Recently, we have a debate going on in Bellingham and Whatcom County over whether to finance a new jail and what kind of new jail and offender treatment programs to finance. Bellingham and Whatcom County WA are constituted by unlikely combinations of dreamers, humanists, entrepreneurs, individualists, old boys, and (sometimes) schemers. Nobody really agrees upon much politically, which makes every important political decision a big discussion. And we attract people (myself included) who like to discuss.
Clearly, the population and the various city councils want more discussion on whether or not to use the last 2/10s of 1% of our state allotted fire and safety sales tax revenue to build the new jail. There are lots of opinions and lots of people complaining that they don't have enough data. In this blog post, I try to provide more data. Personally, I am confused as to whether support a new jail or not. I think the old one really does needs to be replaced as a safety issue. Whether funding for Restorative Justice as advocated in Whatcom County by the Reentry Coalition will work to stop crime, I do not know. But I believe the principles of Restorative Justice are worth considering and I am very impressed by the idealism and compassion of the the advocates of the Restorative Justice movement.
For years, my native city of Oakland, CA has poured hundreds of millions of dollars each year from their general fund and other monies into police department and city jail; fighting what is often a pitched war against narcotics trafficking and the social results of narcotics trafficking. The battle never seems to have a winner, just brief respites. A brief respite in Oakland ( a city of 400K ) means 60 - 80 homicides a year. Full pitched casualties in a year of battle delineated by automatic gunfire means 150 - 160 homicides. To give you some example of what that war feels like to civilians: In 2013, the state of WA (pop then 6.8M) had only 129 homicides. When you grow up inside such a war, you hear gunfire on a weekly basis. You know what it is like to be shot at with automatic gunfire. You see guns, drugs, and gang presences frequently enough to know where to walk and at what risk level when. People you know personally or just those in your neighborhood get shot and die.
Jailing people is not very .... Bellingham. We are an educated, liberal community with progressive, humanist, and sympathetic dreams and pretensions. We have the longest running anti-war protest in the country. We believe in moving toward the light. And, in truth, even though I am grizzled survivor of an east Oakland youth, I wouldn't be here if I didn't believe in searching for the light as well. It's an easy call to ask for more police and jails. Sometimes it is necessary. Sometimes it just militarizes society and engages the cartels. Here are some of my (ambivalent) thoughts on this issue and results of about one week of my spare time in data analysis. I was rushed for time before tonight's council meeting so some error corrections and additions may be necessary. R Code is here.
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Tuesday, March 31, 2015
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
First POB draft agreement with Harcourt
https://www.portofbellingham.com/524/Waterfront-District
This is the first draft agreement with Harcourt and the question is: How much are we giving away?....
This is the first draft agreement with Harcourt and the question is: How much are we giving away?....
Wednesday, March 18, 2015
Monday, March 16, 2015
Friday, March 13, 2015
Sunday, March 1, 2015
Children in Poverty and Homelessness in Whatcom County School Districts and WA state: A Look at the Numbers and Sources
"It is the paramount duty of the state to make ample provision for the education of all children residing within its borders, without distinction or preference on account of race, color, caste, or sex."
Article IX Section 1 SECTION 1 PREAMBLE.
Constitution of the State of Washington
Click to Enlarge. |
DName | Tot_District_ _Pop | District_Enrollment | ChildinDistrict | ChildPov | OSPI_K-12 Homeless | PCT_Poverty | PCT_Homeless |
Bellingham | 104767 | 11136 | 12340 | 1908 | 471 | 15.46% | 4.23% |
Blaine | 16388 | 2120 | 2380 | 420 | 49 | 17.65% | 2.31% |
Concrete | 4921 | 542 | 717 | 168 | 26 | 23.43% | 4.80% |
Ferndale | 31180 | 5174 | 5885 | 912 | 126 | 15.50% | 2.44% |
Lynden | 18863 | 2842 | 3612 | 397 | 58 | 10.99% | 2.04% |
Meridian | 10032 | 1790 | 1630 | 249 | 41 | 15.28% | 2.29% |
MountBaker | 14724 | 1880 | 2573 | 515 | 52 | 20.02% | 2.77% |
NooksackValley | 10317 | 1574 | 1996 | 304 | 49 | 15.23% | 3.11% |
Sedro-Woolley | 26646 | 4305 | 4491 | 745 | 173 | 16.59% | 4.02% |
Totals | 237,838 | 31,363 | 35,624 | 5,618 | 1,045 | 15.77% | 3.33% |
The chart and table above aggregate 2013 SAIPE Poverty and Income Data with 2013-2014 (School Year) OSPI Student Homeless Data for the 9 School Districts that are in whole or in part inside Whatcom County. Zoom your browser window to enlarge this table.Some statistical projects are gratifying to work on . This one really was not. Poverty brackets are exceptionally low household income numbers. The federal poverty rate for a family of four with two children is less than $24K. Although the largest school district (Bellingham) in Whatcom County has the highest number school children in poverty in total, the percentage of children in poverty in the more rural school districts is much higher. The data in the post below comes from Census.gov SAIPE or Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates and OSPI Homeless Student Data Report for 2013 and 2014. In the charts below, I detail homelessness and poverty for Whatcom County school children based on SAIPE school district estimates. Code for the charts can be found here and here.
As a data blogger, I can't vouch for the integrity of the data collections I analyze nor can I provide solutions for the tragedy of homelessness and poverty it exposes in our county. I can however, find creative ways to quantify their impacts upon our budgets, governments, school systems, communities and families. I also can point out that a housed and fed population of school children is a not just the moral responsibility of a just world but the duty and mandate of all us and our constructed democratic governments.
I can scarcely believe that any of us could imagine all of the deficits poverty and homelessness create for youth in pursuit of their education. In a state that specifically included the education of children as a 'paramount duty' to be exercised without regard to caste, one could speculate on whether or not a county that does not build adequate affordable housing and provide adequate food banks is interfering with the mandates of McCleary to provide for a "basic education" to all students.