Howard Thurman: Jesus and the Disinherited Mr. Thurman passed in 1981 but his insights continue to influence thinking today, especially about the intersection between religious faith and public policy.
Paul Tough: How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character The author of "Whatever It Takes," the story of Geoffrey Canada and the Harlem Children’s Zone, provides insight into the early development of children. What’s best? Cognitive or non-cognitive learning? Tough’s theory is that character is what really matters.
Anthony S. Bryk: Organizing Schools for Improvement: Lessons from Chicago In 1988, Chicago public schools decentralized, granted parents and faculty resources and authority to reform. This book reports on a seven-year study of what happened and identifies the practices and conditions that were essential for improvement of student academics. The authors arrived at their conclusions by researching 100 elementary schools that improved and 100 that didn't. The five essentials—school leadership, parent/community ties, professional capacity of faculty/staff, student-centered learning environment, and instructional guidance system.
David M. Kennedy: Don't Shoot: One Man, A Street Fellowship, and the End of Violence in Inner-City America Kennedy has shared his ideas with us and Seattle police successfully used his Drug Market Initiative along 23rd Avenue to stop decades of open drug trafficking. Now, Kennedy's new book tells the whole story, from the beginning to today. It's a story of reform, hard work, determination, and guts. It's about justice in the true sense of that word, a justice that infects a community and spreads. It's about the police and how their pursuit of excellence can inspire all of us. It's about cities and specific neighborhoods and how to create peace and community. If you want safe streets and sidewalks, if you want to end mass incarceration, if you want racial equity, if you want truth and fairness returned to the justice system, read this book!
Jan Gehl, Architect and Urban Quality Consultant: Cities for People Gehl is a global expert on urban places. His firm's 2008 conclusion that Seattle should move as many vehicles as possible underground and work to reduce surface traffic is a compelling argument. Read Gehl's book at the same time you read Edward Glaeser's "Triumph of the City." Both authors present persuasive arguments for city planning that focuses on people.
Yesterday, amid a very full day discussing gun safety measures, criminal
background checks, public campaign financing and homeless encampments, the
Council heard about
a groundbreaking shift in the way Washington State supervises
individuals recently released from prison.
The simple premise behind the change is this: swift and certain
sanctions are more effective in changing the behavior of offenders under
community supervision than sporadic and more severe punishments. In other words,
an immediate night or weekend in jail successfully reinforces the message that condition-of-release
violations bring consequences; a longer sentence announced a month after a
violation occurs feels arbitrary to the violator and is not an effective way to
change behavior.
Washington State has a new consultant to help implement the voter-approved marijuana legalization initiative, UCLA professor Mark Kleiman. Professor Kleiman is not a stranger to this area; a couple years ago he testified before the Seattle City Council and was one member of a team that worked with the City and State to pilot a new program for individuals under community supervision by the Department of Corrections. I’ve written about this program before and it has since expanded statewide.
One of his books, When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment, details the idea that swift and certain sanctions reduce crime and incarceration more effectively when compared to the punishment model common in this country that delivers more severe punishments less consistently. It is a fascinating read. Or if you prefer to watch a video rather than pick up a book, you can check out his presentation to a crowded Town Hall audience.
The Council will vote in early September whether to approve a new jail services contract with King County through 2030. If approved, the new contract will save Seattle taxpayers approximately $200 million in jail construction costs and multiple millions more in operation costs. Here's the story on how we got here.
In 2008, my first year on the Council, I joined some of my colleagues and told then-Mayor Nickels that we didn't want to build a new City owned and operated jail for our misdemeanor prisoners. At an estimated cost of $200 million, building a jail wasn't a desirable use of our limited resources, especially when we believed that King County should continue to be the region's primary provider of jail services.
Michelle Alexander strikes a cord in this piece in The New York Times. Money and vested interests block real reform of our mass incarceration senselessness. I especially like Alexander's reference to the Martin Luther King's 1963 Letter from a Birmingham Jail where he chastizes white pastors for their cautious indifference to racial injustice.
I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says, ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action’; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a ‘more convenient season.’ ”
King continued: “We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.”
I've written about the need for prison reform before; you can read it all here.
A journalist sent me an email last week asking for my position on the legalization of marijuana. That question actually relates to a much larger and more profound debate we should be having in our city and country . . . should we continue our policy of mass incarceration?
So, on the legalization of marijuana I say "yes," it should be legal, regulated and taxed. Much more after the jump . . .
The author of a provocative book on America's experiment with mass incarceration will speak tonight at 7 p.m. at Mt. Zion Baptist Church at 19th and East Madison Street. The event is open to the public.
I have read Alexander's book. It's listed in my current reading column at the left side of my blog. I'm going to hear her and will be writing about this topic much more in the near future.
