Thoughts from a Layman

Publications which inform my daily reading, in hard copy if the truth be told, are the

“Wall Street Journal” and the “New York Times.” I hereby request forgiveness for not littering everything below with footnotes; besides, an occasional thought is unique to the undersigned.

Weaving every discussion item into a logical flow, replete with extended examples, is a challenge suitable for a book format, not for this modest essay. One would have to figure out which comes first, the chicken or the egg, the good intention or the unfortunate outcome, the theory or the evidence, mental health challenges or the consequences thereof.

Moreover, as a well-known advocate of school choice once said, and it’s true about many policy debates, “it ain’t about the research, it’s about the will.”

Most often, conversations about meaningful reforms simply beg the unwritten but pervasive question: do those with money/power, living in a different world, care? Are they are only energized when an issue hits close to home or they begin pondering whether they want to be the richest person in the cemetery.

Drug Reform

Drugs as defined here are those whose usage traditionally has been deemed illegal. Excessive consumption of legal drugs has its own downside, but historically that has suggested a separate set of factors. However, as the lines increasingly become blurred, that prior separation will be a distinction that is not much of a difference.

Data Points

*Drug overdoses in the past 24 years have killed more Americans than all its wars combined. There are an estimated 48 million individuals with a substance disorder; one in 20 are getting help.

*Half of those in criminal court and half of those in jail or prison have a substance use disorder. Some 15% of inmates are said to have an opioid use disorder specifically.  (Meanwhile, the Sackler family is content with the $10 billion they took out of Purdue Pharma in 2008-17; the debate about who gets what from its settlement money of $6 billion does not touch the prior withdrawals. The Sacklers should not receive lifetime immunity, given the deadly consequences of their marketing of opioids.)

Discussion Comments

*There should be a clear acknowledgement that prior large-scale efforts, both in this country and elsewhere, have been a waste of money, with no impact on drug addiction. This is the negative lead.

*The positive lead is that there is knowledge of what works programmatically yet there is insufficient money and staffing for that success. Medication, behavioral therapy, and counseling are reportedly as effective as statins are for cholesterol or aspirin regarding heart attacks.

Methadone (introduced in 1972) is proven to be effective; however, doctors and pharmacists can only prescribe it for pain. Addicted individuals must go to a specialized clinic.  P.S. It would be helpful for medical schools to require addiction training.

*There is a choice to be made: treat all the social ills that perhaps foster addiction (admittedly a desirable goal) or call it a health issue and proceed accordingly. Only the latter makes sense in terms of a direct approach, inclusive of evidence-based programs and reasonable timeframes.

*Accompanying the health-based approach to drug reform should be on-going, clear, succinct publicizing of the dramatic negative statistics associated with addiction. Probably a coalition of healthcare and police professionals should produce the document to avoid it being politicized. PSA material should be provided to all forms of the media.

*A distinction must be made between usage and addiction.

*Health insurance coverage, inclusive of Medicare and Medicaid, will be needed without squabbling. Society pays either way.

*There should be no hesitancy on funding treatment programs of all kinds, including those based in churches which do not use mainstream approaches,  or others like AA which have a spiritual component.

*A special program is needed for those whose addiction is directly tied to a conflict-based PTSD diagnosis. It must be organized, managed, and led by veterans and specialists in the field.

*The existence of different states having different laws with respect to marijuana should be recognized as a positive. This diversity, properly researched (control group test comparisons), should shed light on the impact of marijuana usage, its relevance as a gateway drug, specific results regarding addiction, connection to mental health, and ties to improper driving. (People crossing state lines and entering different jurisdictions may confuse the data a little, as would inconsistent legal enforcement.)

*Clarity on what is a crime and what is an illness is a necessity.

*There is no safe usage amount for fentanyl; there are no long-term users, unlike the case with heroin.*While it is controversial whether drug addicts must be compelled to seek treatment, it seems logical that if addiction leads to negative social behavior, the public has an interest in requiring treatment. Similarly, if insurance is to play a pivotal role in thinking about addiction as a health issue, it is fair for the insurer to have some requirements, e.g., enrollment in a rehab program. The latter should have length to it; history indicates that short-term stints are highly correlated with relapses.

Police Reform

Somewhere along the analytical and social policy line, there should be thought given to the impact of single-parent families, more specifically, the absent father situation and its connection to other reforms. Prisons are not populated by large numbers of educated, non-drug using individuals from intact families.

Data Points

The FBI’s classification called Violent Index Felonies (murder/non-negligent manslaughter, robbery, rape, aggravated assault) has a 45% clearance rate.  Property Index Felonies (burglary, larceny theft, motor vehicle theft, arson) have a 17% clearance rate. Who said that crime does not pay! The irony is that it is not uncommon for people who are jaundiced about the police in general to simultaneously want them to be more forceful in their neighborhood, protecting the stores which they patronize and which may be owned or at least managed by individuals known to the community.

Drug law offenders comprise 15% of state prisoners, which in turn are 90% of total prisoners in the country’s system of incarceration. About 20% of drug offenders are out within six months; another 25% are out in months seven through twelve. (Obvious note: drug reform and police reform are inextricably linked, as is gun reform (and approaches to interacting with the homeless population).

The rate of prisoners having Anti-social Personality Disorder (ASPD) is ten times the average for all adults. Rates of substance use disorder (SUD) are similarly far above the average. See above comment plus the need for more mental health counselors in general. There is something called the criminogenic effect: incarceration which leads to more crime after the release of the prisoner. With the above changes, this should be reduced.

Over 40% of Americans either own a firearm or live with somebody who does. Gun reform is therefore a related necessity. Maybe the lawsuit brought by a group of nuns will prove useful; the death of innocents seems to have no effect on the NRA and gun manufacturer executives. Perhaps some police departments would welcome different gun laws or simply stronger enforcement of existing regulations, given the underpublicized nature of single fatality gunshot situations.

Discussion Comments

Acknowledge the poor reputation that police departments have among the minority population, particularly African Americans. The root causes of this disaffection are multi-layered and multi-generational. This writing is not intended to be a deep dive into the history of policing in America. Suffice it to say that anybody who does not realize there is a problem is living a sheltered, advantaged life. The creation of trust is critical.

*Have an annual Report to the Public that is discussed at an Open House. This report would be from each police department, making it readily understandable by the relevant constituency.

*Establish an internal disciplinary threshold, based on frequency and severity, that elicits the public release of a policeman’s status.

*Create a position for a Mental Health specialist pertinent to the use of red flag guidelines. Mental health is right there at the police department intersection of drug and homeless reform.

*End the practice of paying bonuses based on the number of traffic or parking tickets issued.

*Implement as many neighborhood patrols without guns as feasible.

*As a policy, there must be extended talking preceding any use of guns, unless a life is threatened.

*Similarly, police must be trained to shoot to incapacitate, not to kill.

*Oversight boards must have direct access to, e.g., footage from police videos. Many had thought the routine use of cameras would reduce the number of “awkward” police-individual interactions, but often the police have been reluctant to release the video on a timely basis or even at all.

Homelessness Reform

In a separate essay, an update on UBI (Universal Basic Income) enumerates the many ways in which a UBI would be beneficial. While it does not specifically discuss an impact on homelessness, the significance of a UBI is apparent. Between requiring a homeless person to access a long list of social services as a requirement for financial assistance and providing that person UBI funds for their own decision-making, the preference at the outset would be the latter. Only if the chosen path were clearly negative would the homeless person be pulled back into a set of required social services.

Data Points

“The federal programs for public housing, including Section 8 and Housing Choice Vouchers, serve 287,000 fewer households than they did at the peak in 2004.” The number of eligible households without aid has grown dramatically. Even subsidized apartments built with Low Income Housing Tax Credits are above the affordability level of former prospective occupants.

*What is “affordable” housing? It’s simply math, with a bunch of variables. If the rent limit is 30% of income and the latter is $20,000 per year, then the monthly rent has to be a maximum of $500. The only way that a builder can put up such a structure is if there is a waiver concerning a dizzying array of zoning laws and building regulations, none involving a definition of safety that a low income person would care about. Tax incentives are part of the mix, but here again there is the core question: does society care enough to absorb some discomfort in treating the issue of homelessness. The pervasiveness of NIMBY suggests the answer is negative.

*New York City’s Department of Social Services has an astounding 600 sites operating under non-profit contracts. The count of specialized mental health shelters is 37. There is a mental health data base, PSYCKES, but shelter workers cannot access it.

Discussion Comments

*Acknowledge that the reasons behind a person, or a family, becoming homeless are incredibly complex. A safe place to live is the necessary but insufficient condition to “solving” homelessness.

*There need to be zoning changes, with easier access to permits for mobile homes and the new category of tiny homes. This is particularly critical outside of tight urban areas. Factory-built housing is cheaper and can be done faster, but thus far accounts for a tiny segment of total housing production.

*Mental health facilities must be expanded at the community level and they must be accommodating to those with drug addiction health issues. Presumptively, the more that homeless people have a safe abode, their stress level will decline somewhat and their mental situations will be improved. That many will still need relevant social services, and job training in many instances, is a given.

*If a homeless person is receiving financial assistance for their residence, they must abide by any mandatory social service requirement.

*Analytically, as always, there is the challenge of patient privacy versus the public’s right to information needed to evaluate the pros and cons of different reform efforts. Understaffing leads to triage decisions, but evidence-based decision-making is still the goal.

Under Kendra’s Law in New York, doctors can petition a judge to force mentally ill people into treatment if (1) they have lashed out once within the prior four years or (2) been hospitalized twice in three years for failing to follow their treatment plan. If the petition is granted, the person gets medication and monitoring by specialists. Without this, there can be no medication against a person’s will.

*SCOTUS has taken on a case in which “it will decide whether it is constitutional for municipalities  to prohibit homeless people from camping in public places when they have nowhere else to go.”

*Education — broadly defined as everything from a one-week course on being a restaurant server to enrolling in a four-year college, from learning to run a rudimentary machine to getting updated on the profession that once might have been relevant to the homeless person — should be required if a homeless person is receiving financial assistance.

*Homeless families have the right to keep their children enrolled in their initial school, even when families move. (It’s interesting that this category of families in effect has school choice, while the non-homeless family does not have that right. But that’s for a different essay, about education reform.)

*In the new residence, no guns should be permitted. (There is a broad reform area not discussed in this piece, namely that of guns overall.)

Relevant Programs

The brainchild of a committed individual, Austin has a Community First! Village, consisting of 200 sq.ft. homes. Bathrooms and kitchens are communal. The goal ultimately is to have permanent housing for half of the city’s homeless population. Rent is $385 per month, a low number except not in the context of average incomes of $900/month.

Single-room occupancy (SRO) facilities have a mixed to negative reputation. A modernized version called PadSplit rents rooms for $100 a week; median income is $30,000; average age is 35. Since 28% of households are single-occupant situations, PadSplit makes sense. Whether it has great relevance to homelessness per se is not yet evident.

Nevada Cares Campus is comprised of a large tent and low-priced modular living quarters. The homeless count in Reno has been reduced, but the residences alone would not have moved the needle; help in finding jobs and/or accessing social services is part of the program.

Houston is labeled a homeless success story. Its lack of regulation means a $200,000 one-bedroom house can be built, a fraction of the cost in most major cities. Its approach includes services designed to keep formerly homeless people in their new residences. And apparently, the political powers and the non-profit community are more in synch than is typically the case. The estimated cost of reducing the homeless population is $13,000 for the residence and $7,000 for case management. Landlords receive an incentive fee of $1,600 per unit. The Way Home Houston has 100 of these units.

 

Prior to a few days ago, I would have suggested that if you wanted to have your head hurt about the complexities of immigration, reading the schematic and article, “How to Fix America’s Immigration Crisis,” by Steven Rattner and Maureen White in the “New York Times” of January 14, 2024 was perfect.

Briefly there was a competitor for a migraine: a bipartisan border bill with a doubtful outlook, not because of its intrinsic qualities, but because Trump is urging his Senate followers in Congress not to support it. He hopes to use an unresolved border immigration issue as a big weapon against Biden in the upcoming election campaign, a rematch desired by approximately nobody.

Newsflash: the bill was DOA before it touched the floor of that august institution known as the Senate, where the votes were not there to advance it. Four months of bipartisan negotiation gone, poof!

Negotiation of the border bill brings to mind the saying that there are two things you do not want to witness being made: sausage and laws. How does funding for Ukraine or Israel tie to America’s immigration situation. It doesn’t, only as pawns (more like knights actually) in a political game of chess.

To make myself knowledgeable on this bill (maybe a bit of understanding will be useful in the future, who knows), I stacked up a bunch of newspaper articles and then put them aside in favor of watching a webinar by the American Immigration Council (AIC). In case you had no knowledge of AIC’s advocacy position, their body language, selection of verbiage (hefty dose of “supposedly”) and laughter at various components of the bill provided an accurate clue.

Anyway, here is what I learned (or maybe not; it is a touch confusing, and maybe it’s all moot, pending an election between two individuals who should age out of public life): if an average of 4,000 people walked across the border in a seven-day period, then a Border Engagement Authority would be activated and certain procedural steps would be taken concerning asylum seekers in particular. They might be slotted for a Reasonable Fear Interview or a Credible Fear Interview, each of which affects the asylum officer’s appraisal on whether they have a serious issue back in the home country and each of which affects the odds that said officer will say, “welcome to America,” and instruct them to pick up another form over there or on the phone or somewhere within reach. And the immigrant must be careful all along; a question answered differently on two pieces of paper and a return plane ticket may be the outcome. This is labeled “perpetual risk.”

In the interest of “streamlining” the process under the deceased bill, asylum officers will have a maximum of 90 days to put the asylee in the right category; if they are moved from category A to category B, there is another 90-day limit. Accomplishing this (from any rational bureaucrat’s lips to God’s ears) required a bit of a trade-off: the asylum officer now would have basically judicial power, no more kicking cases up for judicial review. This provision seems likely to rear its head again, unless there is a major increase in the relevant judicial system

An additional facet is that Expedited Removal (sorry for the multiple caps, but they are for real, not for emphasis) gets accelerated, though it is limited to those apprehended within 15 days of their encounter and within 100 miles of the border. (The latter is reminiscence of history, when people in a bunch of colonial offices far from the affected populace decided where to draw boundaries for the latter.) Since the whole idea is to make immigration more difficult, Expedited Removal seems like a future keeper.

To its credit, AIC’s characterization of the unarticulated message of the border bill was on point for the majority of people: there are simply too many people crossing the border.

Poor Biden: as he attempted to cope with the flood of migrants bussed to major cities across the country, he was under fire from even Democratic governors, and when he toughens any rules whatsoever, he is attacked by the progressive left as following a Trump playbook (“I will shut down the border”), and, for them, there can be no worse characterization of course.

 As mentioned, Ukraine and Israel were interested parties regarding the funding outcome of this political nightmare. Something about people dying, that sort of thing. Now they must hope that separate funding bills, i.e., no inclusion of border stuff, will ease the pain of the border bill collapse.

Right now, the border is de facto completely open. Other than eye witness accounts, perhaps the biggest supporting evidence is that a TikToker can develop a travel agent type business advising people how to get through the Darien Gap and eventually walk into the USA. There is an entire ecosystem of businesses providing services and products to those entering this path to a different world.

Relatedly, buying stock in an immigrant smuggling business when President Biden took office would have been highly lucrative, even after giving a required cut to the gangs which have made themselves partners of people seeking a new life in the North.

FYI:

The details pertinent to the above are not incorporated in my thoughts below, which had been previously written and I had to do something with them. An “Updated Compilation on Immigration” was posted last August and over the years I have written much about immigration. Maybe I will again, someday, perhaps revisiting the 2013 legislation which passed the Senate with 68 votes, 14 of which came from Republicans. The latter party, controlling the House of Representatives, then killed this bill. Talk about the gang which can’t shoot straight.

Overview:

The most important initial step is a clearly articulated statement by a bipartisan coalition of economists that the USA must be pro-immigrant if it is to pursue continued economic growth. For most people most of the time, this phrasing resonates with more impact than treating immigration as an issue of humaneness. If immigrants are perceived as stealing jobs or undercutting wage levels (neither of which is supported by historical data), then anti-immigrant sentiment will smother any consideration of the convoluted asylum aspect.

It would be nice to neatly categorize immigrants as being legal or illegal, but what is the applicable label for the millions who are in limbo waiting years in many cases for their cases, especially asylum, to be decided. They go about their lives partly like you and I: working (in whatever arrangement is doable), paying their bills (do you think they want undue attention), taking care of their family (however defined and wherever located), and partly with a perpetual cloud over their heads – are they destined to become Americans or will they be requested to board a plane to return to what is no longer their true home.

Data Points: only a few to paint a picture of the magnitudes involved

*From the “Wall Street Journal” of 11/31/24, citing statistics from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, border encounters in the year ended September, 2023 were 2.5 million, compared with 458,000 in fiscal 2020. The early average in fiscal 2024 is 8,600 per day.

*The following are a few previously published numbers (“New York Times” of 11/28/23) which bring together the different components of immigration: Border patrol arrests from 2/2021 to 9/2023: six million. People waiting on their asylum requests: two million (writer’s note: now it is reportedly three million, compared with 300,000 in 2012). New applications last year: 800,000. Number of immigration judges: 659 (or is it 800: different source). Number of asylum officers: 800. Typical wait time to get an answer regarding asylum: a decade. Five-year cost to eliminate the asylum backlog: $2 billion.  Note that if an asylum decision is not made in five months, the applicant can get a temporary work permit.

*In 2006, funding for U.S. Customs was $8 billion; now it is over $21 billion, all without an effective immigration reform program having been implemented, only a series of ad hoc reactions and rules. It is as if you have some lumber here and there, a toilet seat or two, some lamps, a sink, packages of shingles – all legitimate components, but alas, the house proved incapable of being built.

Some Discussion Comments

(Yes, a book could be written, with enough data to choke a statistician.)

*The Achilles heel of all immigration reform efforts is three-fold: (1) whether in truth the USA only wants certain immigrants when it wants them to do certain jobs; otherwise, it has no use for immigrants,

(2) closely related is the necessity for – symbolically – affluent white homeowners to regard their minority landscaper as a person with the same level of humanity, a person with a family (wherever they may be), with kids with aspirations, with values, with fears – both articulated and buried inside, you know like the homeowner, and (3) since a quality education is tied to economic mobility, the aging wealth holding segment of the American population must commit to educational support. Without it, the American Dream is a mirage.

*It must be acknowledged that no large group of any kind can be 100% devoid of a criminal element, i.e, the situation with immigrants is no different from that which exists throughout the existing population.

*Humane considerations pertinent to immigrants making difficult family decisions cannot hobble the need to have rules that inevitably will evoke cries of unfairness.

*Repeated immigration lawbreakers (a civil violation) must be apprehended and returned to their home country. Without that degree of discipline, any reform program will be close to useless.

*Immigrants cannot be considered as chattel for employers. Enforcement of E-Verify must be rigorous and fines for violations, substantial. Whether this results in a wave of deportations, which is not desired, depends on the timeframe and the applicability of other reform measures.

*There needs to be more emphasis on skills and less on family units; the ideal of course is that the two come as a single package.

*Ten-year green cards should be immediately given to those with DACA designations.

*Those hailing from other countries who major in STEM disciplines and earn Bachelor’s or Master’s degrees at American universities should be given five-year green cards.

*The USA must acknowledge that it cannot be deeply involved in promoting and underwriting structural changes within countries sending large numbers of immigrants to the USA. It cannot resolve economic and political challenges, wealth disparities, and corruption situations. The fact that historical transgressions by the USA contributed mightily to many of these issues simply does not mean that the USA can solve them. Consistent with this observation is that constantly/periodically figuring out quotas for individual countries based on their mix of both natural and man-made problems which cause people to leave is an impossible objective. Maybe there should be a ten-year cap, with a first come, first served sign-up at processing centers located in selected countries. Inevitably there will be the criticism that the numbers are arbitrary; yes, aren’t they all?

*Since immigration is a federal responsibility and the benefits thereof accrue to the country in total, the incremental costs associated with reform cannot be an unfunded mandate of individual states. It is the federal government’s job to secure the border by whatever means necessary. This sounds harsh, but how else can other reform efforts be successful, especially the processing of border crossers who have done it the right way.

*Ten-year sunset clauses should be used liberally in order to properly assess the pros and cons of the multiple components of immigration reform. The Law of Unintended Consequence is relevant.

*There must be a significant increase in the number of judges assigned to asylum cases; processing times must be sharply reduced to cut stress for all concerned.

Speaking of judges, it was a pleasure for your writer to speak at the recent swearing in ceremony of a woman whom I have known for thirty years. How did she get to the USA: she took “the scenic route.”

 

 

 

There is much discussion these days about why people are turned off by college. Perhaps it is cost, debt, and uncertain job prospects. While agreeing with the essential criticism of the business known as higher education, hopefully in this period of deeper analysis of both conventional routes and alternative pathways to a career, the baby – the benefits of a well-earned degree — will not be thrown out with the bath water, the shenanigans with which colleges are engaged.

College bills, for example, are analogous to those received by cable subscribers, a potpourri of different items designed to blur the vision by the time the big number at the bottom appears.

Like the cable company, or the streamers, or the hotel or the airplane, once a business believes they have you as a customer, add-ons of individually small numbers are inevitable. Colleges follow this playbook. Moreover, like their explicitly for-profit counterparts, they use absurdly precise numbers to suggest there is an actual financial justification for a line item. There is not. Pull back the curtain and you will see somebody plugging in a number for the purpose of supporting an overall financial goal, itself typically extracted from the air or a little read strategic plan.

Below is a minor, but indicative, real world example for one semester at a relatively inexpensive public institution.

Excluded is absurdly expensive health insurance, as it can be waived if the student is on their parent’s policy. Note that the student must take action to get this budget item removed as the college uses the negative option approach – you pay unless you act.  Also excluded is room and board. Living somewhere and eating periodically are going to cost money no matter what the related academic situation.

Academic Excellence Fee:        $262.50               Apparently academic excellence is not something which comes with tuition; you have the bill for your meal but must pay extra for the utensils.

Comprehensive Fee:                    $1,484.25           You tell me. Is it for the green grass in the quad, the stone architecture, the banned beer hall. The checkwriter has no idea.

Student Activity Fee:                    $109.00               At least this is clear. If you the student find that classes, homework, and all the drudgery of studying are not conducive to your mental health, you can hit the gym and work up a sweat alongside the tenured professor who is paying zero for the pleasure, and who last week was a no-show for your advisory meeting.

Tuition:                                                $3,535.00           Presumably this covers something akin to educating the student about an array of subjects, many of which will cease to be in their mind once they  graduate and pick up their diploma. Yes, the student pays extra to have a gown and walk.

The expense breakdown at the average college will include more line items and larger numbers.

The above commentary nonetheless remains on point.