Overcrowding and staff shortages at prisons, many of them rural, raise safety concerns

Overcrowding in federal prisons threatens the safety of staff and inmates, according to a new Government Accountability Office report on the Bureau of Prisons. Many prisons are in rural areas, employing many local residents. The report says BOP officials report an increased use of double and triple bunking, waiting lists for education and drug treatment programs, and increased inmate-to-staff ratios. Those factors lead to increased inmate misconduct, and increased safety risks.

Inmate population is growing faster than the BOP's capacity, Joe Davidson of The Washington Post reports. Prison population grew by 9.5 percent from 2006 to 2011, but the BOP's capacity only grew by 7 percent. "Nearly all BOP facilities had fewer correctional staff on board than needed," GAO said in the report. BOP staff shortages were in excess of 3,200. The inmate-to-staff ratio has decreased. "Fewer officers is not a strategy for success," Davidson writes. "The consequences can be real and bloody." Understaffing leads to an increased in inmate-on-worker assaults, with almost 1,700 assault on staff happening in 2010, according to GAO. (Read more)

Rural voters oppose 'Obamacare', except when label is dropped and law is called by its real name

Party labels affect what rural voters think about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, according to the latest National Rural Assembly and Center for Rural Strategies poll of rural voters in nine swing states, reports Bill Bishop of the Daily Yonder, which the center publishes.

When asked if they approved or disapproved of the "Affordable Care Act, sometimes called Obamacare," 60 percent of rural voters said they opposed the law, and 34 percent said they favored it. Without reference to "Obamacare," voters were asked if they approved or disapproved of the law, which "would give states the opportunity to extend Medicaid coverage to cover more low income families with health insurance, with the federal government picking up 90 percent of the costs," and 45 percent said they approved, while 42 percent disapproved.

Bishop concludes that partisanship is the culprit for such results. "Partisanship overwhelms issues in today's politics," he writes. "Voters are willing to change their beliefs -- even their religious affiliation ... in order to stay with their political tribe." (Read more)

Farm Bill includes conservation provisions important to hunters and the economy

Many Americans probably don't realize that the Farm Bill contains provisions for wildlife conservation programs, and that this has caused more than just farmers to press Congress for a vote on the bill. Hunters, anglers and conservationists have also been petitioning for passage of the stalled legislation. In a Politico opinion piece this week, Dale Hall, former director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and current CEO of Ducks Unlimited, writes about why conservation programs are so important.

"The Farm Bill's Conservation Reserve Program and Wetlands Reserve Program not only have a positive impact on wildlife populations but also help conserve soil and keep our streams, rivers and lakes clean," Hall writes. The incentive-based programs allow conservation groups to work with farmers  to create benefits for all stakeholders: wildlife, farmers, ranchers, the environment and hunters and fishers, "which generates significant financial support for out nation's economy," Hall says. Hunters, fishers and wildlife watchers spent $145 billion on wildlife-related recreation last year, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service.

Three aspects of the Farm Bill are of particular concern to conservation groups, Hall writes: maintaining and strengthening effective wetland protections, a national "sodsaver" provision to protect native prairies, and preserving conservation programs. (Read more)

Laid-off Appalachian miner blames politicians, but not those you might think, for region's woes

Thousands of Central Appalachian coal miners have been laid off since January as coal companies decrease operations in the region and move to more lucrative mining areas, including the Powder River Basin in Wyoming. There are several reasons for this, the biggest of which is cheap natural gas. Mimi Pickering and Sylvia Ryerson of radio station WMMT in Whitesburg, Ky. recently interviewed Letcher County miner Gary Bentley, to collect his thoughts.


Bentley, 29, lost his job with Arch Coal Inc. in June, and after months of searching, was hired at a mine in Owewnsboro, Ky., five and a half hours from Whitesburg in the western part of the state. He worked for Arch for 10 years, and is a Letcher County native. The layoffs are unlike anything he's seen, he told Ryerson and Pickering, and he doesn't think it's fair.

"People come in here and they make billions of dollars, and they've been doing it for hundreds of years here, and now when they're leaving, they're just leaving us with nothing," Bentley said. He was lucky to find work in Kentucky, he said, because many other miners he worked with had to get jobs in Alabama, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and even Australia. It's also been slightly easier for him because he has a high school diploma. Some older miners he knows have no more than a sixth-grade education, and were hired before mining companies began requiring at least a high school education.

Bentley said local politicians want to blame Central Appalachian coal's decline on the federal government because of increased Environmental Protection Agency regulations, but what he saw at EPA hearings in Pikeville, Ky., showed him a different story. "I was real disappointed with our local, state and regional politicians because I felt like they all wanted to get up there and point fingers and say 'It's this person's fault, it's this person's fault. They're trying to destroy our industry; they're destroying Eastern Kentucky,'" Bentley said. "But at the same time, they're in the position. Why weren't they doing more to stand up for the region? Why weren't they doing more to try and bring in other industry?"

Bentley continued: "Anybody with any sort of intelligence that keeps up on the coal industry saw the declines coming. ... So, I feel that the political leaders really failed us by not having a back up plan for this area and for these communities. ... We need real answers and real solutions, not just a bunch of hot wind." To listen to Bentley's full interview, click here.

In southwest Oregon, as subsidy cuts hit policing, citizens form a general posse and do it themselves

An old police car has been parked on the
highway through O'Brien since the
sheriff's budget has been cut. (AP)

"There's no room in the county jail for burglars and thieves. And the sheriff's department in a vast, rural corner of southwest Oregon has been reduced by budget cuts to three deputies on patrol eight hours a day, five days a week," reports Jeff Barnard of The Associated Press. "People in this traditionally self-reliant section of timber country aren't about to raise taxes to put more officers on the road." Instead, folks are "mounting flashing lights on their trucks and strapping pistols to their hips to guard communities themselves. Others have put together a virtual neighborhood watch, using Facebook to share tips and information. 'I believe in standing up for myself rather than waiting for the government to do something for me,' said Sam Nichols, who organized a posse of about a dozen fed-up residents who have started patrolling the rural community of O'Brien, which has about 750 residents.'" They call themselves Citizens Against Crime -- CAC, for short.

O'Brien sits in Josephine County, a county which recently lost $12 million in federal timber subsidies. The jail, sheriff's patrols, prosecutors, probation officers and juvenile programs have all been drastically cut. The jail can house 69 inmates -- so few that recently small-time offenders have been let loose only to be repeatedly picked up for new crimes. In O'Brien, "We all know each other, and we're all related," said Carol Dickson, who helped to start the CAC about three months ago and posts regularly. "People know who's doing this," she said of recent spate of property crime in the area. "They are getting tired of it. They are speaking up, and they are saying, 'Enough.'"

The local police think the citizens involved are smart about this venture, that it's not vigilantism and that everyone understand the dangers. But policing expert Dennis Kenney, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice at New York University, says neighborhood watch efforts can turn into problems when volunteers "decide that instead of supplementing law enforcement, they are going to replace law enforcement." He told AP that "people drawn to this sort of thing are the kinds of personalities more likely to take it too far." However, Nichols says what his group is doing is "not vigilantism at all. If it was, we would have taken care of a couple of problems a long time ago. Because we knew who they were, and where they lived."

The group is earning its keep. Members have reported a wildfire and a break-in since their watch began. The police log in the Grants Pass Daily Courier shows five thefts or burglaries in O'Brien from January through July, but none since August. (Read more)

NRA using Obama's remark about possible renewal of assault weapon ban as rallying point in swing states

The National Rifle Association is using President Obama's Tuesday-night debate reference to a possible reintroduction of an assault weapons ban as a pro-Mitt Romney rallying cry to gun owners in swing states. Dan Freeman of the Houston Chronicle reports, "The NRA has fielded 25 paid organizers deployed to 13 states including battlegrounds that may determine the election's outcome such as Florida, Ohio, Colorado, Wisconsin, Virginia and Nevada. In addition, an army of 4,300 volunteers is making hundreds of thousands of phone calls, distributing thousands of fliers and visiting events and places where gun owners congregate, Andrew Arulanandam, NRA director of public affairs said."

Obama, asked about about limits on AK-47 assault rifles, replied, "What I'm trying to do is to get a broader conversation about how do we reduce the violence generally." Then he mentioned the possibility of reinstating the assault-weapon ban that was passed by a Democratic Congress in 1994 but expired in 2004 when the Republicans were in control. Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence responded to the NRA challenge: "The president has a lot more to gain by voicing the concerns of the public on this issue than he had to lose. This is a conversation the American public wants to have." (Read more)

Crop insurance payouts likely to hit $15 billion; drought news gets only slightly better

The long, dry, hot summer will cost U.S. taxpayers big -- a record $15 billion. That is the amount that the Farm Bill's privately run crop-insurance program will pay to farmers affected by this year's losses. The program's runaway costs are in focus as Congress looks for ways to cut government spending, making crop insurance an even bigger target for reforms than it already might have been. Lawmakers return to Washington next month. (Read more)

As for the drought itself, there was some relief, at last, from one coast to another as storm systems pushed through some very dry parts of the nation this week. Still, 62.4 percent of the nation is still experiencing "moderate" drought, down from 63.5 percent a week earlier, according to Thursday's Drought Monitor, a weekly compilation of data gathered by federal and academic scientists. Reuters is reporting that "the portion of the United States under 'exceptional' drought' -- the direst classification -- fell to 5.8 percent, from 6.2 percent a week earlier." The worst news is still reserved for the High Plains -- some parts of Kansas, Nebraska and the Dakotas -- where drought classified as "severe" or worse covered more than 87 percent of the region. (Read more)