Archives for September, 2012
Immigration advocates call for limits on solitary confinement
Posted: Sept. 25, 2012 | Tags: immigration
A group of doctors and immigrant advocates have called for federal officials to stop what they consider widespread abuse of solitary confinement for immigrants in detention.
The Heartland Alliance’s National Immigrant Justice Center and Physicians for Human Rights condemned the practice in a report released Tuesday. It accuses guards of repeatedly placing immigrants in isolation cells, without access to lawyers or medical evaluation, for arbitrary reasons. Detention centers often separate gay and transgender immigrants, as well as detainees with mental health problems, for weeks and months at a time, according to the report.
“The government cannot continue to detain ...
Poverty rates unchanged
Posted: Sept. 12, 2012 | Tags: What Went Wrong
Michael Lawson, who covers the economy and jobs as part of the team on our What Went Wrong project, writes today about the Census Bureau's annual report on income, poverty and health insurance. Two of the headlines — that income is down and inequality is up — will come as no surprise. But the details are more nuanced and include the point that the poverty rate is flat.
Economic slump still affects food access, nutrition
Posted: Sept. 6, 2012 | Tags: What Went Wrong
As partisans rally behind their visions for the country at political conventions, the view of many Americans still remains bleak. Over the last two years, our What Went Wrong project has tracked the impact of the Great Recession and the Washington and Wall Street policies contributing to it. And now, despite improving economic conditions, a new report shows a record number of Americans are still feeding their families with government help. Nearly 47 million Americans, 15 percent of the population, used food stamps in June. The number of participants in the program, officially the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), has ...
