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The Abstract
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> By Stephanie DiCapua Getman, Arnold Ventures
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“The greatness in America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.” — Alexis de Tocqueville
We will greet this President’s Day on the heels of an impeachment trial at the U.S. Capitol that has forced us to relive one of our nation’s darkest days and reminded us again of the deep divisions so rampant in this country. Whatever the outcome of these hearings, we can all agree that the hyperpartisanship of this era is not moving us forward to becoming a more perfect union. As I’ve said in this space before, there are promising reforms that can bring more civility to our politics, and 2021 is shaping up as a critical year in the fight to ensure all voices in our democracy are represented. While it is difficult to muster hopefulness these days (a sentiment that may even be greeted with an eye roll from the more cynical among us), my team recently had the opportunity to ask a few questions of someone who has a long view of history and an unflagging optimism about what our country is capable of: Dan Rather. He writes in “What Unites Us: Reflections on Patriotism” (in which the above quote appears) that the monuments and buildings we revere in Washington, D.C., “when compared to the life span of other nations, are but new construction...They are only as permanent as our ideals...The true foundations for those buildings are not brick and stone, but our Constitution, our rule of law, our traditions, our work ethic, our empathy, our pragmatism, and our basic decency.” He goes on to say, “As I have seen over the years, when we cultivate these instincts, we soar. When we sow seeds of division, hatred, and small-mindedness, we falter.” In our conversation, he called today an hour of decision, and said he had not felt this country was in greater danger since World War II, but that the difference now is we are facing a threat from our own soil, “the seeds from our own destruction.” But he also said our history shows that we are highly capable of pulling together — if we decide to do so. I was buoyed by his optimism and am hopeful that we can find a common ground again. But it must come, as Rather says in his latest newsletter, with “an accounting and remedying of the national sins that have brought us to this moment.”
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The Power of America's Sheriffs
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For decades, American sheriffs developed a persona as law enforcement officials with a lock-‘em-up-and-throw-away-the-key mindset. But that attitude is shifting in recent years as police abuse cases and systemic racism within law enforcement draw national attention.
What’s Happening: Sheriffs hold a unique role at the intersection between jails and arrests and mass incarceration, says Jessica Pishko, a lawyer and writer whose research focuses on sheriff departments in America. She writes a bi-weekly newsletter on sheriffs and law enforcement called Posse Comitatus. In it she’s written about the “worst sheriffs of the year” and how, for some who hold the position, it’s become a “lifestyle brand.” “There’s a lot of information about police and urban policing and a lot less about sheriffs. I felt there was an interesting space to research and write about sheriffs, raise awareness, and in a way have an impact on the system.”
Go Deeper: We talk to Pishko about the role of sheriffs in the criminal justice system, the surprising amount of power they hold in getting new jails built, and how their decisions can impact pretrial detention and bail reform.
Read the Q&A > |
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To expand access to contraception for millions. Last month’s executive order to review the Title X family planning program — foreshadowing the restoration of a bedrock service that more than 4 million people depend on — is a step in the right direction, yet much more must be done to restore and expand contraceptive access. That includes protecting access under the Affordable Care Act, restoring access in Medicaid, and developing evidence-based guidelines, performance measures, and funding strategies. We round up a few ways the Biden administration can strengthen health care delivery systems, remove barriers to care, and ensure people can get the birth control of their choice.
Read the story >
Related: A bill to make contraceptives like “the pill” available over the counter at pharmacies is moving forward in the Iowa House.
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Who's Maximizing Opportunity
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By Adrienne Faraci, Communications Manager
Mark Elliott, president of the Economic Mobility Corporation, who set out on a mission to prove that skills training programs can help working families. After years of working at foundations, Elliott was convinced that workforce programs could make a positive impact on low-income people’s lives — despite conventional wisdom to the contrary.
What's Happening: Elliott believed that strong evaluations, including gold-standard randomized controlled trials, would show that the best programs can meaningfully increase people’s earnings over time. In 2007, he established Mobility to advance that goal. For more than a decade, he and his team have identified programs like Year Up, Per Scholas, and Project Quest that have been shown in well-conducted randomized controlled trials to increase participants' annual earnings by thousands of dollars in the years after completing the programs.
Bottom Line: This work has helped build a knowledge base of social programs that work, offering policymakers opportunities to fund programs that will make an impact.
Read the story > |
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By Rhiannon Meyers Collette, Communications Manager
Ah, it’s that wonderful time of year when romance is in the air, eating chocolate for breakfast is totally acceptable, and — my favorite — #HealthPolicyValentines have once again arrived in my Twitter feed.
For those unfamiliar with the tradition, health policy wonks every year gather on social media in the days leading up to Valentine’s Day to share their wittiest — and punniest — odes to their one their true loves. (A personal fave: Andy Slavitt, now the White House’s Senior Advisor for COVID-19, with this 2019 gem: “You’re all 10 of my essential benefits.”)
This year, our health care team joined the chorus, tipping our hat in an ever-so-nerdy fashion for an evidence-based drug pricing solution.
“My love for you is like drug price increases without an inflation rebate: infinite ∞”
OK, so maybe we should leave the poetry to the poets — but when it comes to pursuing policy solutions to create more affordable and accessible health care for all, our fiery passion cannot be extinguished.
Want to know where our hearts are this Valentine’s Day? Look no further than our commitment to lower drug prices, develop affordable health care choices for families and employers, improve care and contain costs for dual-eligible individuals, and reduce wasteful spending by lessening low-value care.
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This first-person account in Filter of the discouraging hurdles faced by those seeking treatment for opioid use disorder. "Though born of sudden bad luck, my situation reflected a perfectly ordinary reality: that access to medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD) in the U.S. is plagued by stigma against people who use drugs."
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A New York Times op-ed by Priti Krishtel arguing that to achieve his goal of advancing racial equity in U.S. government, President Biden should choose the next director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office carefully.
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A new briefing paper by Urban Institute and funded by AV that argues “prison research holds a responsibility to advance racial equity,” via The Crime Report.
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Pew writing on how employers that do not provide retirement benefits are embracing state auto-IRA programs to help their workers save for the future.
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ProPublica reporting on the financial benefits in police union contracts, which also include clauses that experts say can impede discipline.
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News that REFORM Alliance has named Robert Rooks, previously the co-founder and CEO of Alliance for Safety and Justice, as its new CEO.
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A deep dive into how Illinois became the first state to eliminate money bail and what challenges lie ahead, via Truthout
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A progress report on what happens when health care workers replace police officers to respond to low-level incidents like trespassing and mental health episodes in Denver’s Support Team Assisted Response, or STAR, program.
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Bloomberg laying out what needs to be done to make sure the new law ending surprise medical billing works as intended.
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After launching the nation’s first prescription drug affordability board — a concept that has gained steam across the U.S. — Maryland this week overrode a veto by a popular Republican governor and will move forward with plans to regulate prescription drug costs.
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This New York Times book review of “Halfway Home” by sociologist Reuben Jonathan Miller, who “wants us to understand incarceration’s ‘afterlife’ — how prison follows people ‘like a ghost,’ a permanent specter in the lives of the 19.6 million Americans who have a felony record.” ICYMI, our recent series shines a light on the severe consequences people with criminal records face, even after they have been held accountable.
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“Women in Blue,” an Independent Lens documentary from filmmaker Deirdre Fishel that poses the question: Do women police differently than men? The film follows five women officers inside the Minneapolis Police Department — including its first female chief, Janeé Harteau — as they try to “redefine what it means to protect and serve.” It was filmed in the years just before the murder of George Floyd, but similar cases of lives lost in police interactions galvanized the community then, including the deaths of Jamar Clark, a Black man, and Justine Damond, a white woman. Damond’s death led to the resignation of Harteau and a murder conviction for the officer, but it also raised questions about how differently those cases were treated. “Women in Blue” offers a fly-on-the-wall look at how women feel about and operate within the department, how they interact with the community, and the role of police unions in protecting officers from accountability. It also gives a sense of how women officers approach issues of procedural justice in their work — and their reactions to headline-making incidents of violence in policing. The film is the subject of this Fresh Air episode with Fishel and Alice White, one of the officers profiled, who in 2018 became one of only six Black women on the force to hold the rank of sergeant. “It's been a challenge to get women, especially Black women, interested in law enforcement, or any minority woman,” White says. “A lot of the time, it's not the fear of being able to make the cut on the testing or the requirements to become a law enforcement officer, it's the lack of support from their family and their friends and their community, because this career is very highly stigmatized.”
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The Columbia Energy Exchange podcast asking whether bipartisan climate change is possible. Guest Rich Powell with ClearPath discusses what to expect in climate policy moving forward — Will there be legislative or executive action? Will it be along party lines? — and whether cooperation will prevail.
The latest episode of Tradeoffs, which explores an intriguing new concept by several of the nation's most prominent health economists: What if the U.S. could save billions of dollars per year by implementing relatively narrow solutions to discrete problems? It’s based on the “1% Steps for Health Care Reform” project from economist and Yale associate professor Zack Cooper, which offers 16 (so far) policy briefs that offer tangible policy proposals to make a dent in spending — but also include tradeoffs.
If you're looking to learn more about Pauli Murray after last week’s highlight, North Carolina Public Radio just dropped “Pauli,” a three-part podcast series about her incredible life and legacy.
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Our Complex Care team is funding research into how to improve the systems that deliver care to a population of more than 12 million people who are dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid. They are seeking to fund researchers who are guided by the following principles: policy relevance, rigor and independence, and alignment with our strategy. Learn more here.
The Criminal Justice and Evidence-Based Policy teams at Arnold Ventures are teaming up to learn more about what works in criminal justice reform in an ongoing request for proposals for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that will test programs and practices. There is no deadline for submissions.
The Evidence-Based Policy team invites grant applications to conduct randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of social programs in any area of U.S. policy. Details are here.
View all of our RFPs here.
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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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