Even the poor make too much to get a public defender, By Steven Elbow, January 25, 2010, Capital Times: “So you’re scraping by on minimum wage, and your hours were cut to 25 per week. You managed to put $300 in the bank, and you drive a beater you bought for $2,000. That puts you in the federal poverty bracket. But according to the state public defender, if you’re arrested, you won’t qualify for a public defender. If your boss cuts your hours to nine, you still wouldn’t qualify. State Public Defender Nicholas Chiarkas calls the standards used to assess whether the poor can qualify for assistance from his office ‘an embarrassment.’ They haven’t been updated or adjusted for inflation since 1987 and are the most stringent in the nation, he says. You have to be dirt poor to qualify. Further, the standards force cash-strapped counties to foot the bill for appointing lawyers for defendants who would undergo substantial hardship if they were forced to pay for their own legal representation. The state’s Legislative Fiscal Bureau found that statewide, Wisconsin counties shelled out about $6 million in 2008 – the most recent figures available – to hire attorneys for the poor…”
Tag: Crime
Recession and Crime Rates
Despite recession, crime keeps falling, By Devlin Barrett (AP), December 21, 2009, San Francisco Chronicle: “High unemployment. More folks on food stamps. Fewer owning their homes. Yet for all the signs of recession, something is missing: More crime. Experts are scratching their heads over why crime has ebbed so far during this recession, making it different from other economic downturns of the past half-century. Early guesses include jobless folks at home keeping closer watch for thieves, or the American population just getting older_ and older people commit fewer crimes. Preliminary FBI crime figures for the first half of 2009 show crime falling across the country, even at a time of high unemployment, foreclosures and layoffs. Most surprisingly, murder and manslaughter fell 10 percent for the first half of the year…”
Blighted Neighborhoods and Redevelopment – Los Angeles, CA
L.A. plans revival for center of crime, poverty, By Jacob Adelman, (AP), September 2, 2009, San Francisco Chronicle: “Juanita Sims has lived in the notorious Jordan Downs project in Watts for almost four decades, raising eight children behind the barred windows of the cramped barracks-like apartments. She moved in shortly after the Watts riots in the 1960s left almost three dozen people dead and made the South Los Angeles community a national symbol of urban decay. Now Sims fears she’ll have to leave, just as Watts emerges from years of neglect with a proposed urban village of shops, homes and businesses that would force the demolition of Jordan Downs…”