A Key To Preventing Recidivism May Be Spreading Ex-Prisoners Among Different Neighborhoods

The U.S. has spent an unprecedented amount on incarceration and rehabilitative programs over the past decade, yet the rate of prisoners returning to jail has largely gone unchanged. But curbing those figures may have little to do with additional funding, and more so with tweaking reentry logistics.

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, within three years of release, 68 percent of prisoners are rearrested for a new crime — a concept known as recidivism. But those rates could be reduced if former prisoners were spread out upon release, instead of getting clustered together among a few depressed neighborhoods, according to a new eye-opening study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Intrigued by the potential of spreading ex-prisoners prisoners across varied areas, researcher David Kirk analyzed prison data following Hurricane Katrina, which presented a unique research case.

Louisiana, for one, doesn’t limit where ex-convicts can live.

And, prior to Katrina, nearly half of prisoners convicted in New Orleans returned to Orleans Parish, Kirk noted. After the hurricane devastated so much of the city, this number dropped to 20 percent as ex-convicts were forced to disperse around the state.

Kirk analyzed one group released immediately following Katrina and another that included parolees released a year later.
He found that for each additional parolee released to a neighborhood per 1,000 residents, the recidivism rate increased by 11 percent.

“Put simply, the alarming rates of recidivism in the United States are partly a consequence of the fact that many individuals being released from prison ultimately reside in the same neighborhoods as other former felons,” Kirk concluded.

Upon leaving prison, convicts typically have limited options when it comes to reintegration.

Many states legally require parolees to return to the county where they were convicted or to their most recent residence. Even when they aren’t limited by zip code, housing opportunities are scarce, causing many ex-prisoners to congregate together.

In Illinois, for example, half of all prisoners released in 2001 returned to Chicago, according to the Urban Institute. One-third of those convicts resided in just six communities, which were among the most economically and socially disadvantaged in the city.

Encouraging communities of ex-convicts to cohabitate facilitates an environment conducive to committing crimes, according to Kirk.

“Although parole and public housing policies and practices were designed, in principle, to enhance public safety, they may in fact be undermining it,” Kirk noted.

However, location alone isn’t enough to significantly reduce recidivism rates. In fact, organizations that work to rehabilitate ex-prisoners, often bring convicts together to get involved in empowering programming.

Homeboy Industries, for example, works with young former gang members in Los Angeles and provides job training and placement, in addition to therapy, substance abuse treatment and legal assistance.

To date, the group has engaged with 120,000 former gang members, according to the organization’s website.

“No hopeful kid joins a gang… young people who can’t imagine a future for themselves, find themselves gravitating toward gang life,” Father Greg Boyle, founder and executive director of Homeboy Industries, said in a HuffPost interview in 2012. “We help them reimagine a different kind of future that plans for tomorrow, rather than planning for their funeral.”

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Smart Manufacturing: A Path to Profitable Growth

A bullet train is leaving the station, and it promises to transform and propel U.S. manufacturers who climb on board–in a wave of information technology known as smart manufacturing.

The big names are not just aboard, they’re driving the train: IBM announced in March it will spend $3 billion in the next four years to create an “Internet of Things” unit and develop software to help customers do the same, taking advantage of a paradigm of embedded, intra-machine connectivity, enabling machines (including everyday appliances) to communicate with one another and to adjust, without human assistance, to changing conditions.

But small- and medium-sized companies in the $3-trillion U.S. manufacturing sector largely are missing out on the benefits of smart technology, which uses embedded sensors and integrated software to collect plant operations and supply chain data, analyze that data and drive real-time improvements in production, procurement and processes. Some industry observers, including The Wall Street Journal, have called it the “New Industrial Revolution,” touched off by an advancing wave of technology with sensors and microprocessors plummeting in cost and size; cheap and easy cloud storage; and newly nimble forms of communication and software.

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Smart Manufacturing Benefits
For the companies that embrace it, smart manufacturing has the potential to trigger innovation and productivity, enable and spur growth, facilitate greater worker and product safety, and improve the environmental profile of operations.

By driving efficiency throughout the manufacturing process, smart technology helps eliminate waste: Better scheduling prevents idle machines and manpower; optimized runs shrink water and energy use; and fewer human errors divert from landfills wasted raw materials and spoiled finished product. Other ways smart technology improves the supply chain include enhancing communication to facilitate planning and helping manufacturers react to events in real time.

Yet, the majority of U.S. companies are not using smart manufacturing–some 87 percent, according to the 2014 Manufacturing Outlook Survey by the American Society for Quality (ASQ). Still, among those whose leaders reported they had at least partially implemented smart manufacturing:
• a majority (82 percent) reported increased efficiency
• 49 percent reported lower product defects
• 45 percent reported customer satisfaction gains

What’s more, those gains flow from only partial implementation. Less than a third of those who had made the switch reported applying the practice throughout their operations.

Given such impressive results, why haven’t more U.S. companies embraced smart technology? Unsurprisingly, cost is at the top of the list, according to the ASQ survey, followed by resistance from management.

Capital Costs
Companies must find ways to overcome those hurdles–or face the prospect of battling competitors who have–likely within the decade. Some 37 percent of manufacturers surveyed by ASQ report having no interest in smart manufacturing, undoubtedly deterred by the perception that engaging such a revolutionary paradigm will require prohibitively expensive infrastructure improvements. True, new capital investments will be required, but that doesn’t mean scrapping the existing physical plant.

Most existing manufacturing equipment has at least some viable capacity. Many small- and medium-sized factories are running older, one-size-fits-all enterprise software systems that are “expensive to use … and buy,” as William P. King, chief technology officer of DMDII, explained at a recent Forbes roundtable “The Digital Factory.” In the future, these companies can benefit from deploying less expensive, individualized, modular software, allowing engineers to assemble tailored, factory-fit solutions.

There will be new capital equipment costs, notes GE SVP and CIO Jamie Miller, but most manufacturing equipment can be retro-fitted with external sensors and computing equipment, connecting the formerly segregated factory floor with an outrigger of notebook computers and control towers.

Human Resources
Of course, smart manufacturing isn’t just about equipment. Leaders must also rethink the way they hire and organize workers, says GE’s Miller. Rather than being grouped and siloed by job title, the cross-referential and collaborative nature of smart manufacturing calls for multidisciplinary, outcomes-based teams organized around optimizing tasks and processes. Finding appropriately tech-savvy employees for these teams could be a challenge, as already some 2 million manufacturing positions may go unfilled in the next decade, predicts The Manufacturing Institute, the National Association of Manufacturers’ research arm, in part because of a skills gap for younger workers, as outlined in The Atlantic.

Phasing IT In
For most manufacturers, embracing smart manufacturing will happen in phases. We know many of our customers choose to implement capital improvements over time, generating performance gains that, in turn, help pay for future investments. Yet having a holistic overview and a structured plan for implementation is paramount and will prevent wasted effort and investment. For example, many of our customers are using Tetra Pak’s PlantMaster™, a customized automation solution designed to work together with our processing and packaging equipment, to gain omniscience and control of their plants. This type of technology also gives them the power to secure product quality, prevent food safety problems and quickly track and trace any rare incidents that do occur back to the source.

It’s a sound strategy and a path forward-thinking company leaders have within their power, if they can muster the will. Manufacturers who create comprehensive and realistic implementation strategies and begin to act now can stay decisively ahead of the competition, reaping the benefits of the smart manufacturing future and paving the way for sustained and profitable growth.

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The 10 Best Taco Spots in the U.S.

By Abbey Chase

With expertly homemade tortillas, succulent meats, and intensely flavorful salsas, the perfect taco packs a lot of flavor into every single bite. As the latest street food to receive a highbrow makeover, tacos lend themselves well to innovative chefs looking to put a personal spin on a classic. While a few of the restaurants featured here have menus with a unique twist, most stick to basics and serve up simply delicious, traditionally prepared street tacos. Here are ten of our favorite taco joints across the country, serving up the perfect food for warm weather.


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Aaron Hernandez Allegedly Already Served As The Lookout In A Prison Fight

Aaron Hernandez allegedly served as a lookout for a prison fight between two fellow inmates and has been disciplined, CNN reports, citing a law enforcement source.

Hernandez, the former New England Patriots tight end who was convicted of murder, reportedly agreed to watch for potential interference while one man entered another inmate’s cell Monday at Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley, Massachusetts. That sparked a fight believed to be gang-related, CNN wrote.

All three men were punished and Hernandez was placed in a “special management section,” the outlet noted.

“It was two-on-one, he was part of the two,” a prison official said of Hernandez to ABC News. The victim, beaten in his cell, “was some absolute nobody. He was just trying to show he’s down with the Bloods, a scared man looking at life in prison,” the source said.

ABC noted that Hernandez had a recent tattoo done that references the Bloods gang. The Huffington Post reached out to the Massachusetts Department of Correction for details, but did not immediately hear back.

Hernandez was sentenced in April to life without parole for killing semi-pro football player Odin Lloyd in June 2013.

In 2014, Hernandez reportedly beat up an inmate at the Bristol County House of Correction.

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Anti-Islam Film Returns To YouTube, And These Muslim Leaders Want You To Ignore It

An anti-Islam film trailer that a court ordered be removed from YouTube last year was reposted to the video-sharing site on Tuesday — and several prominent Muslim voices are encouraging the public to pay it no attention.

“We’re doing what the promoters hate most, which is to ignore it and urge other people to ignore it as well,” Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, told The Huffington Post on Wednesday.

A U.S. appeals court ruled that Google, which owns YouTube, had to remove a roughly 14-minute trailer for a film called “Innocence of Muslims.” The trailer, which depicts a bumbling and morally questionable prophet Muhammad, was taken down on the basis of a copyright claim raised by actress Cindy Lee Garcia. She said she was tricked into appearing in a five-second scene in the film and that her voice had been dubbed over so that her character asked Muhammad if he was a child molester.

An appeals court reversed the decision on Monday in what some have called a victory for free speech.

“Every non-Muslim is an infidel. Their lands, their women, their children are our spoils,” the Muhammad character says in the trailer, which incited protests around the world when it went online in 2012.

Imam Zia Sheikh, who heads the Islamic Center of Irving in Texas, told HuffPost he’s asking Muslims to ignore the film. “We are just being baited, and we shouldn’t fall for it,” he said.

“All these kinds of inflammatory materials are just designed to gain cheap publicity for the producers, and we’re not buying into their game,” Hooper said.

Riham Osman, communications coordinator for the Muslim Public Affairs Council, said in a statement to HuffPost: “Hate speech is constitutionally protected, but with free speech comes civic and social responsibility to overcome bigotry. Islamic teachings … uphold the importance of the freedom to express one’s own thoughts, even when they may be seen as disrespectful by others.”

“We cannot stop anti-Muslim bigotry and hate speech,” she added, “but we can take leadership by educating others.”

Hooper said he had not watched the film or its trailer, and encouraged others not to watch it either. “[Bigotry is] not going to go away,” he said. “The best thing to do is just promote a positive message of your own and marginalize the extremists.”

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Crapware Is a Horrible Problem and It's Our Fault

I love free apps. Who doesn’t love getting something for nothing? There’s just one problem: on the other side of that download link, every developer has to choose whether to charge money for their app, or offer it for free and find some other way to make money. And when we refuse to pay, we make that decision for them. We’ve created a demand for bundled crapware.

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4 Typefaces That Let You Write Like Einstein and Other Famous Thinkers

The art of handwritten script is lost on most of us keyboard-attached slobs. But over the past few years, a small group of designers have dug into the archives of famous thinkers and artists to bring their script into the digital world—meaning that you, too, can write like Einstein, even if you can’t think like him.

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X37-B: Everything we know about this secret Air Force space mission

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Seinfeld will start streaming on Hulu starting June 24

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AT&T tipped to be easing away from 2-year contracts

With some carriers nowadays, you can elect to pay for a device in small monthly increments rather than shackling yourself into a long contract. Though the ultimate cost tends to be higher in the long run, many have embraced the option, and now word has it that AT&T will be nudging its subscribers toward that option by default. Starting June … Continue reading