A little good news on child care

For the last couple years, child care in West Virginia has been in a tough spot, as noted in this post during the 2023 legislative session. Not surprisingly, this situation was made worse by the pandemic. Until very recently, child care providers were reimbursed based on attendance rather than enrollment. And that's a problem. Or was.

To quote from that earlier post,

 

In an era of pandemics, new variations on old illnesses, extreme weather events and the general weirdness of our time, attendance at school or child care varies widely.

Anyone with kids in school or child care knows that classrooms can empty out quickly when a new bug makes the rounds. Basing child care reimbursement on who happens to be there on any given day is no way to run this proverbial railroad. It provides no stability of care for parents who need to work and no stability of income for those who make that possible.

Enrollment-based reimbursement will help keep existing providers open, encourage new ones and help retain employees by providing a measure of stability and predictability of funding.

Child advocates, child care providers and parents tried hard in the last two legislative sessions to make this change in what has been called "the industry that makes other industries possible." Although the idea gained some traction, the legislation didn't make it across the line.

The good news is that it looks like that advocacy wasn't wasted. The WV Department of Health and Human Resources recently made this announcement:

The WV Department of Health & Human Resources (DHHR), Bureau for Family Assistance today announced additional funding to allow child care providers to be reimbursed based on enrollment through August 2024. 

The pay-by-enrollment methodology was instituted during the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency using federally allocated funds to provide financial stability and continued assurance of available child care, and was projected to be exhausted by September 2023.

“By reprioritizing use of available funds, DHHR can help child care providers continue to keep their doors open and help working families get the care they need as the child care operational budgets continue to stabilize post-pandemic,” said Janie Cole, Commissioner of DHHR’s Bureau for Family Assistance. “High quality child care supports both parents and children and is a critical investment in our state’s future.”

That's a huge win for workers, employers, kids and families. 

 

Another double standard

I was disappointed to see that Gov. Jim Justice plans to cut unemployment insurance benefits on June 19 while the state and nation are still recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic aftershocks.

Specifically, he plans to end the federal $300 weekly supplement to benefits that were part of the American Rescue Plan, presumably because people receiving the benefit are “scamming the system.”

Under the Rescue Plan, the supplemental benefits would expire on Sept. 6 in any case.

The cuts would impact around 42,000 West Virginians, including 18,000 or so self-employed or contract workers who have lost work due to the pandemic. It would mean a loss to the state’s economy of $12.6 million per week.

When you multiply that by 12, the number of weeks between the state and federal deadlines, that means a loss of over $151 million to West Virginia’s economy. That amounts to losing the equivalent of 3,775 jobs paying $40,000 for a year.

The infusion of pandemic-related boosts to unemployment insurance and the spending they allowed have saved millions of jobs, kept businesses open, boosted GDP (gross domestic product), increased personal income, kept people in their homes and saved countless families from disaster. As of May 15, Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation has brought more that $1.2 billion to West Virginia alone.

When the cuts come, unemployment benefits will drop back to their normal level of replacing around 40% of income from the lost job. Losing that much income is tough any time, but at least a delay until September would give the economy more time to recover.

This is another example of a curious double standard in which nobody in power bats an eye over corporate giveaways or tax cuts for the rich that create no jobs or lowering severance taxes on out of state companies, but cows are had when benefits to ordinary people seem too generous.

The snarky writer H.L. Mencken once defined Puritanism as “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.” What we’re dealing with here is the haunting fear that somewhere, somehow a peasant might catch a break. Otherwise, how could the merry race to the bottom for working people continue?

No wonder groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are pushing to end the benefits; they want to pay people as little as possible.

I don’t make a cult of our current economic system, but there is a simple market-based solution to the problem if people are concerned about a labor shortage: it’s the supply and demand thing.

In a market system, when demand for a commodity is higher than the supply the remedy is simple: increase the price. That sends a signal that prompts others to bring more of the commodity to the marketplace, ending the shortage.

Like it or not, in a capitalist economy, labor power is a commodity and a higher price for it means higher wages.

In recent decades, corporate profits as a share of GDP have dramatically increased. So has the income and wealth of the most affluent. So has productivity. The same can’t be said of workers’ wages.

As David Leonhardt recently wrote in the New York Times, “If anything, wages today are historically low. They have been growing slowly for decades for every income group other than the affluent. As a share of gross domestic product, worker compensation is lower than at any point in the second half of the 20th century.”

This is especially true of West Virginia, where median income is nearly the lowest in the nation.

The problem, Leonhardt argues, is that in recent years we’ve come to accept low wages as the norm. Maybe that’s what needs to change.

(This first appeared as an op-ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail.)

One of a kind (I hope)

 The WV legislative session ended on April 10, a 60 day stretch that felt like an eternity. I had to take a week off to lick my wounds. For a nice recap of how awful it was, here's a column by Gazette-Mail statehouse reporter Phil Kabler.

There were many defeats and a few wins, some proactive and some defensive. I haven't got around to making a full list. There were so many bad bills flying around so fast that it felt like we were running in circles, albeit mostly remotely due to COVID.

Working on legislative issues here was never easy, but this session makes all the others seem like a cakewalk. These days a glorious victory often consists of working to make an awful bill a little less bad; killing a bad bill is worthy of an epic like the Iliad; and a proactive win is like winning a lottery or being dealt a royal flush.

A friend reminded me of something I posted here four years ago after the 2017 session ended (at the time I thought that was a rough one. I'd forgotten about it, but I think it still holds:

Mulling over that and other limited victories has led me to formulate a maxim which I plan to copyright:

"Those who minimize hard won but limited victories for social justice tend not to be the people who worked their ass off to win them."

And you can quote me on that.

Guilty until proven wealthy

 It’s often said that, in the American legal tradition, a defendant is innocent until proven guilty. Unfortunately, these days, it’s more like guilty until proven wealthy.

I’m talking specifically about the cash bail system. At any given time, as many as 700,000 Americans are locked up in jails. According to the Pretrial Justice Institute, most of these people haven’t been convicted of or even tried for the crimes for which they were arrested.

The reason most of them languish in overcrowded jails has no necessary connection to public safety. It’s because they can’t afford cash bail.

Now, that’s criminal. Specifically, it’s the criminalization of poverty.

As far back as 1964, U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy observed that bail had become “a vehicle for systematic injustice.”

In testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, he wrote: “Bail has only one purpose — to insure that a person who is accused of a crime will appear in court for his trial. We presume a person to be innocent until he is proven guilty, and thus the purpose of bail is not punishment. It is not harassment. It is not to keep people in jail. It is simply to guarantee appearance in court.”

Things have gotten much worse over the years. The Vera Institute of Justice notes that pretrial detention increased by 433% between 1970 and 2015. It’s probably gotten worse over the past six years.

According to national data, the median bail set for a felony charge is around $10,000, in a country where 40% of the population would have trouble coming up with an unexpected $400. Even if the accused person or the family can raise that money with a bail bond agent, they will lose a percentage of what they coughed up. Many times, the accused will be found not guilty or the charges will be dropped.

The racial bias inherent in this system is glaring: While Black Americans make up 13.4% of the U.S. population, they account for about 40% of Americans in pretrial custody. In any case, we’re overwhelmingly talking about poor and working-class people.

What happens to people held in jail because they can’t afford bail isn’t pretty. It takes only a few days to put people at risk of losing jobs, homes or child custody. Family members — and especially children — can be traumatized. And a lot of bad things can happen in overcrowded jails. The effects can last for generations.

People who can’t afford bail also are more likely to be given harsher sentences or accept plea deals, just to get out at some point.

It’s also expensive to taxpayers. In a 2017 report, the Pretrial Justice Institute estimated that the United States spends about $14 billion “to detain people who are mostly low risk, including many whose charges will ultimately be dropped.”

Even though the Legislature overwhelmingly passed a bail reform bill last year, the jail numbers in West Virginia have increased. As reported on March 15, the population in West Virginia’s regional jails has jumped to 6,135. The actual capacity of those jails is 4,265. This means that regional jails are about 43% over their capacity. Of these, approximately the same percentage is being held for pretrial.

All this occurs in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, where risk of infections and community spread are high because of the constantly churning jail population. Many have pointed out that a stint in jail for a minor offense could be a death sentence.

It wasn’t always that way. As recently as April 16, 2020, the regional jail population was as low as 4,085 because of steps taken to reduce the jail population to slow the spread of the virus — and there was no spike in the crime rate. But the population rapidly increased again as things returned to “normal.”

Under the 2020 reform bill, judges or magistrates must hold a hearing within 72 hours for people who are incarcerated because they can’t afford bail. Incredibly, a new measure, House Bill 3106, would increase the period someone waits in pretrial for a hearing to 10 days, making a bad situation much worse.

Even aside from the impact on incarcerated people, their families and public health, this would have a huge cost on taxpayers. Counties owe $48.25 per day for each inmate in a regional jail, and at least 10 counties are behind in payments to the tune of millions of dollars. When counties fall behind, the state picks up the difference.

If we use the March 15 numbers reported by the state, there were 2,672 people in pretrial detention, at a cost to counties of $128,924 per day. At 10 days, we’re talking $1,289,240. And many people who can’t make bail are held for weeks and months.

Clearly, HB 3106 would be a step in the wrong direction for all concerned. Rather, West Virginia would do well to continue on the path to reform and ultimately abolish a system that bases personal liberty solely on the ability to pay.

(This appeared as an op-ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail.)

Time to end a double standard

 Among other things, Jesus was a master of the one-liner. The gospels are full of zingers that cut to the heart of the matter.

One of my favorites is a line he used about the misplaced priorities of some of his opponents: “Blind guides, you strain out a gnat and swallow a camel.”

At that time, many religiously observant people would strain the water they drank to avoid swallowing unclean insects. It was Jesus’ way of pointing out that, sometimes, we make a big deal of small things while ignoring major ones.

There are plenty of examples of that today. One of the biggest has to do with different attitudes toward the rich and the poor (come to think of it, Jesus had another camel/needle’s-eye zinger about that).

It’s long been known to public health researchers that high levels of inequality in wealth and income have negative effects on diseases, mortality, longevity, crime, addiction, happiness, social trust and other quality-of-life issues. And, in 2019, the U.S. Census Bureau announced that income inequality was the highest it had ever been since it began tracking it.

COVID-19 made all that worse. Millions of Americans have lost jobs and benefits or have had to cut back on hours of work. Many are in danger of foreclosure or eviction when protections expire.

Meanwhile, the international humanitarian group Oxfam, in a report appropriately titled “The Inequality Virus,” found that, while “Over two million people have died, and hundreds of millions of people are being forced into poverty while many of the richest — individuals and corporations — are thriving. Billionaire fortunes returned to their pre-pandemic highs in just nine months, while recovery for the world’s poorest people could take over a decade.”

According to The Guardian, a Swiss bank recently reported that “billionaires increased their wealth by more than a quarter [27.5%] at the height of the crisis from April to July, just as millions of people around the world lost their jobs or were struggling to get by on government schemes.”

Thanks mostly to the stock market, the wealth of billionaires increased to $10.2 trillion, up from the previous peak of $8.9 trillion in 2017. The number of billionaires also increased, from 2,158 to 2,189, in the same period.

That would be the camel we’re swallowing.

The gnat that’s being strained out is hesitancy to pass a long-overdue measure to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 over several years. The minimum wage has been stuck at $7.25 for nearly a dozen years and is now, obviously, worth less that it was then.

According to economist Dean Baker, if the minimum wage had kept pace with gains in worker productivity since 1968, it would be around $24 an hour today.

It’s an idea supported by a vast majority of Americans. The Pew Research Center has found that over two-thirds of Americans (67%) support the increase to $15. This includes a substantial number of Republicans (43%), including a majority of self-described Republican moderates.

The Economic Policy Institute estimates that passing the increase would benefit around 40 million Americans, over 38 million adults, nearly 24 million full-time workers, 23 million women, over 11 million parents, 5.4 million single parents and the parents of 14.4 million children. In 2019, the EPI estimated that this would benefit 255,000 workers in West Virginia.

These are the front-line workers who put their bodies, health and lives on the line to keep the country going in the midst of this crisis. It’s time to do right by them.

Jesus also said, “The laborer deserves to be paid.”

(This appeared as a column in the Charleston Gazette-Mail.)

Feeding kids, boosting local economies

 I've spent a chunk of the last seven or eight years working intermittently on child nutrition issues, which has a certain amount of irony. After all, the organization I work for, the American Friends Service Committee, first came to West Virginia in 1922, in large part to work on child nutrition issues. 

How sad is it that it's still an issue year 99 years later?

It's an unfortunate truth that today  a lot of kids rely heavily on schools for meeting their nutrition needs, up to and including volunteer weekend backpack programs. 

I first got involved in 2013 when the state legislature passed the Feed to Achieve Act, which was intended to eventually provide free breakfast and lunch for all public school students. One way that would work was by encouraging more counties to implement the federal Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), which allows them to provide free meals to all students in schools where 40 percent or more are certified as being low income. Basically, it eliminates the application process for free and reduced meals.

It's a winner all round. More kids eat (mostly) healthy meals, which can help with learning, discipline, tardiness and attendance. Schools cut paperwork and often save money. Any stigma for being on free or reduced meals is gone. And working parents get a break. 

Most counties jumped on board as soon as the program became available and others followed suit through the years. Some took some nudging, sometimes for years. But now, 54 out of 55 counties have implemented the program to a degree and 43 have done so on a countywide basis. Often, a county would try it at a few schools and then expand it after seeing the benefits. And the WV Office of Child Nutrition has done a great job in helping to make all this happen.

Enter COVID-19. Last spring, the USDA provided pandemic electronic benefit cards (P-EBTs) worth $313.50 per child to all students to help cover out of school food costs. In schools with CEP, all kids get the benefits; in those without, only those on free or reduced lunch qualify. Many benefitted but some missed out.

This is where child nutrition translates into direct economic impact. That round of P-EBTs brought around $72 million to local economies in the midst of a pandemic-induced recession. The USDA estimates that each dollar spent on EBT food assistance has a multiplier effect of  $1.5, which would increase the economic boost to $108 million.

The USDA recently announced a second round of P-EBT cards to be issued next month. The benefit will amount to $6.82 per day for days out of school in the 2020-2021 school year. That means somebody's going to have to do some arithmetic and the amount may vary from child to child depending on how the number of in-school days. It's been estimated that this will bring $200 million to the state, which with the multiplier means $300 million in much needed economic activity.

That's good news, or at least a silver lining to the pandemic. Still, more needs to be done to encourage the expansion of CEP. And we need to revisit legislation that died the last two years that would require counties to come up with out of school food plans for emergencies and summer vacations. Last year, the bill died just as the pandemic began to hit. One would hope that the need for such legislation would be self evident this year.

COVID and jails: stop the spread

CHARLESTON, W.Va. - As the number of COVID-19 cases in West Virginia jails skyrockets, advocates for incarcerated people are urging Gov. Jim Justice to follow recommendations in a new report to curb the spread.

As of December 1, more than 1,150 people serving time and correctional officers have contracted the virus, according to Lida Shepherd - program director with the American Friends Service Committee.

With regional jails at 35% over capacity, she said state officials should reduce pretrial detention and release anyone close to their parole date who isn't a threat to public safety. Those suggestions are in a study by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.

"An outbreak anywhere reduces our state's overall ability to get this virus under control," said Shepherd. "And so, that's why it's just critical that the governor really take action to prevent them - not just respond to when they happen, but to really prevent them through some of these recommendations."

The state Legislature had passed House Bill 2419 before the pandemic, which aims to reduce the number of people being held pretrial for low-level misdemeanor charges.

But Shepherd said she thinks, even with jails and surrounding communities becoming pandemic hotspots, the new law isn't really being applied.

Not using the new law creates what's known as "churn" in regional jails - where a lot of people are entering for short periods and then exiting, Shepherd said.

"In the midst of a pandemic, that obviously has some pretty dire consequences, as we are now seeing play out in some of our regional jails," said Shepherd. "With the virus being introduced not only necessarily by inmates, people who are coming into the system, but of course, by staff as well."

The report also recommends that people not be reincarcerated for minor, technical parole violations. Shepherd said not only would this help stop the spread of COVID, it could help restore lives and reunite families.

(Note: this news story was published by the WV News Service, a local affiliate of the Public News Service.)

Pandemics and prison overcrowding are a recipe for disaster

 Gov. Jim Justice in a news conference regarding the latest spike in COVID-19 cases, now famously said, “I don’t know what else I can do.”

To give credit where credit is due, starting in March Justice has shown a willingness to listen to public health experts and take proactive measures to prevent the spread of the virus.

However, for the thousands of people who are incarcerated or who work in state correctional facilities — all of whom are at elevated risk of sickness and death from COVID-19 — there are many responses that have not yet been taken by the governor and state officials that would help prevent more outbreaks.

Incarcerated people are infected by COVID-19 at a rate more than five times higher than the nation’s overall rate, due largely to the fact that social distancing necessary to prevent the spread of the virus is virtually impossible in overcrowded facilities.

As of this writing, according to the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources COVID-19 website, there are 254 positive cases of COVID-19 in the Stevens Correctional Facility in McDowell County, which means 64% of the prison inmates have contracted the virus. Statewide, there are 58 employees of Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation who are currently positive for COVID-19.

Our state’s regional jails are 35% over capacity, and what’s worse is that nearly half of those incarcerated are pre-trial, meaning they have not been convicted of any crime but, more likely than not, are too poor to come up with the bail money to purchase their freedom as they await trial. This has dire and potentially fatal consequences for these individuals and their families.

To put this problem in perspective, and also as cautionary tale, a recent report by the University of Texas at Austin found that 80% of those who had died from COVID-19 in Texas jails had not been convicted of a crime but were incarcerated pre-trial.

According to public health and safety experts in their October report, “Decarcerating Correctional Facilities During COVID-19,” commissioned by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, state officials can prevent outbreaks and deaths if they take action to reduce incarceration.

The first recommendation is to reduce “churn” in regional jails by law enforcement officials using their discretion to divert individuals from incarceration through citations in lieu of arrests.

Additionally they recommend judges and prosecutors adhere to “strong presumption against pretrial detention” through issuance of personal recognizance bonds.

Prior to the pandemic in early March, the state Legislature, wanting to reduce county jail bills, passed House Bill 2419, which instructs magistrates to grant personal recognizance bonds for low-level felony and misdemeanor charges “unless for good cause shown.” To date, even with correctional facilities and their surrounding communities becoming COVID-19 hot spots, there is little indication the new law is being applied.

The report also stresses the need to expedite release for people who are nearing the end of their sentence or are medically vulnerable, and who pose no threat to public safety.

According to data from the West Virginia State Parole Board, between March 3 and May 2, 389 people were granted parole, while 438 were either denied or deferred parole, meaning that the majority of people who were parole eligible were not released.

One way to expedite more releases would be the governor empowering the DOCR commissioner to work with staff to identify individuals who are parole eligible or within a year of parole eligibility, who are deemed low risk for reoffending, and see to their release.

The report also recommends that probation and parole policies be revised to “greatly limit revocation for technical violations,” and instead direct that only when a new crime is committed should parole or probation be revoked.

Last but not least, the report underscores the importance of reentry support to ensure people’s safety and well-being after release. Even in non-pandemic times, reentry is tremendously challenging for those who don’t have resources for housing, transportation and food.

Pile on lack of employment opportunities during a global pandemic while saddled with a criminal conviction, and one can imagine how crucial it is we invest in reentry, especially transitional housing.

As inspiration, other states have safely reduced their prison and jail populations. Most recently in New Jersey, Gov. Phil Murphy and the state legislature worked together on legislation that allowed for the release of over 2,000 adults and juveniles with qualifying offenses who had a year or less left on their sentence.

Why not here?

When leaders of our state realize the urgency to reduce incarceration during this pandemic, lives will be saved.

Then beyond this pandemic, if we take bold steps for criminal legal reform and reinvest the $250 million we spend annually on adult and juvenile incarceration, we will see lives restored and families reunited.

And we can look back and know West Virginia was on the right side of history, as we put our country’s failure of mass incarceration behind us once and for all.

(This ran as an op-ed by AFSC's Lida Shepherd in the Sunday Gazette-Mail.)

Latter day Neros

 The old story goes that the mad Roman emperor Nero fiddled while Rome burned, a disaster that he blamed on the early Christians, who paid for it with some nasty persecution. 

In fairness to Nero, however, this didn't happen. At least the fiddle part, since these weren't made until the Renaissance era. If he played anything, and I'm not saying he did, it would have been a kithara, a harp-like stringed instrument whose name morphed into guitar.

But that's not important right now. The meaning of the saying is about how some people in power cheerfully ignore the sufferings of others.

A case in point of the latter is congress dithering around rather than passing another round of COVID relief in the face of massive unemployment, hunger and suffering. This post from the Center on Budget and Policy reminds us that as this Thanksgiving approaches, less than half of all American households are confident about their ability to afford food in the days ahead.

In West Virginia, that's 57 percent, with 12 percent reporting having trouble feeding kids now and 9 percent not at all confident about the future. All around West Virginia, people are making heroic efforts to ensure access to food, but that's no substitute for meaningful action related to food security, housing assistance, unemployment, and help with utilities.

It's way past time for action. 

(Meanwhile, speaking of Roman emperors, it seems like Caligula is alive and well in the USA.)

An interesting approach to ending homelessness

 One huge policy idea that has been gaining more traction is the idea of a universal basic income (UBI), which would be guarantee a basic stipend to pretty much everybody to do with as they will. It's a huge subject and I won't go into all the pros and cons but would like to share a news story that might shed light on what effect something like that could have.

According to this CNN report, researchers in Vancouver gave a sizeable amount of money in a study appropriately called "New Leaf." It went like this:

"Researchers gave 50 recently homeless people a lump sum of 7,500 Canadian dollars (nearly $5,700). They followed the cash recipients' life over 12-18 months and compared their outcomes to that of a control group who didn't receive the payment."

The researchers report these preliminary findings: contrary to what stereotypes people may have about homeless people and their possible spending habits, those who received the lump sum:

 ● Move into stable housing faster

● Spend fewer days homeless

● Retain over $1,000 in savings through 12 months

● Increase spending on food, clothing, and rent

● Achieve greater food security

● Made wise financial choices with a 39% reduction in spending on alcohol, cigarettes and drugs

● Reduce reliance on the shelter system of care, resulting in cost savings to society

Most recipients knew right away what they wanted to do with the money. On top of all the other benefits, this program saved around $405K in shelter costs. Since homelessness is increasing in the wake of COVID, innovative approaches like these are worth considering.

 

Time to get serious about reforming bail

 Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, in the unimaginably distant days of springtime, somebody came up with the slogan “West Virginia: Practicing social distancing since 1863.” It made it to a T-shirt.

There’s some truth to that, although we didn’t prove to be as immune to the disease as it seemed at first. Still, living in a rural state with ample open space made things a bit more bearable for lots of people I know. I have friends in big cities who were cooped up in tiny apartments, experiencing claustrophobia.

We know now that the virus is most dangerous in places where social distancing is difficult or impossible. Known as congregate settings, these are places where groups of people live, meet or otherwise gather in close proximity for limited or extended periods of time. Examples include nursing homes, shelters, prisons, jails, juvenile detention centers, workplaces and schools.

Examples of disease spread in such settings include the recent nursing home deaths in Mercer County and the more than 100 cases reported in the state prison at Huttonsville in May and June.

Congregate settings pose a health risk to those who live in them and those who work in them. Many of these workers, who live in communities all over the state, do difficult jobs with not enough compensation or appreciation for the work they do.

One setting that poses a particular threat to public health is the regional jail system.

A lot of people, including myself, tend to use terms “jail” and “prison” interchangeably, but they’re very different. Usually, a jail is a place for detaining people serving relatively short sentences or awaiting trial, while prisons confine those already convicted and sentenced, generally for longer periods of time.

However, that definition gets blurred in West Virginia. For years, prisons here have been so overcrowded that hundreds of people who are supposed to be serving their sentence in a state prison wind up backlogged in overcrowded regional jails. A big difference is that jails don’t offer as many programs or educational opportunities that people might need to complete to be eligible for parole.

According to the West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy, the average jail population in West Virginia increased by 30% between 2010 and 2019, despite a declining population and dropping crime rates for many offenses.

Jails are particularly prone to becoming COVID-19 hot spots because of the constant churning of populations, as so many people wind up there for minor offenses.

It’s important to remember that more than half of those confined in regional jails haven’t been convicted or even tried for the offenses for which they were arrested.

With a cash-based bail system, that comes down to money — or the lack thereof. Many people are in jail not because they’re a threat to public safety, but because they can’t afford to get out.

In a time of pandemic, they’re at risk of a death sentence for being poor.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Earlier this year, the West Virginia Legislature passed House Bill 2419, which encouraged judicial officers to release people charged with certain offenses on personal recognizance bonds, impose the “least restrictive bail conditions determined to be reasonably necessary to assure appearance as well as ensure the safety of person in the community,” limiting the amount of bail imposed, and requiring a hearing within 72 hours of the first appearance of the accused in court, if they are unable to make bail.

There has been a growing awareness across the political spectrum that the consequences of even a few days in jail can be dire for families and communities: loss of income, jobs, child custody and housing.

Then there’s the cost to counties of about $50 per inmate per day. Further, evidence suggests that people confined before trial are more likely to be convicted and sentenced to longer jail or prison terms than those released.

That bill passed before the pandemic really hit the United States. The stakes for reducing the jail population are even higher now. It went into effect in June, although, unfortunately, so far, it doesn’t appear to have had the intended effect of reducing the jail population.

In late March, the West Virginia Supreme Court issued guidance to lower courts to “identify any pretrial individuals who do not constitute a public safety risk and may be appropriate candidates for [public recognizance] or reduced bond” and to balance “the safety of the public and victims, whether PR or reduced bonds are appropriate to address concerns related to COVID-19.” In some cases, police officers were encouraged to issue warnings or citations, rather than make arrests.

It worked. Between March 2 and April 20, the population in regional jails dropped from 5,200 to 4,108, a 21% decrease. Incarceration of pretrial detainees dropped from 2,685 to 1,842, a 31% drop.

More to the point, this drop in confinement wasn’t followed by a spike in the crime rate, which demonstrates that it’s possible to reduce pretrial detention without compromising public safety.

Unfortunately, the numbers began creeping back up as things returned to something like “normal,” whatever that is these days. Now, the regional jails are about as crowded as they’ve ever been — sometimes more.

That needs to change. It never made sense to criminalize poverty. It makes even less sense to do so in the context of a catastrophic health and economic crisis.

So many bad ideas, so little time

One of my favorite WV legislators has been known to call the state capitol the "bad idea factory." If that's the case, then the White House these days is more like the bad idea Death Star.

 No doubt the Gentle Reader is aware of the disastrous impact of COVID-19 on the economic well-being of millions (make that billions) of people. And, most likely, of the lack of agreement on a meaningful response from Congress to deal with the problem.

What we have instead, so far anyhow, are executive actions from the Trump administration that don't do a lot of what needs to be done and does some things that shouldn't be done. 

As Robert Greenstein of the DC-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities argues here, the executive act doesn't adequately address any number of problems, including public health, unemployment, evictions, fiscal aid to states, and food assistance.

As if all that wasn't bad enough, the actions include cutting the payroll tax, which would be a major hit to Social Security and Medicare, which are more needed now than ever.

Here's his conclusion:

To all of these shortcomings and gaps, add the enormous uncertainty that the executive actions will create because they are legally suspect and because of serious questions about whether the Administration actually can implement aspects of them.

There simply is no shortcut to the hard work of crafting a bipartisan economic relief package that meets the needs of a reeling economy, struggling families, and cash-strapped states and localities. And under our constitutional system, the President and Congress together — not the President acting alone — have the power to appropriate funds and decide how to use them. The President cannot substitute executive actions for congressional action and cannot, acting unilaterally, provide the strong help that families and the economy need.

To help a nation suffering through one of its gravest crises in many decades, the White House should withdraw the executive actions, return to the negotiating table, and do what’s needed to reach the deal that our nation so badly needs.

Mask or ventilator?

It kind of baffles me that so many people seem to pop their clogs when asked to wear masks to protect themselves and others from the coronavirus.

If I wanted to get Freudian about it, which is kind of fun sometimes, I might speculate that they see this as some kind of symbolic neutering imposed on them by authorities unconsciously associated with father figures.

Holy Oedipus complex, Batman!

(There’s nothing like a little recreational psychoanalysis every now and then.)

However, I’m not wedded to that idea. After all, Freud supposedly said that, sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar.

Sometimes, I think some people see it as an attack on their sense of whiteness and/or masculinity. I haven’t done an exhaustive statistical demographic analysis, but I suspect that kind of reaction does seem to be most common among those who might strongly self-identify in one or both of those categories.

Whatever the case, I’d urgently like to say that, if you think masks are bad, just try a ventilator sometime.

I found that out the hard way more than 15 years ago. I’d been doing a lot of endurance events, including the Charleston Distance Run and an Olympic-distance triathlon, but I kept getting slower and slower.

Then, I started getting a weird pain in the right shoulder. Usually, I could push past things like that but, this time, it shut me down.

At the time, I thought it might be a shoulder injury sustained after I tried to do a judo throw on a guy built like a pyramid. I went to a physical therapist, who is now one of the most conservative members of the state Senate. He urged me to get a stress test.

I thought it was a crazy idea but went along with it, which might have been one of the few times we agreed on something. I say that with all respect and gratitude. That advice saved my life.

It turned out my major arteries were totally blocked. The term “widowmaker” was used. My capillaries were apparently keeping me alive, so all that running, however slow, paid off.

I got scheduled right away for a quadruple bypass.

I expected that to be a drag. In the days before minimally invasive surgery, this meant my sternum getting sawed in half and cracked open like a clam shell. There were other cuts and tubes to be endured.

What I didn’t know and wish someone would have told me was what waking up on a ventilator would be like.

I came to with a weird sensation in my throat. Some ginormous-seeming object was there that, in retrospect, reminds me of the space creature in the first “Alien” movie that latched on to that poor guy’s face before its baby popped out of his chest.

I wanted to gag, but that wasn’t an option. Then there was the fact that it was uncomfortable, to put it mildly.

Then there was the breathing. At first, I didn’t think it was happening but, eventually, I figured out that, since I wasn’t dead, the alien was breathing for me. But let’s just say it’s nothing like the real thing.

I think my reaction to all that, ironically, wound up keeping me on it longer than might have otherwise been the case.

Maybe things have changed since then. Maybe being intubated these days is like taking a ride on a magical unicorn. But that would surprise me.

Here’s the thing: I was on that for just a few hours. Some COVID-19 patients have been on one for days or weeks. Fortunately, those who are ventilated are generally put into a medically induced coma, so they don’t experience that kind of distress.

But still, the real or imagined indignity, discomfort or inconvenience of wearing a mask is pretty small stuff, considering other possibilities.

That person with a mask just might be keeping you from getting a tube down the throat. It might be nice to return the favor.

(This ran as an op-ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail.)

Questioning capitalism?

Proteus the shape-shifter 

Business Insider reported some interesting survey findings last week, courtesy of the Harris Poll and Just Capital. Using a sample size of 1,000, it found that only 25 percent of Americans think that capitalism in its current iteration is good for society as a whole. The survey, of course took place in the context of the coronavirus pandemic, which lifted the veil on a host of social and economic inequities.

As reported by Just Capital, the responses are pretty radical. Among them:

*89 percent wanted corporations to hit "reset" and do right by workers, consumers, communities and the environment;

*Only 29 percent viewed the prevailing form of capitalism as offering "the kind of society I want for the next generation" or as one that "works for the average American."

*Over 50 percent wanted a reformed version of the economic system, while around 20 percent believed that no form of capitalism was good for the public. Put another way, that means over 70 percent are in the reform or replace columns.

The epidemic has exposed gross economic inequality as well as racial and gender inequities. Those surveyed wanted protective equipment and safe conditions for front line workers, paid sick leave, wage increases and greater flexibility to work remotely.

While it would be a bit much to interpret the data as a call for the collectivization of agriculture or government ownership of hot dog stands, it does seem to point out that we really could be at a turning point.

Capitalism over the last 500 years as been as shape-shifting as the mythological creature Proteus in the Odyssey, taking numerous forms. Many of these have been nasty, as in slavery, imperialism, neo-colonialism, and an unrestrained global economy. But in some places and times, when tempered by good public policies, a strong labor movement and a healthy civil society, it has shown a more humane face.

It could be that there is a growing demand for the US economy to move in that direction....which is a good thing.

Protecting vulnerable workers

When it comes to amateur epidemiology these days, I think there are two kinds of people: those who know they’re not experts and those who don’t.

I’m in the former category.

Like millions of Americans and people around the world, I’d like for things to get back to some kind of normal, preferably a better normal than we had before. I miss seeing people face to face, going to libraries, social and family gatherings, visiting Taylor Books in search of the ever-elusive no-bake cookie, eating out, contact sports and all that.

But I don’t want a rushed return to “normal” if it means another spike in COVID-19 infections and fatalities, which is inevitable if restrictions are lifted too soon.

In Georgia, for example, moves to reopen led to a more than 40% spike in the coronavirus incidence rate, which represents the number of infections per 100,000 people, between April 21 and May 2. For some, that will mean death.

The Texas Tribune reported on May 14 the largest daily increase in COVID-19 infections and fatalities since the outbreak began, with 1,448 infections and 58 deaths. That state began the reopening process on April 17.

A reopening spike would hit West Virginia particularly hard. As has been widely reported, the Kaiser Family Fund found that we have the highest share of adults at risk of serious illness if infected, at the rate of 51% compared to a national average of 41%. That includes around 32% of people between ages 18 and 64, the prime working years.

One area that demands a careful approach is dealing with unemployment insurance. As of this writing, 143,149 West Virginians have filed for unemployment insurance since the outbreak. Some of those who are unemployed have compromised immune systems or live with someone who does. As things now stand, when their employers open, they will have to choose between risking health and life or losing unemployment benefits. Many of those who would have to make that decision are low-wage workers, with a disproportionate representation of women and African Americans.

Currently, immunocompromised people can be exempt from this dilemma with a doctor’s excuse. However, that could be a problem for people who are self-quarantining for health reasons — and for the estimated 60,000 West Virginians who have lost health insurance during the crisis or the more than 120,000 who didn’t have health coverage to start with.

According to federal Department of Labor guidelines, “Federal law would permit a state to determine whether the separation [from employment due to the outbreak] here is a quit or a discharge and whether the circumstances are allowable under the state’s good cause/just cause provisions. If permitted under the state’s good cause/just cause provision, states should consider how they will adjudicate the reasonableness of an individual’s separation for reasonable risk of exposure. One such factor could be considering if the individual is in a population that is particularly susceptible to COVID-19.”

In general, I think the Justice administration has done a good job of dealing with the outbreak. But I respectfully suggest that giving this matter more consideration isn’t a matter of playing politics or keeping people on unemployment forever. It’s about looking out for the lives of West Virginia’s working families.

(This ran as an op-ed in last week's Charleston Gazette-Mail.)

They'll stone you when you're trying to be so good...

WV Governor Jim Justice's COVID-19 press conferences can be pretty unpredictable, but it was truly weird yesterday to see him basically lose his temper when asked by a reporter about a sign-on letter that several groups (including AFSC) sent about unemployment insurance for vulnerable workers and/or family members. You can view his rant here. And here's the news article written by the reporter.

(Short version: he pretty much says the groups want everyone to be on unemployment forever--not true--and that the same people wanted to let dangerous murderers and such out of prison--also not true.)

Here's the response of those who sent the letter:

As Governor Justice often reminds us, West Virginia has the largest share of its population in the country who is at risk of serious illness if they contract COVID-19. The governor has been a leader in protecting vulnerable populations throughout this crisis, and it’s disappointing to hear him dismiss the concerns around continuing to protect these populations as the state begins to reopen. Among the groups that signed onto this letter are frontline service and health workers, communities of color, and disability rights groups, all of whom represent populations that are themselves at elevated risk or who have family members at risk of serious illness due to underlying medical conditions. 

The governor has the authority and the obligation to protect at-risk workers from being forced into work situations which put them at significant risk of coming into contact with COVID-19. West Virginia code states that a person is not disqualified for unemployment insurance benefits if they leave their employment for health reasons, including a condition that could be worsened or aggravated by work. We’re also asking for more transparency out of WorkForce WV, including that the agency publicly release the conditions their office is using to determine suitable work during the COVID-19 crisis.

Our intention is to work with the Justice Administration and WorkForce WV to ensure that at-risk workers are not forced to choose between their health and their finances. Public health is not a political issue.  

 A weird thing about all this is that nobody was looking to pick a fight with the Justice administration. In fact, most of those who signed on have been generally supportive of his approach..

The fact remains that reopening will expose vulnerable people to infection and possible death. Then there's this: as Sean O'Leary with the WV Center on Budget and Policy points out, federal guidelines explicitly allow for these factors to be taken into consideration as state's consider reopening and unemployment insurance options. None of which involves what Justice referred to as "playing politics."

At least we know now that someone reads these things...

Back to work?

Like most people I know, I'd like things to get back to normal...preferably a better normal than the one we had before the outbreak. However, the rush to reopen could mean a spike in infections and even fatalities.

AFSC in WV was proud to sign on to this letter to Governor Jim Justice and key members of his administration. There's a lot to it, but the main point is that when businesses reopen, many people with compromised immune systems--or who live with those who do--will have to choose between losing unemployment insurance or risking life and health. Those workers most at risk of this are disproportionately low wage earners, women and African Americans.

The letter makes several recommendations, the most important of which are that the administration:

*Confirm that individuals with health conditions that put them at risk for complications due to COVID-19 are entitled to unemployment benefits if they leave or turn down work that risks exposure.

*Allow individuals who live with at-risk individuals to continue to collect unemployment if they turn down or leave work that risks exposure.

It's a pretty radical idea: just this once, let's pretend that human life is more important than squeezing every drop of profit out of the labor of low wage workers.

How little bugs shaped big history

In H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, the octopus-like Martians almost wiped out humanity — until they died from infection from earth’s micro-bugs.

One might think if Martians could develop space travel, they’d have thought about germs too, but that’s not important now. The point is that things too small to see can have a huge impact.

I’ve been thinking lately about how outbreaks have often changed the course of history.

Let’s start with the Bible. Aside from the plagues of Egypt in Exodus, an example is related in 2nd Kings and elsewhere about the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem.

The Assyrians were probably the most brutal empire in the ancient Middle East, with detailed artwork depicting torture and mass executions. They ended the northern kingdom of Israel in 722 B.C., deporting and resettling many of the survivors aside from the Samaritans, giving rise to speculation about “lost tribes of Israel.”

The same almost happened to the kingdom of Judah around 701 B.C. When things seemed hopeless, the invaders were hit by a mouse-borne epidemic, a story backed by ancient Greek historian Herodotus centuries later.

No Judah would have meant no rabbinical Judaism or Christianity.

An outbreak in Athens around 430 B.C. helped end the glory days of ancient Greece. After the Greeks defeated the Persians, Athens went to war with Sparta and its allies. The Athenians were a sea power while the Spartans were strongest on land.

Athenians brought in citizens from outlying areas, staying supplied by sea while Spartans burned their farms and fields. Overcrowding made sanitation worse, leading to an outbreak described in detail by Thucydides, an Athenian general and historian who barely survived it.

There’s debate about the disease, but we can just say it was bad. According to Thucydides, “Words indeed fail one when one tries to give a general picture of the disease; and as for the sufferings of individuals, they seemed almost beyond the capacity of human nature to endure.” Demoralized people “became indifferent to every rule of religion or law.”

Tens of thousands died, including the great political leader Pericles. While the war would drag on for 27 years, Athens never recovered and was ultimately defeated. War exhausted the winners as well. It wasn’t long before Greece was dominated by the Macedonians under Philip and his better-known son, Alexander the Great.

Rome had its outbreaks, the worst coming in 541 A.D., after it converted to Christianity. The emperor Justinian wasn’t exactly good, but he was the last to be called “the Great.” The empire had two capitals, the western in Rome and the east in Constantinople, now Istanbul, Turkey. The west fell under “barbarian” domination, but Justinian came close to reuniting it, also engaging in diplomacy and war with the Persian superpower to his east.

Then came bubonic plague, carried by fleas on rats in grain shipments from Egypt. It raged off and on for around 200 years, killing 25-50 million people.

Any hope of reuniting the empire was gone, paving the way for the rise of Europe as distinct countries rather than imperial provinces. One place largely untouched was Arabia. Islam was soon to spread through plague-weakened regions as far as the Iberian Peninsula in the west and Persia and beyond in the east.

Plague would return to Europe around 1350, recurring in waves, by some estimates wiping out more than half the population. Some historians believe it killed feudalism and helped prepare the way for the rise of capitalism and Protestantism.

When Europeans encountered indigenous people in the Americas, Old World diseases such as smallpox, chicken pox, cholera, tuberculosis, mumps and measles wiped out huge portions of the population, far more than the considerable violence of the “discoverers.” The late Yale historian David Brion Davis called it “the greatest genocide in the history of man.”

Cortez’s small band of gold-hungry murderers wouldn’t have been able to conquer the huge Aztec city of Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City) in 1520 without the help of a smallpox epidemic that reduced the population by an estimated 40%.

Yet another epidemic made possible the expansion of the young United States and saved the world’s first victorious slave uprising. In the early 1800s, Napoleon sought to reimpose slavery in Haiti after a victorious uprising. Haitians fought back fiercely, aided by yellow fever, a mosquito-bourne virus brought from Africa during the slave trade. The French had never before been exposed to the disease. Their expeditionary force was wiped out. To raise money to recover, Napoleon sold the U.S. territory claimed by France for $15 million in what became known as the Louisiana Purchase. This nearly doubled the size of U.S. territory.

Epidemics weren’t done with Napoleon. In 1812, he invaded Russia with his Grand Armee of around 500,000 soldiers. Invading Russia is about as good an idea as invading Afghanistan. In addition to resistance by Russian soldiers, civilians and “General Winter,” the French were struck by lice-bourne typhus. As many as 400,000 invaders died, with typhus killing the majority. Who knows what a different outcome would have meant for Russia. Perhaps there would have never been a Stalin.

These are just a few examples of how microbes have shaped history. While we’re lucky that COVID-19 isn’t nearly as lethal as previous epidemics, it’s a safe bet that it will leave huge and lasting changes in its wake.

It’s up to us to decide what kinds of changes those will be.

(This ran as an op-ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail.)

A time (and place) to test

 One of the populations most at risk of COVID-19 infection are people held in jails, prisons, and juvenile detention centers and those who work there. In such institutions, social distancing is impossible.

In addition to working with allies to reduce the number of West Virginians in confinement, AFSC in WV signed on to a letter to state officials urging that universal testing for the virus be made available to all detainees and workers in the system. This is particularly urgent because a significant percentage of those with the virus show no symptoms--and since outbreaks in one setting can easily spread to the community at large.

Please feel free to share the contents of the letter and to urge state officials to take appropriate action. Here's the letter:

Monday, April 27, 2020 

Dear Governor Justice, Commissioner Jividen, and Secretary Crouch:

As the COVID-19 crisis continues in West Virginia, so does our concern regarding its impact on those behind bars or otherwise detained in congregate settings across the state. Many West Virginians are extremely worried about loved ones of all ages who are incarcerated in jails, prisons, juvenile detention facilities and other out of home placements, where following social distancing guidelines is nearly impossible. The same is true of those who work in these facilities, their families and communities. We, the undersigned, share their concerns.  In fact, we would go even further to stress that what occurs in those settings can impact all West Virginians.  It is clear to all by now that prisons, just like nursing homes, schools, colleges and other locations that you have worked hard to address are at heightened risk, which then can adversely impact the general population.
  
We highly commend state leaders such as yourselves for taking effective measures to stop the spread of the disease. However, the recent news that a correction officer has tested positive raises disturbing possibilities.  Given the very high risk for this population and for the thousands of West Virginians connected to it in one way or another, we are writing to request that the state make universal testing available to all people detained or employed in these facilities as testing supplies become more available. Since studies indicate that many people who have and can spread the virus are asymptomatic, this is the surest way to identify cases of infection and to allow authorities to take appropriate measures in the interest of all West Virginians.

This would be consistent with federal guidance for the use of the CARES Act, which states that funds can be used for "costs of providing COVID-19 testing, including serological testing" as well as "COVID-19-related expenses of maintaining state prisons and county jails, including as relates to sanitation and improvement of social distancing measures, to enable compliance with COVID-19 public health precautions.”

Further, because of the vulnerability of this population, it is imperative that West Virginia provide robust transparency with regards to COVID-19 testing occurring in our corrections system. Other states like Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, and Virginia publicly
report not only the number of positive cases in correctional facilities, but also the total number of tests performed as well. We’re asking that this information be made publicly accessible.

Ongoing forthrightness about COVID-19 testing and results within the prison system will maintain the public trust in our health and law enforcement officials. Transparency will similarly put incarcerated individuals and their families at greater ease.

Limiting the spread of COVID-19 in high-risk environments like our prison system is imperative for the health of incarcerated individuals, correctional staff, and our communities as a whole. The more incarcerated individuals and correctional staff that need treatment at local hospitals, the greater the strain will be on our health care system’s capacity.

The organizations listed below represent a diverse cross section of West Virginians supporting this request. We thank you and those who work with you for your service in this difficult time and look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Americans for Prosperity
American Friends Service Committee
 WV Council of Churches
WV Access to Justice Commission
Catholic Diocese of WV
 American Civil Liberties Union-WV
Our Future WV
WV Center on Budget and Policy
Appalachian Prison Book Project
Mountain State Justice
NAACP – Jefferson County

Interesting times

I don’t know if it’s authentic, but supposedly there’s an ancient Chinese curse that goes, “May you live in interesting times.”

(According to the late British author Terry Pratchett, there are two related curses. One is, “May you come to the attention of those in authority,” and the other is, “May the gods give you everything you ask for.” He wasn’t sure about the authenticity of those either.)

At any rate, our time is getting a bit too interesting for my preferences. It’s very rarely a good thing when a historical event on a global scale comes knocking on the door. I’m thinking of things like the decision to invade Iraq, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Serbia in 1914 — not that I was around for all the above.

I’m reminded of a quote about history by the great German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, who spoke of it as “the slaughter-bench at which the happiness of peoples, the wisdom of States, and the virtue of individuals have been victimized ... .”

Now that’s a cheery thought.

I think it’s interesting that the ancient Greeks had two words for historical time, chronos and kairos. Chronos referred to ordinary, not-too-interesting times — business as usual. Kairos meant a special time of challenge, crisis or decision. In the New Testament, for example, when Jesus said things like “the time is fulfilled” (Mark 1:15) or “my time is not yet come” (John 7:6), the word was kairos.

If there ever was a time of kairos, this is one.

Another word of Greek origin comes to mind, as well: apocalypse. Contrary to common usage, the word itself has nothing to do with the end of the world. Rather, it means something like uncovering, revealing or lifting the veil.

I’m hoping this crisis has lifted the veil on the world we live in. It has revealed that the real heroes who keep everything going aren’t hedge fund managers, CEOs or billionaires, but the helpers, retail workers, drivers, etc., who often work for low wages and no benefits. That needs to change.

It has revealed that health care, investments in public health and paid sick days aren’t luxuries or utopian notions, but necessities.

It has revealed the bankruptcy of an ideology that worships markets and the private sector while disparaging public goods and services, reasonable regulations and democratic and accountable governance.

It has revealed that entrusting government to those who believe government can’t do anything doesn’t bring about good government.

It has revealed that we ignore science to our peril.

And it’s a reminder that we need to pay more attention to the natural world we depend on — before it pays more attention to us.

Hegel also said, “What experience and history teach is this — that peoples and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.”

For all our sakes, I hope he’s wrong about that.

(This appeared as an op-ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail.)