Past Due: Examining the Costs and Consequences of Charging for Justice in New Orleans

In 2015, government agencies in New Orleans collected $4.5 million in the form of bail, fines and fees from people involved in the criminal justice system and, by extension, from their families. Another$4.7 million was transferred from the pockets of residents to for-profit bail bond agents. These costs have become the subject of considerable public attention. Because many "users" of the system have very low incomes or none at all, there is growing concern that charging for justice amounts to criminalizing poverty, especially when people who can't pay become further entangled in the justice system. In 2015, the city spent $6.4 million to incarcerate people who couldn't pay bail or conviction fines and fees. By focusing on bail decisions and fines and fees assessed at conviction, Past Due, and its accompanying technical report, reveals the costs and other consequences of a system that tries to extract money from low-income people and then jails them when they can't pay

The Price of Jails: Measuring the Taxpayer Cost of Local Incarceration

Jails are far more expensive than previously understood, as significant jail expenditures -- such as employee salaries and benefits, health care and education programs for incarcerated people, and general administration -- are paid for by county or municipal general funds, and are not reflected in jail budgets. Drawing on surveys from 35 jail jurisdictions from 18 states, this report determined that even the jurisdictions themselves had difficulty pinning down the total cost of their local jail or jail system. It also highlights how the surest way to safely cut costs is to reduce the number of people who enter and stay in jails. In doing so, jurisdictions will be able to save resources and make the investments necessary to address the health and social service needs of their communities, which have for too long landed at the doorstep of their jails

Countering Aging Effects through Field Gate Sizing

Transistor aging through negative bias temperature instability (NBTI) has become a major lifetime constraint in VLSI circuits. We propose a technique that uses antifuses to widen PMOS transistors later in a circuit?s life cycle to combat aging. Using HSPICE and 70nm BPTM process numbers, we simulated the technique on four circuits (a ring oscillator, a fan-out four circuit, an ISCAS c432 and c2670). Over the lifetime of the circuit, our simulations predict a 8.89% and a 13% improvement in power in the c432 and c2670 circuits respectively when compared to similarly performing traditional circuits

The historiography of Ch'uan Tsu-Wang

The scope and breadth of this thesis are designed to give the reader a general understanding of the life and thought of the Ch'ing historian Ch'üan Tsu-wang (1705-1755). An analysis of his contribution in the field of literature and history constitutes a significant portion of this paper, not because the author wishes to place inordinate emphasis on this aspect of Ch'üan's life, but rather because he wished to allow Ch'iian to reveal himself naturally, through his own prose and poetry, onto the pages of this work. The numerous poems and essays of Ch'üan's friends add dimension to almost every aspect of our study. They praise, tease, and record unvarnished facts about a complex personality. To these friends, students, and admirers we offer our thanks, for without their assistance verification of dates, places, and events would be an insurmountable problem

Why has the health promoting prison concept failed to translate to the US?

Two decades since the World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe published a report on health promotion in prison that stimulated further debate on the concept of the “health-promoting prison,” this article discusses the extent to which the concept has translated to the United States. One predicted indicator of success for the health-promoting prison movement was the expansion of activity beyond European borders; yet 2 decades since the European model was put forward, there has been very limited activity in the United States. This “Critical Issues and Trends” article suggests reasons why this translation has failed to occur

miR-486-5p expression is regulated by DNA methylation in osteosarcoma

Background Osteosarcoma is the most common primary malignant tumour of bone occurring in children and young adolescents and is characterised by complex genetic and epigenetic changes. The miRNA miR-486-5p has been shown to be downregulated in osteosarcoma and in cancer in general. Results To investigate if the mir-486 locus is epigenetically regulated, we integrated DNA methylation and miR-486-5p expression data using cohorts of osteosarcoma cell lines and patient samples. A CpG island in the promoter of the ANK1 host gene of mir-486 was shown to be highly methylated in osteosarcoma cell lines as determined by methylation-specific PCR and direct bisulfite sequencing. High methylation levels were seen for osteosarcoma patient samples, xenografts and cell lines based on quantitative methylation-specific PCR. 5-Aza-2′-deoxycytidine treatment of osteosarcoma cell lines caused induction of miR-486-5p and ANK1, indicating common epigenetic regulation in osteosarcoma cell lines. When overexpressed, miR-486-5p affected cell morphology. Conclusions miR-486-5p represents a highly cancer relevant, epigenetically regulated miRNA in osteosarcoma, and this knowledge contributes to the understanding of osteosarcoma biology.publishedVersio

Common trends in the US state-level crime. What do panel data say?

This paper aims to investigate the long-run relationship between crime, inequality, unemployment and deterrence using state-level data for the US over the period 1978- 2013. The novelty of the paper is to use non-stationary panels with factor structures. The results show that: i) a simple crime model well fits the long run relationship; ii) income inequality and unemployment have a positive impact on crime, whereas deterrence displays a negative sign; iii) the effect of income inequality on crime is large in magnitude; iv) property crime is generally highly sensitive to deterrence measures based upon police activities