ; Melinda Deslatte in Baton Rouge , Louisiana ; Morgan Lee in Santa Fe , New Mexico ; Mark Scolforo in Harrisburg , Pennsylvania ; and AP economics writer Christopher Rugaber , in Washington , D.C .

Spending by state and local public health departments has dropped by 16 to 18 percent per capita since 2010.
The U.S. public health system has been starved for decades and lacks the resources to confront the worst health crisis in a century.
Marshaled against a virus that has sickened at least 2.6 million in the U.S., killed more than 126,000 people and cost tens of millions of jobs and $3 trillion in federal rescue money, state and local government health workers on the ground are sometimes paid so little that they qualify for public aid.
They track the coronavirus on paper records shared via fax. Working seven-day weeks for months on end, they fear pay freezes, public backlash and even losing their jobs.
Since 2010, spending for state public health departments has dropped by 16% per capita and spending for local health departments has fallen by 18%, according to a KHN and Associated Press analysis of government spending on public health. At least 38,000 state and local public health jobs have disappeared since the 2008 recession, leaving a skeletal workforce for what was once viewed as one of the world’s top public health systems.
KHN and AP interviewed more than 150 public health workers, policymakers and experts, analyzed spending records from hundreds of state and local health departments, and surveyed statehouses. On every level, the investigation found, the system is underfunded and under threat, unable to protect the nation’s health.
Dr. Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in an interview in April that his “biggest regret” was “that our nation failed over decades to effectively invest in public health.”
So when this outbreak arrived — and when, according to public health experts, the federal government bungled its response — hollowed-out state and local health departments were ill-equipped to step into the breach.
Over time, their work had received so little support that they found themselves without direction, disrespected, ignored, even vilified. The desperate struggle against COVID-19 became increasingly politicized and grew more difficult.
States, cities and counties in dire straits have begun laying off and furloughing members of already limited staffs, and even more devastation looms, as states reopen and cases surge. Historically, even when money pours in following crises such as Zika and H1N1, it disappears after the emergency subsides. Officials fear the same thing is happening now.
“We don’t say to the fire department, ‘Oh, I’m sorry. There were no fires last year, so we’re going to take 30% of your budget away.’ That would be crazy, right?” said Dr. Gianfranco Pezzino, the health officer in Shawnee County, Kansas. “But we do that with public health, day in and day out.”
Ohio’s Toledo-Lucas County Health Department spent $17 million, or $40 per person, in 2017.
Jennifer Gottschalk, 42, works for the county as an environmental health supervisor. When the coronavirus struck, the county’s department was so short-staffed that her duties included overseeing campground and pool inspections, rodent control and sewage programs, while also supervising outbreak preparedness for a community of more than 425,000 people.
When Gottschalk and five colleagues fell ill with COVID-19, she found herself fielding calls about a COVID-19 case from her hospital bed, then working through her home isolation. She stopped only when her coughing was too severe to talk on calls.
“You have to do what you have to do to get the job done,” Gottschalk said.
Now, after months of working with hardly a day off, she said the job is wearing on her. So many lab reports on coronavirus cases came in, the office fax machine broke. She faces a backlash from the community over coronavirus restrictions and there are countless angry phone calls.
Things could get worse; possible county budget cuts loom.
But Toledo-Lucas is no outlier. Public health ranks low on the nation’s financial priority list. Nearly two-thirds of Americans live in counties that spend more than twice as much on policing as they spend on non-hospital health care, which includes public health.
More than three-quarters of Americans live in states that spend less than $100 per person annually on public health. Spending ranges from $32 in Louisiana to $263 in Delaware, according to data provided to KHN and AP by the State Health Expenditure Dataset project.
That money represents less than 1.5% of most states’ total spending, with half of it passed down to local health departments.
The share of spending devoted to public health belies its multidimensional role. Agencies are legally bound to provide a broad range of services, from vaccinations and restaurant inspections to protection against infectious disease. Distinct from the medical care system geared toward individuals, the public health system focuses on the health of communities at large.
“Public health loves to say: When we do our job, nothing happens. But that’s not really a great badge,” said Scott Becker, chief executive officer of the Association of Public Health Laboratories. “We test 97% of America’s babies for metabolic or other disorders. We do the water testing. You like to swim in the lake and you don’t like poop in there? Think of us.”
But the public doesn’t see the disasters they thwart. And it’s easy to neglect the invisible.
A History of Deprivation
The local health department was a well-known place in the 1950s and 1960s, when Harris Pastides, president emeritus of the University of South Carolina, was growing up in New York City.
“My mom took me for my vaccines. We would get our injections there for free. We would get our polio sugar cubes there for free,” said Pastides, an epidemiologist. “In those days, the health departments had a highly visible role in disease prevention.”
The United States’ decentralized public health system, which matches federal funding and expertise with local funding, knowledge and delivery, was long the envy of the world, said Saad Omer, director of the Yale Institute for Global Health.
“A lot of what we’re seeing right now could be traced back to the chronic funding shortages,” Omer said. “The way we starve our public health system, the way we have tried to do public health outcomes on the cheap in this country.”
In Scott County, Indiana, when preparedness coordinator Patti Hall began working at the health department 34 years ago, it ran a children’s clinic and a home health agency with several nurses and aides. But over time, the children’s clinic lost funding and closed. Medicare changes paved the way for private services to replace the home health agency. Department staff dwindled in the 1990s and early 2000s. The county was severely outgunned when rampant opioid use and needle sharing sparked an outbreak of HIV in 2015.
Besides just five full-time and one part-time county public health positions, there was only one doctor in the outbreak’s epicenter of Austin. Indiana’s then-Gov. Mike Pence, now leading the nation’s coronavirus response as vice president, waited 29 days after the outbreak was announced to sign an executive order allowing syringe exchanges. At the time, a state official said that only five people from agencies across Indiana were available to help with HIV testing in the county.
The HIV outbreak exploded into the worst ever to hit rural America, infecting more than 230 people.
At times, the federal government has promised to support local public health efforts, to help prevent similar calamities. But those promises were ephemeral.
Two large sources of money established after Sept. 11, 2001 — the Public Health Emergency Preparedness program and the Hospital Preparedness Program — were gradually chipped away.
The Affordable Care Act established the Prevention and Public Health Fund, which was supposed to reach $2 billion annually by 2015. The Obama administration and Congress raided it to pay for other priorities, including a payroll tax cut. The Trump administration is pushing to repeal the ACA, which would eliminate the fund, said Carolyn Mullen, senior vice president of government affairs and public relations at the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.
Former Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, a Democrat who championed the fund, said he was furious when the Obama White House took billions from it, breaking what he said was an agreement.
“I haven’t spoken to Barack Obama since,” Harkin said.
If the fund had remained untouched, an additional $12.4 billion would eventually have flowed to local and state health departments.
But local and state leaders also did not prioritize public health over the years.
In Florida, for example, 2% of state spending goes to public health. Spending by local health departments in the state fell 39%, from a high of $57 in inflation-adjusted dollars per person in the late 1990s to $35 per person last year.
In North Carolina, Wake County’s public health workforce dropped from 882 in 2007 to 614 a decade later, even as the population grew by 30%.
In Detroit, the health department had 700 employees in 2009, then was effectively disbanded during the city’s bankruptcy proceedings. It’s been built back up, but today still has only 200 workers for 670,000 residents.
Many departments rely heavily on disease-specific grant funding, creating unstable and temporary positions. The CDC’s core budget, some of which goes to state and local health departments, has essentially remained flat for a decade. Federal money currently accounts for 27% of local public health spending.
Years of such financial pressure increasingly pushed workers in this predominantly female workforce toward retirement or the private sector and kept potential new hires away.
More than a fifth of public health workers in local or regional departments outside big cities earned $35,000 or less a year in 2017, as did 9% in big-city departments, according to research by the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials and the de Beaumont Foundation.
Even before the pandemic, nearly half of public health workers planned to retire or leave their organizations for other reasons in the next five years. Poor pay topped the list of reasons.
Armed with a freshly minted bachelor’s degree, Julia Crittendon took a job two years ago as a disease intervention specialist with Kentucky’s state health department. She spent her days gathering detailed information about people’s sexual partners to fight the spread of HIV and syphilis. She tracked down phone numbers and drove hours to pick up reluctant clients.
The mother of three loved the work but made so little money that she qualified for Medicaid, the federal-state insurance program for America’s poorest. Seeing no opportunity to advance, she left.
“We’re like the redheaded stepchildren, the forgotten ones,” said Crittendon, 46.
Such low pay is endemic, with some employees qualifying for the nutrition program for new moms and babies that they administer. People with the training for many public health jobs, which can include a bachelor’s or master’s degree, can make much more money in the private health care sector, robbing the public departments of promising recruits.
Dr. Tom Frieden, a former CDC director, said the agency “intentionally underpaid people” in a training program that sent early-career professionals to state and local public health departments to build the workforce.
“If we paid them at the very lowest level at the federal scale,” he said in an interview, “they would have to take a 10-20% pay cut to continue on at the local health department.”
As low pay sapped the workforce, budget cuts sapped services.
In Alaska, the Division of Public Health’s spending dropped 9% from 2014 to 2018 and staffing fell by 82 positions in a decade to 426. Tim Struna, chief of public health nursing in Alaska, said declines in oil prices in the mid-2010s led the state to make cuts to public health nursing services. They eliminated well-child exams for children over 6, scaled back searches for the partners of people with certain sexually transmitted infections and limited reproductive health services to people 29 and younger.
Living through an endless stream of such cuts and their aftermath, those workers on the ground grew increasingly worried about mustering the “surge capacity” to expand beyond their daily responsibilities to handle inevitable emergencies.
When the fiercest of enemies showed up in the U.S. this year, the depleted public health army struggled to hold it back.
A Decimated Surge Capacity
As the public health director for the Kentucky River District Health Department in rural Appalachia, Scott Lockard is battling the pandemic with 3G cell service, paper records and one-third of the employees the department had 20 years ago.
He redeployed his nurse administrator to work round-the-clock on contact tracing, alongside the department’s school nurse and the tuberculosis and breastfeeding coordinator. His home health nurse, who typically visits older patients, now works on preparedness plans. But residents aren’t making it easy on them.
“They’re not wearing masks, and they’re throwing social distancing to the wind,” Lockard said in mid-June, as cases surged. “We’re paying for it.”
Even with more staff since the HIV outbreak, Indiana’s Scott County Health Department employees worked evenings, weekends and holidays to deal with the pandemic, including outbreaks at a food packing company and a label manufacturer. Indiana spends $37 a person on public health.
“When you get home, the phone never stops, the emails and texts never stop,” said Hall, the preparedness coordinator.
All the while, she and her colleagues worry about keeping HIV under control and preventing drug overdoses from rising. Other health problems don’t just disappear because there is a pandemic.
“We’ve been used to being able to ‘MacGyver’ everything on a normal day, and this is not a normal day,” said Amanda Mehl, the public health administrator for Boone County, Illinois, citing a TV show.
Pezzino, whose department in Kansas serves Topeka and Shawnee County, said he had been trying to hire an epidemiologist, who would study, track and analyze data on health issues, since he came to the department 14 years ago. Finally, less than three years ago, they hired one. She just left, and he thinks it will be nearly impossible to find another.
While epidemiologists are nearly universal in departments serving large populations, hardly any departments serving smaller populations have one. Only 28% of local health departments have an epidemiologist or statistician.
Strapped departments are now forced to spend money on contact tracers, masks and gloves to keep their workers safe and to do basic outreach.
Melanie Hutton, administrator for the Cooper County Public Health Center in rural Missouri, pointed out the local ambulance department got $18,000, and the fire and police departments got masks to fight COVID-19.
“For us, not a nickel, not a face mask,” she said. “We got [5] gallons of homemade hand sanitizer made by the prisoners.”
Public health workers are leaving in droves. At least 34 state and local public health leaders have announced their resignations, retired or been fired in 17 states since April, a KHN-AP review found. Others face threats and armed demonstrators.
Ohio’s Gottschalk said the backlash has been overwhelming.
“Being yelled at by residents for almost two hours straight last week on regulations I cannot control left me feeling completely burned out,” she said in mid-June.
Many are putting their health at risk. In Prince George’s County, Maryland, public health worker Chantee Mack died after, family and co-workers believe, she and several colleagues contracted the disease in the office.
A Difficult Road Ahead
Pence, in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal on June 16, said the public health system was “far stronger” than it was when the coronavirus hit.
It’s true that the federal government this year has allocated billions for public health in response to the pandemic, according to the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. That includes more than $13 billion to state and local health departments, for activities including contact tracing, infection control and technology upgrades.
A KHN-AP review found that some state and local governments are also pledging more money for public health. Alabama’s budget for next year, for example, includes $35 million more for public health than it did this year.
But overall, spending is about to be slashed again as the boom-bust cycle continues.
In most states, the new budget year begins July 1, and furloughs, layoffs and pay freezes have already begun in some places. Tax revenues evaporated during lockdowns, all but ensuring there will be more. At least 14 states have already cut health department budgets or positions or were actively considering such cuts in June, according to a KHN-AP review.
Since the pandemic began, Michigan temporarily cut most of its state health workers’ hours by one-fifth. Pennsylvania required more than 65 of its 1,200 public health workers to go on temporary leave, and others lost their jobs. Knox County, Tennessee, furloughed 26 out of 260 workers for eight weeks.
Frieden, formerly of the CDC, said it’s “stunning” that the U.S. is furloughing public health workers amid a pandemic. The country should demand the resources for public health, he said, just the way it does for the military.
“This is about protecting Americans,” Frieden said.
Cincinnati temporarily furloughed approximately 170 health department employees.
Robert Brown, chair of Cincinnati’s Primary Care Board, questions why police officers and firefighters didn’t face similar furloughs at the time or why residents were willing to pay hundreds of millions in taxes over decades for the Bengals’ football stadium.
“How about investing in something that’s going to save some lives?” he asked.
In 2018, Boston spent five times as much on its police department as its public health department. The city recently pledged to transfer $3 million from its approximately $60 million police overtime budget to its public health commission.
Looking ahead, more cuts are coming. Possible budget shortfalls in Brazos County, Texas, may force the health department to limit its mosquito-surveillance program and eliminate up to one-fifth of its staff and one-quarter of immunization clinics.
Months into the pandemic response, health departments are still trying to ramp up to fight COVID-19. Cases are surging in states including Texas, Arizona and Florida.
Meanwhile, childhood vaccinations began plunging in the second half of March, according to a CDC study analyzing supply orders. Officials worry whether they will be able to get kids back up to date in the coming months. In Detroit, the childhood vaccination rate dipped below 40%, as clinics shuttered and people stayed home, creating the potential for a different outbreak.
Cutting or eliminating non-COVID activities is dangerous, said E. Oscar Alleyne, chief of programs and services at the National Association of County and City Health Officials. Cuts to programs such as diabetes control and senior nutrition make already vulnerable communities even more vulnerable, which makes them more likely to suffer serious complications from COVID. Everything is connected, he said.
It could be a year before there’s a widely available vaccine. Meanwhile, other illnesses, including mental health problems, are smoldering.
The people who spend their lives working in public health say the temporary coronavirus funds won’t fix the eroded foundation entrusted with protecting the nation’s health as thousands continue to die.
Contributing to this report were: Associated Press writers Mike Stobbe in New York; Mike Householder in Toledo, Ohio; Lindsay Whitehurst in Salt Lake City, Utah; Brian Witte in Annapolis, Maryland; Jim Anderson in Denver; Sam Metz in Carson City, Nevada; Summer Ballentine in Jefferson City, Missouri; Alan Suderman in Richmond, Virginia; Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Mike Catalini in Trenton, New Jersey; David Eggert in Lansing, Michigan; Andrew DeMillo in Little Rock, Arkansas; Jeff Amy in Atlanta; Melinda Deslatte in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Morgan Lee in Santa Fe, New Mexico; Mark Scolforo in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; and AP economics writer Christopher Rugaber, in Washington, D.C.
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