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The Abstract
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> By Stephanie DiCapua Getman, Arnold Ventures
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Fifty-four people died every day from gun violence in the first five months of this year. Only a sliver of those deaths were from the types of mass shootings that make national headlines ( and the types that do not). The majority were from the everyday incidents of gun violence: suicides, homicides, domestic violence, a child getting ahold of an unsecured gun. Yet the U.S. doesn’t know enough about how to prevent these kinds of deaths because it hasn't spent adequate research dollars studying them. The federal government spends more money each year researching hernias and peptic ulcers than it does gun violence — the leading cause of preventable death and injury in this country. So what would it take to close this knowledge gap? The Joyce Foundation and Arnold Ventures released a report this week with a scientific estimate of that figure: $120 million a year over five years. This is what we should be spending on research and comprehensive data collection that can lead policymakers to evidence-based solutions for this unrelenting public health epidemic. That estimate does not include the potential savings generated from policy changes that reduce the number of gun deaths and injuries. Hospital costs for initial treatment of gun-related injuries alone top $1 billion a year, the Government Accountability Office said this week, with the public footing the majority of the bill (add to that physician and long-term care costs). An upfront investment of $120 million a year over five years makes fiscal sense if it means saving money in the long run, saving lives, and saving gunshot victims from the lifelong trauma that follows them years after the physical scars have healed. “Building out the nation’s firearms data infrastructure will allow us to mount a coordinated response to the gun violence epidemic that is based on a shared set of facts,” says AV gun expert Asheley Van Ness. “This report demonstrates that for a relatively modest investment, we can begin to fill in the facts necessary to start saving lives.” |
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Listen to a New ‘Deep Dive’:
‘A Lifetime Sentence to Poverty’
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For people with a criminal record — about 1 in every 3 American adults — punishment does not end when they leave prison or jail. Things many of us take for granted — getting a job, accessing housing, volunteering at your kid's school, casting a ballot, securing financial aid for college — are denied to those with criminal records.
What’s Happening: There are more than 44,000 “collateral consequences” — state and federal sanctions and regulations — that govern the life of someone possessing a criminal record. There is little evidence these barriers make communities safer, but they do make it significantly harder for someone to reintegrate into society. The scope of this problem is truly staggering: Nearly half of all U.S. children have a parent with a record. And this burden is disproportionately shouldered by people of color, who are far more likely to face arrest.
Dive Deeper: Laura Arnold sits down with three guests to examine the legal barriers people with criminal records face, the way these barriers reinforce racial inequity, and the implications for society writ large. Hear the incredible story of Washington state Rep. Tarra Simmons of the Civil Survival Project, who was once incarcerated and is now leading nationwide reform efforts. And hear from Dana Berliner of the Institute for Justice, which calls itself “the national law firm for liberty,” as well as Reuben Jonathan Miller, a sociologist at the University of Chicago whose research on mass incarceration explores the intersection of race, poverty, crime control, and social welfare policy. He is the author of the book “ Halfway Home: Race, Punishment and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration.” (We’ve recommended this excellent Fresh Air interview with Miller in a previous newsletter.)
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On Bail Fearmongering: ‘That’s Perception, Not Facts or Data’
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By Evan Mintz, Communications Manager
If you ever wanted to understand why data is so critical to crafting effective criminal justice policy, then just watch the ongoing debate about bail in Texas. Like the rest of the nation, the city of Houston and the surrounding Harris County have been experiencing a spike in gun homicides. Looking for an explanation — and a solution — the Texas Legislature has responded by promoting a bail bill that will limit how judges can release people accused of certain high-level crimes on personal recognisance bonds and erect other regulations around pretrial release.
“A few high-profile, outlier cases where people released pretrial were rearrested are being used to fearmonger that bail reform is making us less safe,” Insha Rahman, vice president of advocacy and partnerships with the Vera Institute of Justice, said in an interview with the National Partnership for Pretrial Justice. “That’s perception, not facts or data.”
So what do the facts or data state? An investigation published last week by the Houston Chronicle points to an answer: PR bonds are largely unrelated to the problem at hand. Between 2013 and 2020, 221 people committed murder while out on bond for another crime, representing just 7 percent of all murders during the time. Less than one-fifth were released exclusively on personal recognizance bonds or general order bonds. Only two (2) had been released on personal recognizance bonds for violent crimes.
The ongoing spike in gun homicides is an undeniable crisis for communities impacted by violence. The base-level of homicides in the United States even before the spike deserved a robust public policy response at the highest levels. Each life taken by violence represents an irreplaceable light for a family and community lost forever. That’s why it is so tragic to see the Legislature react to the rise in violent crime by focusing on a largely unrelated issue.
But that’s not the end of the story. Houston Police Department Chief Troy Finner has pointed to a backlog in cases following Hurricane Harvey and the ongoing pandemic as the real culprit. The longer people have to wait before their trials, the higher the odds of someone committing a new crime while out on bond. To solve the problem, he has called for expediting low-level cases so that the courts can focus on violent felonies.
Ironically, the bill intended to help reduce violent crime may make this situation worse by undermining quick releases. The bill includes time-consuming mandatory screenings for low-level defendants and regulations that limit charitable bail organizations, which will mean more people stuck behind bars simply because they don’t have enough money. Detaining and processing each one of these Houstonians consumes time and taxpayer dollars that could — and should — be focused on reducing violent crime.
The quorum break by House Democrats has brought much of the Legislative work to a standstill, but the Senate Jurisprudence Committee, led by Sen. Joan Huffman, has been improving the bill and passed it out of the Senate after approving good floor amendments, such as one that exempted fine-only offenses from the screening requirement. Nevertheless, there is still work to be done. The process is slow, but we’ve seen legislators willing to change the bill when presented with new facts and data. Above all, that is the sign of a good policymaker.
Related: CNN fact checks claims that bail reform is driving an increase in violent crime, noting that there is no evidence linking the two, and the majority of cities that have seen increases in crime have not eliminated cash bail.
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Pharma’s Anticompetitive Conduct
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By Rhiannon Meyers Collette, Communications Manager
The Senate Judiciary committee heard testimony this week about the anticompetitive tactics regularly deployed by the pharmaceutical industry to block competition and maximize profits. From product hopping — where manufacturers sidestep generic competition by introducing a similar drug that can't be automatically substituted — to pay-for-delay deals in which brand-name manufacturers pay their competition to delay launching cheaper drugs, the prescription drug industry has become adept at exploiting the U.S. patent system to maximize its bottom line. Pay-for-delay deals alone cost American consumers $3.5 billion a year in the form of higher drug prices. And between 2005 and 2015, three-quarters of new drug patents issued were for drugs already on the market.
Why It Matters: Contrary to pharma's talking points, this isn't evidence of innovation, David Mitchell, founder of Patients for Affordable Drugs, testified to the committee. Rather, the industry's embrace of anticompetitive tactics dulls interest in pursuing new, innovative therapies. "If drug companies can block competition and raise prices at will on old drugs to drive profits and executive bonuses, they have far less incentive to take risk and invest in R&D to find innovative new drugs that could command high prices and save lives," Mitchell said in his testimony.
Dive Deeper: Watch the testimony and learn more about pharma's anticompetitive tactics and the policy solutions that could help.
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Terra Tucker, Texas state director of the Alliance for Safety and Justice, on criminal justice reforms passed this spring in Texas with support from both sides of the aisle. Lawmakers succeeded in passing two landmark bipartisan reforms that aim to increase community safety and improve outcomes for crime survivors: House Bill 385 reforms the state’s probation system to focus on rehabilitation for Texans under community supervision, and Senate Bill 957 ensures that crime victims’ eligibility for compensation is not compromised when they are unable to speak to law enforcement immediately after an incident. Tucker talks to us about the problems with probation in Texas, the coalition that won bipartisan legislative victories, and how reducing incarceration and reforming community supervision can better serve crime victims while improving public safety and ensuring better outcomes for people under supervision.
Read the Q&A >
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On the sixth anniversary of Sandra Bland’s death in a jail cell, The 19th* examines the larger trend of women experiencing rising incarceration rates and deaths inside jail facilities. |
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Street outreach teams are getting caught between police and protesters, Frontline reports.
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This plea from high school student Akeria Adams for more funding for guidance counselors, social workers, and restorative justice practices in school rather than more police. “The last time I needed the guidance counselor, I had to wait two months to see one. Imagine how we would thrive if we got to see counselors as often as we see the police in our school every day?”
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AV grantee Holly Harris has been named one of Business Insider’s 20 women political advisers to watch. Her top priority this year? Working with bipartisan members of Congress to eliminate the federal sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine offenses, what she calls “one of the worst vestiges of racial injustice in America's drug policy.”
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This interview in TheGrio with James Cadogan, former AV vice president of criminal justice and now executive director of the National Basketball Social Justice Coalition. He talks about the NBA's interrelated priorities around policing reform, voting rights, and criminal justice.
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A Wall Street Journal analysis of previously confidential data shows hospitals often charge uninsured patients higher prices than insurance companies for the exact same service by the same hospital — another example of the problem of wildly irrational hospital prices.
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The population dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid was one of the hardest hit by COVID-19. Improving their care requires better data infrastructure and research, writes AV’s Arielle Mir.
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The FDA has called for a federal investigation into the approval process for the pricey new Alzheimer’s drug aducanumab, STAT reports. |
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In good news, more than 7,000 students defrauded by defunct for-profit chain Corinthian will have their federal student loans canceled after the Education Department dropped its appeal, The Washington Post reports. |
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As the fight over voting rights continues to play out nationally this week, I thought it was a good time to check out a podcast recommended to me by a colleague, “The Improvement Association,” from Serial Productions. Allegations of voter fraud have prompted GOP-led states like Georgia and Florida (and soon Texas, if the Democrats ever return) to enact new laws that critics say make it more difficult to vote. “This American Life” producer Zoe Chace visits Bladen County, North Carolina, to explain how we got here. It’s the only place in recent history where a real case of voter fraud was uncovered and a Congressional election that favored the Republican candidate was thrown out. But the story goes much deeper, starting with a sheriff’s race in 2010, and to “the very oldest fight in Bladen County — the fight to control the Black vote.” You can listen here or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher.
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Wednesday, July 21: Learn about a new national funding opportunity focused on supporting state efforts to develop or enhance integrated care programs for individuals who are eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid. 1-2 p.m. ET. Register here.
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- Apparently newsletters are a new literary genre. You may discover some new ones to love in this media column by The Cut.
- Read the inspiring story of mathematical genius Emmy Noether. This year marks the 100th anniversary of her revolutionary paper on ring theory, a contribution she made to the field as she faced sexism and persecution in Nazi Germany.
- The Statue of Liberty’s “little sister,” a miniature Lady Liberty, officially took up residence in Washington, D.C. on Bastille Day.
- A restaurant fought back against customers’ bad (appalling really) behavior with a day of kindness for their staff. Seriously folks, it’s not hard to be kind.
- And I'm late to the party, but congratulations to Zaila Avante-garde, the 14-year-old winner of the 2021 Scripps National Spelling Bee. Dive deeper into her historic win, and try your hand at this spelling quiz.
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Have an evidence-based week,
– Stephanie
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Stephanie DiCapua Getman develops and executes Arnold Ventures' digital communications strategy with a focus on multimedia storytelling and audience engagement and oversees daily editorial operations and design.
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