N.Y. Times: Squatters Call Foreclosures Home

With Advocates’ Help, Squatters Call Foreclosures Home

MIAMI — When the woman who calls herself Queen Omega moved into a three-bedroom house here last December, she introduced herself to the neighbors, signed contracts for electricity and water and ordered an Internet connection.

What she did not tell anyone was that she had no legal right to be in the home.

Ms. Omega, 48, is one of the beneficiaries of the foreclosure crisis. Through a small advocacy group of local volunteers called Take Back the Land, she moved from a friend’s couch into a newly empty house that sold just a few years ago for more than $400,000.

Yup, when the number of foreclosures reaches a certain level in one neighborhood, there is little the police can do about it. See my photo album of Gary, Indiana for the extreme case.

Las Vegas R-J: Helping the Homeless, but How?

TENT CITY: Help the homeless but how? Officials don't think number of homeless has risen during recession (Las Vegas Review-Journal)

L.A. Times: Shaming Johns

This looks like another variation of the "scared straight" scams that are shown not to change impulsive behavior....

Shaming and scaring johns into becoming average joes
(Los Angeles Times, 2/26)

At first glance, it seems these schools shouldn't work, said Michael Shively, a researcher who recently completed the first comprehensive study of the San Francisco program for the National Institute of Justice. The one-day, throw-everything-at-them-and-see-what-sticks approach, he said, lacks the intense, targeted and longer-term therapy that is generally thought to be needed to change a person's behavior.

Indications are, however, that the classes are a relatively cheap and effective carrot to dangle in front of johns. California prostitution arrest records, Shively's team found, show that recidivism rates among San Francisco men dropped 30% in the decade following the launch of their john school. A newer program in San Diego posted similar results, he found.

I am skeptical of this statistic because a lot of things can change in 10 years. It depends on there being a credible control group (similar offenders assigned to a non-treatment social group). There is often a benefit in giving people attention of any kind, but the "scared straight" component is usually ineffective.

See my essays, Words Don't Work and Things You Don't Need: Addiction Treatment.

WSJ: 'Tough Love' in the Outback

'Tough Love' in the Outback:
Australia's Push to Help Aborigines Is Upending Tribal Customs -- And Giving Women an Unlikely Boost
(Wall Street Journal, 1/17)

Aboriginal society has experienced a dramatic decline -- partly a result of these very reforms. Australia's government has proclaimed the upsurge of violence, child abuse and alcoholism among Aborigines a national emergency. It is responding with controversial new policies that critics decried as racist, such as restricting welfare payments to Aborigines but not to whites or other Australians.

Those policies, however, are starting to show early results, the government says. They are also shaking up the Aborigines' ancient social structure. In Yuendumu, for example, the policies have unleashed a nascent feminist movement which is threatening to erode the vast powers of male tribal elders.

Las Vegas: Father Chains Daughter to Bed to Prevent Overeating

Dad admits chaining daughter to bed: Father told officers he restrained girl to keep her from overeating
(Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1/21)

Robert Blue was frank with police officers when they confronted him at his home last week to determine whether his 15-year-old daughter was being restrained against her will.

He "voluntarily stated that his daughter was chained to her bed to keep her out of the kitchen and from overeating," a police report states.

An officer then saw the 165-pound girl in her room and realized that Blue was telling the truth.

N.Y. Times: Internet Threats Overblown

Report Calls Online Threats to Children Overblown
(New York Times, 1/13)

The Internet may not be such a dangerous place for children after all. A task force created by 49 state attorneys general to look into the problem of sexual solicitation of children online has concluded that there really is not a significant problem.

GC: It is typical human paranoia to become hysterical about some dramatic but unlikely event (a plane crash, tainted juice, internet predators, etc.) while ignoring the threats closer to home that are much more likely to occur (a car accident, sexual abuse by a family member, etc.). Emotions drive public policy (and parenting) toward addressing the unlikely event, thereby usually increasing the threat from more likely sources.

N.Y. Times: Saving a Squirrel by Eating One

Saving a Squirrel by Eating One
(New York Times, 1/7)

While some have difficulty with the cuteness versus deliciousness ratio — that adorable little face, those itty-bitty claws — many feel that eating squirrel is a way to do something good for the environment while enjoying a unique gastronomical experience.

With literally millions of squirrels rampaging throughout England, Scotland and Wales at any given time, squirrels need to be controlled by culls. This means that hunters, gamekeepers, trappers and the Forestry Commission (the British equivalent of forest rangers) provide a regular supply of the meat to British butchers, restaurants, pâté and pasty makers and so forth.

L.A. Times: A Home for the Homeless

It's a nice humanitarian idea, but it won't work in the real world.

Upgrading from a cardboard box for the homeless (L.A. Times, 12/10)

MY COMMENTS: Here's the essential problem: If you give the homeless a comfortable place to stay, they are going to stay there... and stay and stay. If you give someone a tent to live in, you are implicitly giving him permission to set that tent up somewhere, probably on land owned by someone else. That someone is going to protest and squelch the program.

It is a little like feeding the pigeons in a city park. If you do, then more pigeons will come, and eventually whoever controls the park is going to have to put a stop to it.

Essentially, there is no institutional solution to homelessness. By definition, it exists at the limits of tolerance. If someone is sleeping under a bridge, it may be illegal, but the authorities probably won't intervene. If 100 people are sleeping under a bridge, then authorities have to intervene.

Like with many well meaning acts of charity, if you give people tents, you could be upsetting the local ecology -- the equilibrium that has already been worked out. That's the potential risk with any technological solutions to social problems. -- GC

New York Times: Drug Treatment May Not Work

The single most important thing I learned in Family Court is that drug treatment doesn't work, as suggested by this recent New York Times article...

The Evidence Gap - Drug Rehabilitation or Revolving Door? (12/22/08)

Everyone wants it to work, and many governmental systems depend on it working, but statistics show that treatment, per se, is ineffective in the long run. This includes both "talking cures" like Alcoholics Anonymous and chemical treatments, like Nicorette gum.

There are only two things that can change addiction: (1) Changing the environment in which it occurs, such as taking a child away from his drug-addicted family, (2) The person suffering so much pain from the real effects of his addiction that he decides on his own to change. Any other "treatment" is ineffective in the long term.

Treatment can appear to be effective in the short term. For example, an addict in drug court will clean up his act knowing that a judge is watching him and he will be thrown in jail if he tests dirty. But as soon as the supervision ends, his relapse rates are no different that if he had never gone through the program.

The implications of this are huge. It means that vast sums of goverment money are being wasted on ineffective programs. It also means that if you have a drug addicted friend or relative, there isn't a lot you can do to help them. No third party treatment program is going to fix the problem for you. There are things you can do, but they are often radical or unpleasant: change the environment, or let the addict fall on his face.

This was the general topic of my Family Court newsletter in March 2008: Words Don't Work.

New York Times: Triage at Work

New York Times, 12/3:

British Balance Gain Against the Cost of the Latest Drugs

If the Hardys lived in the United States or just about any European country other than Britain, Mr. Hardy would most likely get the drug, although he might have to pay part of the cost. A clinical trial showed that the pill, called Sutent, delays cancer progression for six months at an estimated treatment cost of $54,000.


But at that price, Mr. Hardy’s life is not worth prolonging, according to a British government agency, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. The institute, known as NICE, has decided that Britain, except in rare cases, can afford only £15,000, or about $22,750, to save six months of a citizen’s life.

Yes, there has to be a price on anything. The delusion in America is that the price of a few months of life is unlimited -- part of the reason our healthcare is in such dire straits.

Family Court: Presumptive Certification Struck Down

Nevada's "presumptive certification" law for juveniles has been struck down. See an AP article...

Juvenile Court Certification Law Erased (AP, 11/26/08)

The Nevada Supreme Court on Wednesday declared unconstitutional a law that made juveniles admit guilt to charged crimes to avoid trial as an adult -- and let prosecutors use the admissions if juveniles wound up in adult court anyway.

The Supreme Court's ruling, overturning an earlier high court decision that had upheld the law, was sought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, the national Juvenile Law Center, public defenders of Washoe and Clark counties and other groups and activists. ...

While the decision does away with the "presumptive certification" law, justices said prosecutors who want to try juveniles as adults can still petition "in appropriate cases" under a separate discretionary certification provision that remains on the books.

Also discussed in a Las Vegas Review-Journal article: Law set to prosecute youths cut (11/27/08)

This law was essentially giving all discretion to prosecutors to decide which youth should be tried as adults in a broad category of felonies. Now, there should be more of a balance in the process.

I described juvenile certification in one of my newsletters: CERTIFICATION NIGHTMARE!

New York Times: Age Verification

From the New York Times (Nov. 18)...

Online Age Verification for Children Brings Privacy Worries

Child-safety activists charge that some of the age-verification firms want to help Internet companies tailor ads for children. They say these firms are substituting one exaggerated threat — the menace of online sex predators — with a far more pervasive danger from online marketers like junk food and toy companies that will rush to advertise to children if they are told revealing details about the users.

“It’s particularly upsetting,” said Nancy Willard, an expert on Internet safety who has raised concerns about age verification on her Web site over the last month. “Age verification companies are selling parents on the premise that they can protect the safety of children online, and then they are using this information for market profiling and targeted advertising.”

An example of how hysteria over well-publicized but statistically insignificant threats can lead to far worse damage overall.