MBH index - School lock downs 2017 - 2018

• Number of children who experienced school lock downs in the U.S. 2017-2018 = 4 million
• Number of school lock downs in the U.S. 2017 - 2018 = 6,200
• Number of school lock downs, on average, per day in U.S. schools 2017 - 2018 = 16

Source - Washington Post as reported in The Week on 01/11/19

Editor's note:
There is growing evidence that school lock down drills are very traumatizing to children which raises the question of whether the benefit of such practices are worth the psychological and social costs.

These statistics also make one pause and consider what kind of a society we have become as a result of our love of freely available guns and what kind of a society we want for our future.

Is there a significant difference in fatal police killings from state to state?

There are huge differences in the number of people killed by police by state.

Click on image to enlarge.

From Peter Moskos' blog, "Cops In The Hood" on 01/01/19

"The national annual average (2015-2018) is 0.31 (rate per 100,000). And yet New Mexico is 0.98 and New York is 0.09. This is a large difference. 

Or take Utah (because of this story in the paper). Utah has a murder and violence rate below the national average, a low poverty rate, and is 90 percent white. And yet people in Utah are almost 5 times as likely an in New York to be killed by a cop. Utah has murder rate lower than NYC, 1/5 the poverty rate, far fewer cops, and Utah is 90% white. In 2018, the rate of people shot and killed by police in Utah is multiple times higher than NYC. 

I'd speculate significant variables are (in no particular order) training, fewer cops per capita, fewer cops per mile (no backup), one-person patrol, more guns, gun culture, more meth, more booze, and race (with more white states having more police-involved shootings). 

The ten leading states -- as in cops most shootingest states -- in rank order, are New Mexico, Alaska, Oklahoma, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Wyoming, West Virginia, Montana, and Idaho. It certainly seems like if we were to focus on the states that have the highest rates of police-involved shootings (and by far), we could find some low-hanging fruit to reduce the number of said shootings. But to do this we'd have stop thinking of police-involved shootings as primarily related to race. 

Collectively the top-10 states are 4.9 percent African American (compared to 13 percent nationally). These are the cowboy states out west. The 10 states with the highest percentage of black population (collectively 25%) have a rate of police-involved homicide (0.24) that is below the national average."

For more click here.

Editor's note:
I have added the bolding.
Another factor which Moskos does not mention is politics. The high shooting states are red states while the low rate states are blue. Political orientation while not a cause does seem to be correlated.

Indiana offers to pay student loans for Mental Health Professionals willing to work in 11 rural counties

From US News & World Report on 01/07/19:

"The Indiana Department of Health is hoping to entice mental health care professionals to work in rural and opioid-stricken counties in the state by offering to help pay their student loans.

"This program will help bring more qualified medical professionals to rural Indiana communities and expand access to quality treatment for individuals with substance use disorder,” Jim McClelland, the state's executive director for drug prevention, treatment and enforcement, said in a release on the initiative.

For more click here.

Editor's note:
I wonder if other states will offer similar programs?

Pediatricians should talk with parents about guns and their children.

From Science Daily on 01/28/19 -

Paradoxically, as overall firearm ownership decreased in U.S. households with young children from 1976 to 2016, the proportion of these families who owned handguns increased. This shift in firearm preferences over decades from mostly rifles to mostly handguns coincided with increasing firearm-mortality rates in young children, researchers report Jan. 28, 2019, in Pediatrics.

"Almost 5 million children live in homes where at least one firearm is stored loaded and unlocked," Kavita Parikh, M.D., a pediatric hospitalist at Children's National Health System, and co-authors write in an invited commentary. "This study is a loud and compelling call to action for all pediatricians to start open discussions around firearm ownership with all families and share data on the significant risks associated with unsafe storage. It is an even louder call to firearm manufacturers to step up and innovate, test and design smart handguns, inoperable by young children, to prevent unintentional injury," Dr. Parikh and colleagues continue.

The Children's commentators point to the "extremely dangerous" combination of "the small curious hands of a young child" and "the easily accessible and operable, loaded handgun" and suggest that pediatricians who counsel families about safely storing weapons tailor messaging to the weapon type and the family's reason for owning a firearm.

For more click here.

Editor's note:

• There are more than 393 million guns in circulation in the United States — approximately 120.5 guns for every 100 people.
• 1.7 million children live with unlocked, loaded guns - 1 out of 3 homes with kids have guns.
• In 2015, 2,824 children (age 0 to 19 years) died by gunshot and an additional 13,723 were injured.
• For more click here.

Dads Who Change Diapers in Public Get Help From New York Law

From Governing on 01/07/19

Change is coming to men's restrooms in New York -- and it's going to be a big help to fathers all over the state.

A new law requires all new or renovated buildings in New York that have bathrooms used by the public to make changing tables available to both men and women.

The rule, which passed in April 2018 but didn't go into effect until the new year, applies to restaurants, stores and movie theaters as well as state facilities such as parks and offices of the Department of Motor Vehicles.

For more click here.

Editor's note:

Another law which influences social change in enhancing the equality of the sexes. This law influences changes in norms and attitudes in a positive direction.

MBH index - People killed by police in U.S.

• Number of people killed by police in the United States in 2015 = 995
• Number of people killed by police in the United States in 2016 = 963
• Number of people killed by police in the United States in 2017 = 987
• Number of people killed by police in the United States in 2018 = 998

For more click here.

Books - The Square and The Tower by Niall Ferguson

Two organizing ideas about how society is organized can be described as hierarchies and networks. Both have existed throughout human history. 

Understanding social organization is important because the structures and dynamics of the ways of organizing social life at a marcosystemic level influence behavior at the microsystemic level.

Most of the macrosystemic organizing structures and dynamics are unconscious and as such, people don't understand why they think what they think, why they feel what they feel, and why they do what they do. The individual and the micro systems the individual is partipating in are influenced by higher level forces and dynamics. Knowing what they are is the source of social power.

Niall Ferguson does a good job tracing the operation of hierarchies and networks over the human history. Significant changes in human society were advanced with the printing press, transportation systems, and especially the internet in the last 25 years.

Ferguson points out that the democratization of society which the internet promises has been replaced by the manipulation of huge oligapolies like Facebook, Amazon, and Google. As we have seen in our last election in the U.S. in 2016, and with the Brexit vote in the United Kingdom, the manipulation of these communication mediums for the purpose of propogandizing populations is undermining the ability of citizens to rationally decide policy options for their governance.

The use of these communication systems to advance special interests which may run counter to the welfare of societies is a huge new threat in our modern age.

It is easy to manipulate people who don't know they are being manipulated. Raising the consciousnesses of the targets of these propoganda efforts is important to restore integrity to democratic processes.

Understanding the structure of the society within which one participants is a major contributor to healthy functioning.

The Square and The Tower is a book with important ideas. It earns a 5 out of 5 on the MBH book rating scale.