The Consensus on Cons in the Census

The 2010 Census is now in progress, with cities trying to tally up every single person at every single address possible in order to maximize the rewards in the end. After all, the states with the most population get the most representation in Washington D.C. and the cities with the most people get the most funding for public services.

So Mayor Rudy Clay of Gary, Indiana brings up an interesting point (by way of proposed legislation, of course) in that he wants the residents of Gary who are incarcerated outside of the city to count on the census for Gary instead of the location of their enprisonment.

Who should get to claim a prisoner on the census - the prison city or the prisoner's non-prison address city?

According to the news story that brought this to my attention, "Some civil rights advocates and municipal leaders argue that the current way inmates are counted gives prison towns an unfair advantage in census counts."

So let's look at it this way - who should be benefitting with the bonus public funds and votes in the Capitol?

The benefactor city would receive funding for:

•Hospitals
I'm pretty sure that prisons have their own hospitals on-suite. I would admit that there are likely situations that require a convict to go to a REAL hospital, but I think they are too few and far-between to say that every inmate should count towards funds for a hospital of which they are not likely going to be a patient.

•Job training centers
Again, prisons do this on-site. For jobs like license-plate-making (although it's not really training if the industry diesn't exist OUTSIDE prison) or maybe librarian? I'm guessing a lot of lawyer training for all those convicts reading law books and making appeals themselves?

•Schools
I don't really see the population of convicted felons having a single thing to do with schools. Maybe their children. Who are not in prison (hopefully), and therefore still residing for the census in their hometown.

•Senior centers
While I'm sure there are prisoners above the age of 65, I doubt they get free reign to visit the senior centers outside of the prison walls.

•Bridges, tunnels and other-public works projects
Let's avoid using prisoners for any kind of "tunnel budget", okay?

•Emergency services
I'm guessing these services include the police and fire departments, who likely are the ones catching the guys who wind up in prison. Having them already in prison doesn't seem like much of a reason to get extra police officers, except for the offchance of an escape. In which case you'd want some extra police officers. And firefighters, if the escapee is an arsonist. And medical personnel in ambulances if the escapee is a violent criminal.

Census information affects the numbers of seats your state occupies in the U.S. House of Representatives
Well, if the argument is "we have more voters, we need their weight to be adequately represented as such in Washington D.C., then it's almost a moot point. Convicted felons don't get to vote at all in like 12 states. True, some states are more lenient (and 2 let convicted felons vote, even while in prison), but again this seems like a strange line to cross.

Census data is also used to advocate for causes, rescue disaster victims, prevent diseases, research markets, locate pools of skilled workers and more
I'm not really sure how the "in jail" population fits into market research or the job market or disaster/disease networks. I'm inclined to lean more towards the prison for the health reasons and the hometown city for the market reasons.

All in all, it seems that for most of the funding benefits, the city of the prison would be getting the lion's share even though a small minority of the census population would be reaping those benefits. On the other hand, there's not much you can say about those services being used "more" by the prisoners in their hometown, either.

I think my solution is that since the census is done every 10 years, every felon with less than 10 years left on their sentence should be counted at home and more than 10 years left should be counted in prison.

That way, prisoners who are released and most likely to wind up back in their hometown before the next census would be counted towards the funds for their hometown during these next 10 years. Those who will be stuck in jail for the next 10 years, they can be counted for the prison's city that will be housing and providing services for them for certain for those 10 years.

That's my idea, anyway. What do you think? Should prisoners be counted towards Hometown or The Big House? Leave a comment and let me know!

And then Digg this article!

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Snowy Selfishness

This post comes from my "evil thoughts I have at random" file, thanks to a week or two of annoying snowy weather (which means in snows for two days and then panic and mayhem set in for another week at least before any of the snow can have a chance to melt away and let us calm the hell down.

Walking in the snow is a bitch.

I'm sure that driving in the snow is a bitch as well. Well, most of me figures that driving after it snows is NOT a bitch because you're inside with the heater on and warm dry feet - but the factor of putting up with the snow and how it affects your car BEFORE you're driving effortlessly through it later makes up in the bitch rating.

I understand - your car is covered in snow. The road is covered in snow. There's a whole lot of snow and ice around and it drives you mad having to deal with it the first time. You sit there and dust your entire car off. Then you have to de-ice things. Then I'm betting you have to dig a bit to allow space for your car to have access driving-wise to the road itself. And once you've pulled it out, you decide to shovel off the rest of the area so your car can theoretically pull back in without requiring post-worktime shoveling.

Here's where you lose me, car-drivers: putting your own property in the space you shoveled as though to claim it for yourself.

I've got news for you, Lewis and/or Clark: you're not a pioneer out claiming untamed wilderness for your own. You've done a nice thing by clearing out a parcel of land where a car could park, but you don't get to stick a flag in it and claim that country in the name of the Griswold family. You've dug up a fresh spot of public land, which is the opposite of private land, and it's open to the public.

While owning a home means ownership of that parcel of land, allowing old-timers the right to yell at kids to stay off their lawns, the street is up for grabs. Any city-dweller knows this, having undoubtedly spent ten minutes on various occasions to find one damned parking spot and it's three blocks away. Because the street parking is open to the public and you're not allower to tell people to move their goobermobiles just because that stretch of curb is the closest to your building and that space three blocks away is Goobermobile Parking Accessible.

Here's the insane part: putting private property on public property, expecting that it turns the public into private rather than turning the private into public!

You know where else you can find private property in public places? The alley behind buildings where furniture doesn't fit into garbage cans. And guess what? Open to the public! Hobos can root around for cans all they want, but that discarded kitchen set could go perfectly in a little crap shack like mine!

So why aren't there more people out there fighting the power?

You pull up to your block, and come caring individual has shoveled out a clearance spot that your car could fit perfectly into. I mean, if it weren't for those two lawn chairs in the middle of the space. What's stopping you from picking up that trash left in the street and tossing it elsewhere, making that parking spot PERFECTLY clear? And maybe those are some nice lawn chairs that would look great in your son's basement collection of crappy furniture on which he and his pot-smoking friends can waste their days lounging? Up for grabs, I say!

Oh, those were YOUR lawn chairs?

I'm afraid I'm going to have to cite precedence in the case of Finders v. Keepers.

Every post-snowday, I have this fantasy of riding in the back of a large pick-up truck and just grabbing all the furniture we can haul. It doesn't belong in the street, and it shouldn't be used as a flag to claim public land as your own private garage. That's why people built garages - to have a private property area to park their cars. I give it a ten-block radius and twenty minutes of driving and I could come home with thirty lawn chairs, fifteen orange cones, and a couple of bucks worth of scrap metal or fodder to start a post-modern art gallery and sell demolished parking-space holders for thousands of dollars.

And then I wake up from my daydream because the bus is here and I have to get to work.

Do you all have these same visions of chair-snatching grandeur? Or are you a car-parking menace trying to pass as an emissary who needs to claim this land in the name of your family? Read more!