VOTE KIDS on Tuesday!!!

As most of you know, Tuesday 11/2 is election day. Please do not pass up this opportunity to make your voice heard at the polls. It is absolutely crucial that those of us who care about the well-being of kids and families cast our votes for candidates who share those priorities. For more information about the contests in Wisconsin and the issues that are at stake, visit our election resources website at http://www.wccf.org/election_resources.php.

NEWS: Confidentiality in Juvenile Delinquency Proceedings on the Decline

Historically, state laws have protected the privacy of children and youth involved in the juvenile justice system. This protection was rooted in the belief that not publicly exposing the youth was a critical factor in the youth’s rehabilitation and distinguished the juvenile court from the harsh and punitive nature of proceedings in adult court. Things have changed. This month, the National Center for Juvenile Justice (NCJJ) released a publication on the movement of many jurisdictions toward opening juvenile delinquency proceedings to the general public, including the news media. Fifteen (15) jurisdictions permit or require juvenile proceedings to be open to the general public, but, for good cause, judges have the discretion to close the hearings. In three (3) jurisdictions, namely Oregon, Nebraska, and Arkansas, juvenile delinquency proceedings are open to the general public without any restriction. In twenty (20) jurisdictions, including Wisconsin, proceedings are open to the general public, but with certain statutory restrictions. In thirteen (13) jurisdictions, juvenile delinquency proceedings are generally closed, but judges have the discretion to open such hearings.

In Wisconsin, there are some situations in which juvenile proceedings may be open to the general public, including the news media. In any case in which a child under 17 is charged as an adult (including having been waived from juvenile court), those adult proceedings are public. There may be other circumstances in which this exposure and public identification is permissible, but fortunately these cases draw little interest from the general public/media. While it can be valuable for the public to understand how the juvenile system works, that public interest can often be well-served without public disclosure of specific offender information.

Chamber of Commerce Supports Early Education

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has released a report urging the business community to support early learning programs. The report, Ready Set Go: Why Business Should Support Early Childhood Education, looks at research on early learning opportunities for children from birth to age five, the impact on a child’s development, and the role of early learning in building a strong academic foundation. A quotable quote from the report:

"Early childhood education has a tremendous impact on the national economic security and the viability of the American dream."

You Can Help Get the Lead Out - National Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Week

This week, October 24^th – 31^st is National Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Week. Remember, reducing children’s exposure to lead is one of the most identifiable and most easily remedied risk factors associated with a host of learning and behavior problems later in life.  Parents, educators, community groups, and social workers can all play a role in minimizing the risk of lead exposure to children.  You can access appropriate tool kits, kid-friendly videos, and other educational materials through the Department of Health Services website.  Making a difference in the lives of children in Wisconsin depends on you!

What Candidates Aren't Saying About the State Budget

Campaign season is upon us, and that means calls by candidates to cut state spending significantly in order to close the gap in the state budget, currently estimated at $3 billion over the next two years. What these candidates don’t say is that trying to balance the budget through cuts alone will likely drive up property taxes and reduce services that are critical to well-functioning communities.

An issue brief released today by the Wisconsin Budget Project, based on new spending figures put out by the Wisconsin Department of Administration last week, examines two main characteristics of our state budget that make major spending cuts particularly painful.

Check out the newest Wisconsin Budget Project blog post for more information.

PolitiFact Rebukes Candidate’s Charge of Government Takeover of Health Care

One of the latest campaign statements to draw the scrutiny of fact-checking journalists at the Journal Sentinel is an attack by lieutenant governor candidate Rebecca Kleefisch, who appears in a campaign ad with running mate Scott Walker that assails Tom Barrett for supporting “a government takeover of our health care.”  PolitiFact gives that claim it’s “pants on fire” rating, stating that “repeating a falsehood -- however often and however loudly -- does not make it true.”

WI Supreme Court Takes Up Juvenile LWOP Case

The Wisconsin Supreme Court has recently agreed to hear the case of Omer Ninham, a young man (now age 26) who, at age 14, was convicted of homicide in a case in Green Bay.  He was sentenced to life without parole.  Building on the relatively recent ruling by the US Supreme Court that non-homicide youth must have at least some chance for their LWOP sentences to be reviewed, Ninham's attorneys argue that he also ought to have some chance at being considered for release rather than being sentenced to die in prison.  Wisconsin is one of 18 states that permit a LWOP sentence, and Omer Ninham is the only youth in Wisconsin prison today who was given that sentence at age 14.  The Equal Justice Initiative, located in Alabama, is leading his appeal effort. 

Defending Childhood: The Attorney General’s Initiative for a Response to Children Exposed to Domestic Violence

On September 30, 2010, the Milwaukee, Wisconsin Journal Sentinel published an article on the rate of domestic violence killings in the state of Wisconsin. According to reports from the Wisconsin Coalition Against Domestic Violence (WCADV), who began tracking this data in 2000, in the year 2009, domestic violence deaths in Wisconsin reached a 10-year high. In 2009, fifty-two (52) people were killed in forty-seven (47) domestic violence incidents and fifteen (15) domestic violence perpetrators committed suicide. Just as startling, if not more so, “[a]t least 52 children were left orphaned or without one parent. Of the 32 children who lost a parent, 24 lost their mothers.” National data indicate that as many as 60% of households where domestic violence has occurred have children living in the home (National Crime Victimization Survey) and an estimated 9 million children have witnessed a serious violent act (Yale Child Student Center, 2001). As summarized in a report by The National Council on Crime and Delinquency, we know that children who are exposed to violence are more likely engage in aggressive and violent behaviors, such as fighting, carrying weapons, and damaging property, and consequently have an increased risk of being involved in the juvenile justice system. In an effort to address this issue, on September 23, 2010, Attorney General Eric Holder, announced the new Department of Justice initiative, Defending Childhood. The dual phase initiative is focused on the prevention of children’s exposure to violence by supporting comprehensive, community-based programs that increase access to and utilization of quality services, improve screening tools and referral services for children and families, and develop new partnerships to minimize gaps and maximize effectiveness.


To support local efforts to address the impact of domestic violence on Wisconsin’s children and youth, please visit the WCADV site.

Political Fact Checking: Does Truth Testing Trump Deterring Deception?

An interesting development in politics and journalism has been the rapid increase in reporting on the accuracy of politicians’ statements during campaign season. Generally speaking, that’s a very welcome development, since it provides a means of keeping candidates a bit more honest and improving the level of political discourse.

However, for fact-checking to live up to its potential, journalists need to be asking the right questions about the candidates’ statements. Asking “is it true” may be less important at times than asking broader questions that get to the heart of a candidate’s use of the facts, such as whether the statement is deceptive and whether it’s relevant. Unfortunately, it appears that the fact checking sometimes allows the accuracy of a candidate’s factoid to trump any consideration of the accuracy of that candidate’s arguments or inferences.

WI Budget Project Examines the Growing Divide in Wealth and Income, and the Arguments Made for Widening that Gap

In the wake of new Census Bureau data released in late September, showing the widest gap ever measured between the rich and the poor, the Wisconsin Budget Project has posted a series of three blogs examining some of the policy issues related to the distribution of wealth in the U.S. and Wisconsin.

On Wednesday the Budget Project blogged about new data indicating that the rich don’t flee high tax states, they appear to be attracted to the amenities those states have to offer.  (Read more.)

A Thursday blog post critiques a proposal that Wisconsin should shift a larger share of taxes onto poorer state residents by relying more heavily on sales taxes, and it links to an op-ed column I wrote for the Oct. 3rd Milwaukee Journal Sentinel regarding conservatives’ arguments for more regressive taxes.

Friday’s Budget Project blog post examines the wealth gap, including the fact that the top fifth of Americans have 84 percent of the wealth.  It summarizes a soon-to-be-published study which found that most Americans “dramatically underestimated the current level of wealth inequality,” and they indicate a preference for “wealth distributions that were far more equitable than even their erroneously low estimates of the actual distribution.”
 
Jon Peacock, project director
Wisconsin Budget Project

October 4th is National Child Health Day

Today is "National Child Health Day."  Let’s celebrate the occasion by enjoying a little bit of good news on children’s health that was overshadowed last week by the generally depressing Census Bureau data on income and poverty. According to the data from the American Community Survey, the percentage of children who were uninsured decreased to 8.6 percent last year, from 9.3 percent in 2008.

WCCF Launches VOTE KIDS Campaign

WCCF is launching this campaign to help raise the profile of children's issues during election campaign season. Please help spread the word by sharing the web page with your network, placing the linked campaign logo on your website if appropriate, and using other tools to pass along this important information.

Congress fails to extend funding for subsidized jobs programs

Despite the efforts of Democrats to extend it, federal funding runs out today for the TANF Emergency Contingency Fund (ECF), which was a $5 billion appropriation in the Recovery Act that has been used in a variety of ways to help low-income families. One very important use of the ECF dollars has been to finance transitional jobs and summer youth employment programs, which have provided 235,000 jobs in 36 states for low-income parents and young adults. Wisconsin's new transitional jobs program will be adversely affected, but not as quickly as programs in other states that rely more heavily on the ECF dollars.

Read more in this Wisconsin Budget Project Blog post: Unhappy fiscal New Year begins for TANF-subsidized jobs programs.

Wisconsin awarded $1 million to develop health insurance exchange

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHSS) announced Thursday (Sept. 30) that it was awarding nearly $49 million to help 48 States and the District of Columbia plan for the establishment of health insurance Exchanges, including almost $1 million to Wisconsin.