The Millennium Breach

Last updated

The Millennium Breach: The American Dilemma, Richer and Poorer was sponsored by the Eisenhower Foundation to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the Kerner Report on March 1, 1998. The Kerner Report was released by the Kerner Commission, a committee established by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968 to investigate the causes of the 1967 race riots in the United States and to provide recommendations for the future. The infamous passage of the Kerner Report found, "Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white—-separate and unequal." [1]

Contents

Findings

The Millennium Breach was written by Fred R. Harris, Lynn A. Curtis, and other Eisenhower trustees. The Breach presents the Foundation’s position on practical policy and how to replicate the grassroots non-profit, inner-city programs that have been effective since the release of the original Kerner Report in 1968. It targets private and public policymakers and inner-city community practitioners.

The breach documents the following trends since the release of the Kerner Report in 1968:

  1. From 1977 to 1988, the incomes of the richest 1 percent in America increased by 120 percent and the incomes of the poorest fifth in America decreased by 10 percent
  2. In urban public schools in poor neighborhoods, more than two-thirds of children fail to reach even the "basic" level of national tests.
  3. During the 1980s, child poverty increased by over 20 percent, with racial minorities suffering disproportionately. In 1998, the child poverty rate in the United States was 4 times the average of Western European countries
  4. Over the 1980s and early 1990s, the U.S. tripled the number of prison cells and simultaneously reduced housing appropriations for the poor by over 80 percent.
  5. In the early 1990s, 1 of 4 young African-American men was in prison, on probation, or on parole. By the late 1990s, 1 of 3 young African-American men was in prison, on probation, or on parole. [2]

Recommendations

The report recommended the adoption of national policies based on what the Eisenhower Foundation believed to have been effective policies in education, employment, economic, development, race and criminal justice since the Kerner Commission. The following policies were recommended:

  1. Fully fund the Head Start Program for all eligible children in pre-school
  2. Replicate effective school and housing desegregation and renewing affirmative action
  3. Create a national nonprofit "Corporation for Youth Investment" that will provide boys-and-girls-club-type safe havens after school for kids 6 to 16
  4. Reform public schools by restructuring academic programs; providing focused intervention for children with mental health problems; creating safe environments during the day and supportive nonprofit safe havens after school; increasing involvement of and assistance to inner city parents; reducing class size
  5. Reorder the budget in the "War on Drugs" from 70 percent enforcement and 30 percent prevention and treatment to 50/50. [3]

The Millennium Breach at The Milton S. Eisenhower Foundation

Related Research Articles

Electronic tagging Form of surveillance

Electronic tagging is a form of surveillance that uses an electronic device affixed to a person.

The U.S. National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence was formed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in Executive Order 11412 on June 10, 1968, after the April 4 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and the June 5 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.

Kerner Commission National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders

The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, known as the Kerner Commission after its chair, Governor Otto Kerner Jr. of Illinois, was an 11-member Presidential Commission established in July 1967 by President Lyndon B. Johnson in Executive Order 11365 to investigate the causes of urban riots in the United States during the summer of 1967, and to provide recommendations to the government for the future.

Parole Provisional release of a prisoner who agrees to certain conditions

Parole is a form of early release of a prison inmate where the prisoner agrees to abide by certain behavioral conditions, including checking-in with their designated parole officers, or else they may be rearrested and returned to prison.

Probation in criminal law is a period of supervision over an offender, ordered by the court often in lieu of incarceration.

Incarceration in the United States Form of punishment in United States law

Incarceration in the United States is a primary form of punishment and rehabilitation for the commission of felony and other offenses. The United States has the largest prison population in the world, and the highest per-capita incarceration rate. One out of every 5 people imprisoned across the world is incarcerated in the United States. In 2018 in the US, there were 698 people incarcerated per 100,000; this includes the incarceration rate for adults or people tried as adults. In 2016, 2.2 million Americans were incarcerated, which means for every 100,000 there are 655 who are currently inmates. Prison, parole, and probation operations generate an $81 billion annual cost to U.S. taxpayers, while police and court costs, bail bond fees, and prison phone fees generate another $100 billion in costs that are paid by individuals.

The Rockefeller Drug Laws are the statutes dealing with the sale and possession of "narcotic" drugs in the New York State Penal Law. The laws are named after Nelson Rockefeller, who was the state's governor at the time the laws were adopted. Rockefeller had previously backed drug rehabilitation, job training and housing as strategies, having seen drugs as a social problem rather than a criminal one, but did an about-face during a period of mounting national anxiety about drug use and crime. Rockefeller, who pushed hard for the laws, was seen by some contemporary commentators as trying to build a "tough on crime" image in anticipation of a bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 1976. The bill was signed into law on May 8, 1973.

Probation and parole officer Officials who supervise the conduct of offenders on community supervision

A probation and parole officer is an official appointed to investigate, report on, and supervise the conduct of convicted offenders on probation or those released from incarceration to community supervision such as parole. Most probation and parole officers are employed by the government of the jurisdiction in which they operate, although some are employed by private companies that provide contracted services to the government.

A sex offender is a person who has committed a sex crime. What constitutes a sex crime differs by culture and legal jurisdiction. The majority of convicted sex offenders have convictions for crimes of a sexual nature; however, some sex offenders have simply violated a law contained in a sexual category. Some of the serious crimes which usually result in a mandatory sex-offender classification are sexual assault, statutory rape, bestiality, child sexual abuse, incest, rape, and sexual imposition.

Created in 1981, the Eisenhower Foundation is the private sector continuation of two Presidential Commissions – the 1967-1968 bipartisan National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders and the 1968-1969 bipartisan National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence.

United States incarceration rate Highest incarceration rate in the world

In September 2013, the incarceration rate of the United States of America was the highest in the world at 716 per 100,000 of the national population; by 2019 it had fallen to 419 in state and federal prisons per 100,000. Between 2019 and 2020, the United States saw a significant drop in the total number of incarcerations. State and federal prison and local jail incarcerations dropped by 14% from 2.1 million in 2019 to 1.8 million in mid-2020. While the United States represents about 4.2 percent of the world's population, it houses around 20 percent of the world's prisoners. Corrections cost around $74 billion in 2007 according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). According to the Justice Expenditures and Employment in the United States, 2017 report release by BJS, it's estimated that county and municipal governments spent roughly US$30 billion on corrections in 2017.

Parole Board for England and Wales

The Parole Board for England and Wales was established in 1968 under the Criminal Justice Act 1967. It became an independent executive non-departmental public body (NDPB) on 1 July 1996 under the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. The Parole Board is governed by the Parole Board Rules 2016 made by Parliament under the Criminal Justice Act 2003. Parole Board members are appointed by the Secretary of State for Justice, but are required to take judicial decisions independent of Government. The Parole Board's role is to make risk assessments about prisoners and to make a binding direction to Government about whether prisoners are released into the community on parole. The Parole Board must also give advice to Government when asked, most often about whether offenders are ready to be moved to open prisons from the closed prison estate.

Housing discrimination in the United States refers to the historical and current barriers, policies, and biases that prevent equitable access to housing. Housing discrimination became more pronounced after the abolition of slavery in 1865, typically as part of Jim Crow laws that enforced racial segregation. The federal government began to take action against these laws in 1917, when the Supreme Court struck down ordinances prohibiting blacks from occupying or owning buildings in majority-white neighborhoods in Buchanan v. Warley. However, the federal government as well as local governments continued to be directly responsible for housing discrimination through redlining and race-restricted covenants until the Civil Rights Act of 1968.

Hawaii's Opportunity Probation with Enforcement (HOPE) is an intensive supervision program that aims to reduce crime and drug use while saving taxpayers' dollars spent on jail and prison costs. HOPE deals with offenders who have been identified as likely to violate the conditions of their probation or community supervision.

Evident Change, formerly the National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD), is an American nonprofit social research organization. NCCD was organized by fourteen probation officers who met at Plymouth Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on June 17, 1907, to establish a volunteer professional organization in the emerging field of probation. The group adopted by-laws in 1909, and committees began doing year-round volunteer work. They named themselves the National Probation Association (NPA). Within their first decade, they were active in pursuit of progressive system reforms. The NPA’s focus was to study, establish, expand, and standardize juvenile probation, juvenile courts, and family courts. Charles Chute became the first paid executive of the NPA in 1921. In 1947 the NPA merged with the American Parole Association to form the National Probation and Parole Association (NPPA). In 1960, the organization’s name was changed to the National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD) to reflect its growth and larger public policy interests. During the Nixon Administration, NCCD challenged existing policies and critiqued the criminal justice system. Part of the Board of Directors wanted to focus on generic support of prevention efforts; NCCD subsequently parted company with several board members who created an independent crime prevention council, Citizens for Justice with Order. In 1993, the Children’s Research Center was created as part of NCCD to encompass reform of the child welfare system.

The New Zealand Parole Board is an independent statutory body established in 2002 that considers offenders for parole. Its task "is to undertake an assessment of the risk that long-term sentenced offenders might pose to the safety of the community if they were to be released before the end of their sentence". The Board also sets conditions of release for offenders so their reintegration back in to the community can be effectively managed. Once the conditions are set it becomes the responsibility of Community Corrections to manage the offender." 'Long term' is defined as more than 24 months. Short-term prisoners are automatically released after serving half their sentence.

Locked in the Poorhouse: Cities, Race, and Poverty in the United States is a 30-year update of the final report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, co-authored by former Kerner Commissioner, Senator and Milton S. Eisenhower Foundation Chairman Fred R. Harris and Eisenhower Foundation President Alan Curtis. The book was released in 1998 with a companion volume, The Millennium Breach.

Prisoner reentry is the process by which prisoners who have been released return to the community. Many types of programs have been implemented with the goal of reducing recidivism and have been found to be effective for this purpose. Consideration for the conditions of the communities formerly incarcerated individuals are re-entering, which are often disadvantaged, is a fundamental part of successful re-entry.

Alan Curtis (author)

Alan Curtis, also known as Lynn Alan Curtis, is an American social scientist, public policy advisor, author and speaker who is the founding president and CEO of the Milton S. Eisenhower Foundation. The foundation was founded In 1981 the private sector continuation of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders and the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence.

Electronic monitoring or electronic incarceration (e-carceration) is state use of digital technology to monitor, track and constrain an individual's movements outside of a prison, jail or detention center. Common examples of electronic monitoring of individuals under pre-trial or immigrant detention, house arrest, on probation or parole include: GPS wrist and ankle monitors, cellphones with biometric security systems, ignition interlock devices and automated probation check-in centers or kiosks.

References

  1. ↑ "'Our Nation Is Moving Toward Two Societies, One Black, One White—Separate and Unequal”: Excerpts from the Kerner Report." History Matters. http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6545/
  2. ↑ Harris, Fred A., and Lynn A. Curtis. "The Millennium Breach." The Milton S. Eisenhower Foundation.Web. 23 Nov. 2009. <http://www.eisenhowerfoundation.org/frames/main_frameMB.html>.
  3. ↑ Curtis, Lynn A. et al. “The Millennium Breach.” The Milton Eisenhower Foundation. 1998 <http://www.eisenhowerfoundation.org/docs/millennium.pdf>
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.