Paying Child Support While Incarcerated: A Policy Proposal to Reduce Financial Barriers for Re-entry Citizens
Sruthi Naraharisetti
Re-entry citizens face enormous burdens of debt after their period of incarceration due to current mandates for child support payments. Once an individual becomes incarcerated, what happens to their financial obligations? With child support, a common misconception is that an individual is no longer responsible for payments. On the contrary, automatic suspension of child support obligations due to incarceration is not yet offered in any state across the country. Prior to January 19, 2017, only 36 states categorized incarceration as “involuntary unemployment,” a categorization that provides incarcerated non-custodial parents the ability to reduce or suspend their child support order. Today, a federal ruling has mandated that all 50 states abide by this categorization of incarceration as “involuntary unemployment.” Despite these recent federal changes, details of this modification process are left to the discretion of individual states and as a result, this process is not automatic, nor always convenient to use.
The United States’ current criminal justice system punishes incarcerated individuals far beyond their legally-mandated sentences. Child support debt, due to incarceration, often prevents non-custodial parents from accessing basic needs including bank accounts, legal jobs, stable housing and, ultimately, the opportunity to provide for his or her child. Additionally, these barriers are heightened because child support debt is non-dismissible through bankruptcy. In this policy analysis, policy precedent, new legislation, and proposed recommendations are evaluated based on their effectiveness, economic efficiency, and ethical implications. Given analysis, it is recommended that a federal mandate be instituted in all 50 states, automatically classifying incarcerated individuals as unable to pay child support for the duration of their sentence.
Sanitation Access As a Predictor of Child and Maternal Mortality
Matthew Hudson-Flege
Universal access to improved sanitation facilities is a human right guaranteed in the UN Sustainable Development Goals, as well as several international declarations, including Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights and the UN Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights’ General Comment 14. However, approximately 2.4 billion people worldwide still lack access to adequate and equitable sanitation facilities. There is a growing body of literature demonstrating an association between sanitation access and the important health outcomes of child and maternal mortality. However, current literature does not examine the relationship between increased sanitation access and changes in national child and maternal mortality rates over time while controlling for GDP growth. The present study addresses this gap using regression analysis. The study finds that increased access to sanitation facilities significantly predicted reductions in child and maternal mortality from 1995 to 2014 when controlling for GDP growth. Further increases in access to sanitation facilities therefore appear essential in supporting improved health outcomes around the world.
The Impact of Closing Community Mental Health Clinics on Crime in Chicago Neighborhoods
Rachel Baccile
This research aims to estimate the effect of closing six community mental health clinics in Chicago, on crime rates. At the time of the closures, city stakeholders were concerned that, without access to treatment, individuals with mental illness would encounter the criminal justice system more frequently. Data is not available to test the hypothesis that there would be more mentally ill individuals arrested or in jail, but one can examine the effect on crime in the neighborhoods where clinics were closed. Time series regression was used to estimate the effect of clinic closures on changes in crime rates for wards affected by the mental health clinic closures. I find that the closures had a small, positive association with crime rates initially, which then disappeared in later months. Subtypes of crime (violent, property, and disorder crimes) were also examined, and effects varied by crime type. The analysis suffers from issues common in time series analysis, including heteroskedasticity, autocorrelation, and contemporaneous correlation. Due to limited data availability at the ward level, these problems were addressed in a limited capacity. Subsequent research should aim to obtain more data at the city ward level to examine this relationship more thoroughly.
Enfranchising Elderly and Disabled Voters in an Unequal and Unfair America
Maya Efrati
This article provides a comprehensive look at the right to vote in terms of access to the ballot for disabled and elderly voters. It will show that current realities for elderly and disabled voters are dire, and do not stand up to American values on equal treatment and voter ballot access. Furthermore, today’s legal framework is confusing and the gaps result in inconsistencies and obstacles for voting. While certain restrictions on voting rights may be acceptable, we must differentiate closely what those are to avoid overreaching and denying this fundamental right. This article concludes by specifying policy solutions which would address the current deficiencies, noting that with concerted and substantive steps forward, significant improvements can occur.
President Nursultan Nazarbayev and the Process of Democratization in the Republic of Kazakhstan
Matthew Chakov
The Republic of Kazakhstan, a Central Asian country of almost twenty million people, received its independence after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. There was hope in the international community that, with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Kazakhstan might become a democracy with economic and political freedoms seen commonly in the West. While the President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, claims that the country is on the “road to democracy,” this paper seeks to demonstrate that Nazarbayev’s actions have been a nearly constant roadblock to the democratization of Kazakhstan. This paper argues that Kazakhstan has resembled an authoritarian regime led by Nazarbayev since the country’s inception, and the president has taken steps both forward but mostly backward in regards to democratization. I argue that while many problems plague the country, the Republic of Kazakhstan still has reason to be optimistic in the long term, considering the probable death or retirement of President Nazarbayev in the next decade.
Frybread: What’s Really Beneath the Grease
Preston Parish
Frybread embodies a dietary paradox that reflects broader systemic inequities, food deserts, and high rates of obesity and diabetes among American Indian populations, underscoring the need for culturally salient interventions focused on food sovereignty and traditional dietary restoration.