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By Vincent Giordano, program director, criminal justice at American Public University
In the past decade there has been a growing argument made within the criminal justice community that society should move toward decriminalizing so-called "victimless crimes." Wilson and Kelling (as cited in Cole & Gertz, 2012) argue that the move to decriminalize behavior that is often viewed as not harming anyone would actually be greatly detrimental to a community. The decriminalization of crimes like vagrancy, public drunkenness, and drug use could result in the destruction of neighborhoods because the total decriminalization of such behavior would in fact sanction such behavior. The end result of the decriminalization of disorderly behavior would appear to move counter to the principle of order maintenance.

The Role of Rehabilitation
Certainly, the move toward order maintenance, especially in terms of attempting to end disreputable behavior, can be linked to the rehabilitative ideal. Jeremy Bentham stated that through punishment the offender will find rehabilitation. So it can be assumed that through enforcing disruptive behavior via order maintenance, not only does the community benefit from getting the offender off the street, it also benefits from the offender getting treatment for their delinquent behavior.

Allen (as cited in Cole & Gertz, 2012) further holds that the rehabilitative ideal seeks to affect change in the behavior of the individual in the interest of both the individual and the community. Because of this, it could be assumed that order maintenance not only benefits the community by initially removing the offender from the community, but it also benefits the community and the individual in the long run through treating the offender in a manner so the offender will learn to not reoffend.

Rehabilitative vs. Incarceration Approaches
However, Allen asserts that the rehabilitative ideal really leads to more punishment than traditional methods of incarceration. Under the guise of rehabilitation, some offenders are placed in treatment environments where they are held against their will for a longer period of time than they might otherwise suffer if they were placed in prison. In some cases, the offender's stay in treatment can be extended because they failed to follow basic rules or because the staff feels that the client is better off staying in treatment for a longer duration.

As an example, Allen cites one case where an 80-year-old man had killed his wife while drunk, 30 years before. This individual was deemed insane and was remanded to treatment until he could be deemed to not kill again. Unfortunately, the hospital administrator would never discharge this elderly man despite the fact that he was elderly because he felt he could not be positive that the man might not ever murder again. Allen's concerns seem to point toward the fact that he would not agree with the enforcement of disreputable behavior under the guise of rehabilitation. This is because rehabilitation is often used a tool of extending punishment against individuals who commit minor offenses.
Do you agree? About the Author: Dr. Vinnie Giordano Ph.D. obtained a Bachelor's of Arts degree from Long Island University/ C.W. Post in Liberal Arts with a specialization in political science, his Masters of Science degree from Florida Metropolitan University in Criminal Justice, and another Masters of Science in Criminal Justice from the University of Cincinnati. Dr. Giordano also obtained his Ph.D. in Human Services with a specialization in Criminal Justice from Capella University. Before coming to APUS as a full time employee Dr. Giordano had worked in the field of substance abuse/ behavioral health for 13 years where he worked as a substance abuse counselor in a Department of Corrections funded youthful offender program, a counselor and supervisor for a 28-day residential and aftercare program, and as the Administrator of Juvenile Services at the Pinellas Juvenile Assessment Center. Currently, Dr. Giordano serves as the Program Director of the Criminal Justice Department which is under the School of Public Service and Health.
The Importance of Enforcing Minor Crimes
In my view, it is important that minor criminal behaviors such as vagrancy and public drunkenness are enforced. I agree with Wilson and Kelling's position that the decriminalization of minor disorderly behavior will only create an atmosphere that is supportive of crime and social breakdown. Working with individuals in disorganized communities, I have personally observed the impact that social disorganization has on a community. There appears to be a general malaise within communities that have an abundance of disorder-based crimes. In these communities, individuals live either in fear or care very little for their community, which results in the community being crime-ridden. It is only after the community and the police begin to work together and enforce both major and minor behavior that the community begins to turn itself around.

Think of it as the community getting back to the gym. Once the community begins to make changes toward the positive it will begin to feel better about it and look good. Because of this, the enforcement of disorderly conduct crimes is extremely beneficial to creating an atmosphere that people are invested in their neighborhoods.

Reference

Cole, G. & M. Gertz (2012). The criminal justice system: Politics and policies, 10th ed. Belmont, CA: West/Wadsworth.

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Is Decriminalizing Disorderly Behavior Good for Society?

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By Vincent Giordano , program director, criminal justice at American Public University In the past decade there has been a growing argument made within the criminal justice community that society should move toward decriminalizing so-called "victimless crimes."

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When we talk about the war on drugs, which is increasingly turning into a real war, we often overlook the fact that the "criminals" involved in the drug trade aren't actually violating anyone's rights. When a drug dealer is hauled before a judge, there is no victim standing behind the prosecutor claiming damages. Everyone participating in the drug trade does so voluntarily. However, there are a lot more crimes for which this is also true. Millions upon millions of Americans have been thrown into cages without a victim ever claiming damages. It is important to look at the burden this mass level of incarceration places upon our society.

In light of that, let us review some statistics which demonstrate just how destructive the mass incarceration of victimless criminals has become to our society. The 2009 federal prison population consisted of criminals who committed these crimes:

Drugs 50.7% Public-order 35.0%, Violent 7.9% Property 5.8% Other .7%

Drug offenses are self-explanatory as being victimless, but so too are public-order offenses, which also fall under the victimless crimes category. Public order offenses include such things as immigration, weapons charges, public drunkenness, selling lemonade without a license, in public, feeding the homeless without a permit etc....

The United States has the highest prison population rate in the world. Presently 756 per 100,000 of the national population is behind bars. This is in contrast to an average world per-capita prison population rate of 145 per 100,000 (158 per 100,000 if set against a world prison population of 10.65 million), based on 2008 United Nations population data. In other words, the U.S. incarcerates its citizens at a rate that is 5 times the world average.

In 2008, according to the Department of Justice, there were 7,308,200 persons in the U.S. corrections system, of whom 4,270,917 were on probation, 828,169 were on parole, 785,556 were in jails, and 1,518,559 were in state and federal prisons. This means that the U.S. alone is responsible for holding roughly 15% of all the prisoners in the world.

In other words, 1 in 42 Americans is under correctional supervision. This constitutes over 2% of the entire U.S. population. That percentage jumps up drastically if we limit the comparison to working aged adult males, of which there are around 100 million. Over 5% of the adult male population is under some form of correctional supervision, alternatively stated, 1 in 20 adult males are under correctional supervision in the U.S.

According to 2006 statistics, 1 in 36 adult Hispanic men are behind bars, as are 1 in 15 adult black men. If we limit the data to black males between the ages 20 to 34, 1 in 9 are behind bars. Keep in mind that 86% of those men in federal prisons are there for victimless crimes. They have not stolen any property, damaged any property or harmed anyone directly by their actions. Of course, if you are reading this and live in the U.S., you are paying for all those people to subsist on a daily basis. Roughly 34% of all prisoners in the U.S. are incarcerated for victimless crimes.

In California in 2009 it cost an average of $47,102 a year to incarcerate an inmate in state prison. In 2005 it cost an average of $23,876 per state prisoner nationally. In 2007, $228 billion was spent on police, corrections and the judiciary. That constitutes around 1.6% of total U.S. GDP.

Of course, being the good economists that we are, we must not just look at the cost to incarcerate and police, but also at the opportunity cost to society that putting all those able-bodied men behind bars creates. When a man is put behind bars he is obviously incapable of contributing anything to society. He becomes a complete burden to society while producing nothing in return for the expenses he creates. He becomes a black void of resource destruction. It's important to remember that money's value is directly related to the consumer goods that a society produces. If a society produces nothing of value, the money it uses will also be worth nothing of value. If a huge portion of able-bodied workers is locked behind bars, society is effectively penalized twice: once for the resources that are diverted into the prison industry and it is penalized again for the opportunity cost of the lost labor of those prisoners.

I find some dark humor in the fact that those who engage in victimless crime don't create any real victims until they are put behind bars, at which point they cause the state to steal $47,000 a year from the tax paying public. In our justice system today, victims are victimized twice; once by the perpetrator of the crime against them, and the other by the state which then forces the victim to pay for the punishment of their assailant. Clearly our society's notion of "justice" is logically ridiculous. It's apparently not OK for someone to steal from you, but its perfectly acceptable for the State to steal from you if the state is going to use that money to punish the person who stole from you. What kind of asinine system of justice is that?

What is justice? Isn't justice making a victim whole once again? Isn't justice punishing a criminal for the damages he imposed upon his victims? I propose that the only real justice that can be enacted in a free society is monetary punishment in the form of taking the perpetrators property and handing it to their victim, or ostracism by defamation of character.

I know some people will cry that under such a system violent criminals will be left free to roam the streets, but isn't that what our system is doing now? Consider that if a man commits a violent crime today, he is put behind bars for some arbitrary length of time with hundreds of other violent criminals, after which he is released back on to the streets. Do you think that criminal is going to be more dangerous to society after spending years locked in a cage with other violent criminals or less dangerous? Numerous studies show that prison either increases, or has no impact on, recidivism. Thus, it all comes down to punishment. Isn't being branded a criminal, along with monetary punishment to make a victim whole once again, enough? How difficult do you think your life would be if you were convicted of murder, everyone knew about it and half your assets and income were being handed to your victim's family? The rest of your life would be a living hell.

Putting people behind bars does nothing but squander resources. It deprives society of able-bodied workers and costs society massive amounts of resources which are stolen from the general public through the coercive theft of taxation. Consider how much richer American society would be today if it had an additional 5% of the male population working to produce goods and services in the private sector labor force.

Economist David Friedman has put together a fantastic presentation on how society could be organized in such a way as to eliminate all victimless crime while simultaneously eliminating the necessity of the State to steal from the victims of crimes to pay for their assailants punishment. After you're done watching Friedman's presentation, check out this fantastic comic put together by the Real Cost of Prisons project.

If you are interested in learning more about private law and private defense, listen to this series of essays by economist Robert Murphy and this lecture by economist Hans Hoppe.

The statistics cited in this article can be verified at Drug War Facts.org

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Why We Need Prison Reform: Victimless Crimes Are 86% of the Federal Prison Population

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When we talk about the war on drugs, which is increasingly turning into a real war , we often overlook the fact that the "criminals" involved in the drug trade aren't actually violating anyone's rights. When a drug dealer is hauled before a judge, there is no victim standing behind the prosecutor claiming damages.

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Marijuana

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Labor trafficking is a form of modern slavery that exists throughout the United States and globally.

Labor traffickers - including recruiters, contractors, employers, and others - use violence, threats, lies, debt bondage, or other forms of coercion to force people to work against their will in many different industries.

Labor traffickers often make false promises of a high-paying job or exciting education or travel opportunities to lure people into horrendous working conditions. Yet, victims find that the reality of their jobs proves to be far different than promised and must frequently work long hours for little to no pay. Their employers exert such physical or psychological control - including physical abuse, debt bondage, confiscation of passports or money - that the victim believes they have no other choice but to continue working for that employer.

U.S. citizens, foreign nationals, women, men, children, and LGBTQ individuals can be victims of labor trafficking. Vulnerable populations are frequently targeted by traffickers. Immigration status, recruitment debt, isolation, poverty, and a lack of strong labor protections are just some of the vulnerabilities that can lead to labor trafficking.

Labor trafficking occurs in numerous industries in the U.S. and globally. In the United States, common types of labor trafficking include people forced to work in homes as domestic servants, farmworkers coerced through violence as they harvest crops, or factory workers held in inhumane conditions. Labor trafficking has also been reported in door-to-door sales crews, restaurants, construction work, carnivals, and even health and beauty services.

Key Statistics

Globally, the International Labor Organization estimates that there are 14.2 million people trapped in forced labor in industries including agriculture, construction, domestic work and manufacturing.

The U.S. Department of Labor has identified 136 goods from 74 countries made by forced and child labor.

Since 2007, the National Human Trafficking Hotline, operated by Polaris, received reports of more than 5,400 labor trafficking cases inside the United States. Find more Hotline statistics here.

In a 2014 study from the Urban Institute of 122 closed cases of labor trafficking, Hidden in Plain Sight, seventy-one percent of the labor trafficking victims in the study entered the United States on lawful visas. These victims paid an average of $6,150 in recruitment fees for jobs in the United States.

In a study from San Diego State University, 31% of undocumented, spanish-speaking migrant workers interviewed in San Diego County had experienced labor trafficking.

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Labor trafficking is a form of modern slavery that exists throughout the United States and globally.Labor traffickers - including recruiters, contractors, employers, and others - use violence, threats, lies, debt bondage, or other forms of coercion to force people to work against their will in many different industries.

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New push to ban Congress members from asking for money

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Thomas Mann examines the recent elections in Wisconsin, in which only two Republicans were recalled, leaving the State Senate under Republican control, and argues that political polarization is unlikely to abate nationwide before the 2012 elections.

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According to a Politico report, the Republican megadonor is giving $30 million to the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC dedicated to electing GOP House members.

Adelson's largesse is both a boost to the endangered Republican majority and further evidence of their perilous position heading into November. Generic ballot polls show Democrats with a modest but mostly consistent lead and other measures, like voter enthusiasm, portend badly for the GOP, which has either lost or underperformed in winning a string of recent special elections.

But the bold-face news in Politico's story, which had even jaundiced eyes bulging on Thursday morning, is tucked a few paragraphs below the headline in its frank description of the process that consummated House Speaker Paul Ryan's courtship of Adelson and, to the point, the billionaire's checkbook.

It went something like this: Ryan and a top aide sat down in Las Vegas alongside former Minnesota GOP Sen. Norm Coleman, chairman of the conservative nonprofit American Action Network, and AAN and CLF Executive Director Corry Bliss to pitch Adelson and his wife on the upside of keeping the House in Republican hands.

Then Ryan left the room.

The speaker excused himself, as Politico noted, because he is a federally elected official and cannot by law ask -- directly, at least -- any individual or entity for that kind of money. Super PACs can take in and spend as much as they want, but they are limited in their ability to coordinate with and donate to candidates and other officials. Hence, Ryan cleared out for Coleman to make the formal request.

There is, to be clear, no accusation or implication in the story -- or here -- of any impropriety. If the blow-by-blow is correct, Ryan, his associates and allies, did everything by the book. (Ryan's office didn't comment on the story; the CLF and a representative for Adelson haven't yet responded to requests.)

But it is precisely that -- to advocates of campaign finance reform, in particular -- that makes the account so galling. A political party that, less than six months ago, passed a massive tax cut primarily benefiting the super wealthy is now taking in, however indirectly, tens of millions of dollars in funding for its candidates less than six months out from an election.

This, as the familiar refrain goes, is why people hate politics. And, more to the point, why they're on solid ground in distrusting major political institutions.

Democrats will, of course, rail against this latest development and use the news to further rile up their base. This despite the fact that, yes, many of them have also used super PACs in similar ways.

Adelson, meanwhile, has been a top GOP donor for years. Republican during election seasons openly vie for his backing. He spent tens of millions to bolster and sustain former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's ill-fated 2012 Republican presidential primary bid. The question was never whom he'd back, but to what extent.

Now we know. What's more, we have a detailed view of how this particular sausage got made.

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thirty million reasons campaign finance laws are a joke - cnnpolitics

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Thirty million reasons campaign finance laws are a joke

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According to a Politico report, the Republican megadonor is giving $30 million to the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC dedicated to electing GOP House members. Adelson's largesse is both a boost to the endangered Republican majority and further evidence of their perilous position heading into November.

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"The way we see it is, we don't really have any other choice," said Kentucky special education teacher Jennifer Bolander, who took part in a "sick-out" Friday and now is protesting on spring break.

"schoolchildren were left to pay for those big tax cuts. That chicken has now come home to roost."

While Oklahoma's National Education Association affiliate is backing an indefinite walkout, the president of Oklahoma City's American Federation of Teachers local last week announced that his union accepts the $6,000 deal as a " down payment," and warned that if the strikers stay out of work for too long, their numbers, support from school boards, and leverage could start to dissipate.

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Teacher Strikes Are Spreading Across America With No End in Sight

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"The way we see it is, we don't really have any other choice," said Kentucky special education teacher Jennifer Bolander, who took part in a "sick-out" Friday and now is protesting on spring break. "schoolchildren were left to pay for those big tax cuts. That chicken has now come home to roost."

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A Punishing Decade for School Funding | Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

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Public investment in K-12 schools — crucial for communities to thrive and the U.S. economy to offer broad opportunity — has declined dramatically in a number of states over the last decade.

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WASHINGTON - The Senate on Thursday passed legislation to overhaul the way Congress deals with sexual harassment in its ranks, a response to the #MeToo movement that swept the nation and forced several lawmakers to resign under a cloud of misconduct allegations.

The bill is designed to hold lawmakers - including those who have left office - personally liable if they're found to have sexually harassed a staffer or another congressional employee. That change comes after revelations last year that taxpayer money was paid out to settle for more than $342,000 in harassment and discrimination complaints involving members of the House between 2008 and 2012 - a disclosure that sparked public outrage.

The bipartisan bill passed by voice vote.

"I think it puts the responsibility where the American people think it should be," said Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., who announced an agreement on the legislation Tuesday with Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.

The legislation also does away with archaic congressional rules that force victims of sexual harassment to undergo counseling, mandatory arbitration, and wait for a 30-day "cooling off" period before taking a complaint to court.

The legislation updates the 1995 Congressional Accountability Act. That law applied workplace rules to Congress for the first time.

"This is a good day for changing the rules so that the deck is not stacked against victims who should be in a safe work place," Klobuchar said on Thursday.

The House passed its own bipartisan legislation to revamp sexual harassment policies by a voice vote in February - a bill that soon stalled in the Senate. Some Democrats suggested that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., had taken issue with the House bill's provision that would make members financially liable in discrimination cases - something McConnell's spokesman sharply denied.

The Senate bill will now have to be reconciled with the House version, unless House Republican leaders agree to accept the Senate proposal without changes.
Contributing: Eliza Collins and Deborah Berry
Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2x5n7D4

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Senate passes bill to revamp sexual harassment policies in wake of #MeToo movement

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WASHINGTON - The Senate on Thursday passed legislation to overhaul the way Congress deals with sexual harassment in its ranks, a response to the #MeToo movement that swept the nation and forced several lawmakers to resign under a cloud of misconduct allegations.

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New Catcalling Video Shows Men What It's Like for Women

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My inbox has been inundated with reports that our kids are literally dying because of excessive cell phone use. From an editorial in the to my local radio station, the news is alarming. In many cases, I'm told, our children are on their phones eight or more hours a day, with experts saying it should be limited to just two.

Jean Twenge's new book has been front and center, insisting that we do something and do it quickly. Kids are using their cell phones way too much and putting their mental health at terrible risk. National surveys are showing that kids today are more anxious than ever before, with spiking rates of depression and suicide. Twenge suspects that this uptick in problems (which every mental health professional knows is happening) occurred at just about the same time as cell phones became a common accessory for most teens. Correlation doesn't imply causation, but in this case, one has to wonder if the very real increase in emergency room visits for mood disorders and self-reported anxiety among teens isn't a byproduct of more accessible technology that both connects and isolates at the same time.

There is definitely something addictive about the ping of a text and the scrolling counter telling us how much others "like" us. It's made us all (children and adults) into gamblers, sitting in our bedrooms just like slots players sit in windowless casinos, forgetting the time of day, addicted to the next spin and the possibilities it brings.

There's more bad news too. Seems that with all that online addiction is also coming more bullying, which is only fueling kids' anxiety. A recent article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal by a group of researchers based mostly in Quebec, Canada, found that among a large sample of teens, 59% reported moderate exposure to bullying, and 14% reported chronically high exposure to bullying, both in person and online. That's not a trend or a disease. At those rates, children's experiences of bullying are almost as common as high school graduation.

If all of this has made you depressed as a parent, it's time to think about what you (and others) can do to put the brakes on this spiraling chaos. Here's a few solutions that have made recent headlines.

First, start with the corporations. They have to provide us with the tools as families so that if we want to, we can limit our children's (and our own) access to our cell phones. I've been reading a lot about the California State Teachers' Retirement System that are huge investors in Apple and their petition to force the company to do something to protect kids from the potential harms of overuse [see the letter they wrote here].

I applaud this initiative but only up to a point. I'm sure smartphone producers could find a way to build into their operating systems a simple password that anyone (even teens themselves) could type in that would lock the phone after a set number of hours each day, except for incoming and outgoing texts/calls with caregivers. It could help prevent cell phones from peddling "likes", the online equivalent of crack.

The problem with such a solution is that it won't work. Young people will simply migrate to new platforms and new devices to communicate. Hackers will find ways to unlock locks. Bullies will keep on bullying. Corporate social responsibility can only ever be one tool among many.

Second, let's talk about our communities. If you look for good news about kids these days, we can find it, but we likely have to look beyond North American suburbs. There is, for example, the success Iceland has experienced tackling worrying trends among teens with regard to delinquency, drugs and alcohol abuse.

An American professor of psychology, Harvey Milkman who teaches part of each year at Reykjavik University, showed during his dissertation two decades ago that drugs and alcohol give children's brains different types of stimuli depending on the child's biology. Children who want a rush, Milkman argued, are going to find that through substance abuse or shoplifting or violence. Children who are anxious are going to use substances (like alcohol) to calm themselves down and lose the inhibitions that are a consequence of their anxiety.

The brilliance of what Iceland implemented was a nationwide effort to substitute natural highs and other ways of changing brain chemistry through real experiences that could compete with the synthetic highs found in drugs (and maybe even cellphones).

It worked in Iceland. From 1998 to 2016 the rate of teens who reported being drunk in the past month dropped from 42 percent to 5 percent. Cannabis use dropped from 17 percent to 7 percent, and cigarette use declined from 23 percent to 3 percent. Much of this change is attributed to providing young people with lots and lots (and lots) of opportunities to stay engaged with each other, to participate in arts and sports activities, and to have safe spaces after school to hang out.

The entire system is incentivized with subsidies and tax breaks for parents. While there is no word on whether these programs are being threatened by cell phone use (do heavy cell phone users avoid the programs?) it would appear that at least part of the solution to our children's cell phone addiction is to offer them equally stimulating and socially engaging opportunities to do things that produce the same brain rewards as eight hours staring at a small blue screen.

Third, how about we rethink smartphones at school? I was just in the UK and many of their educational institutions don't allow phones in the classroom. I used to think that phones could be a great teaching aid, empowering students to access information and mental health supports, and to connect with global issues, but I'm rethinking my position on that as cell phone use gets completely out of control. Too much of a good thing, like chocolate, has its downsides.

Maybe it's time schools created cell-free zones, just as many corporations have done the same so workers are less distracted by constant interruptions. Of course, the inevitable parent will complain about inability to reach their child at a moment's notice. Maybe it's time schools spoke back to these overprotective parents, pointing out that they are harming their children and threatening their psychosocial development. On this issue, we know the harm is real.

Fourth, and finally, as parents we have to exercise our ability to influence our kids. As a parent to five children, I know it's tough to do, but it is possible. Let's be clear, in most households it's the adults buying their children the devices and giving them all the access the kids want. We let them take their devices to bed. We pay for the data packages. We buy the games or top up their accounts. We basically buy them bags of crack and then say, "Please, self-regulate." Before we beat up on Apple for designing these wicked devices, maybe we as parents have to put the brakes on financing our kids' addictions in the first place.

Over the years, as I've studied resilience, I've been reminded by children over and over again that they actually appreciate structure and reasonable consequences. They like routines and expectations that they can meet. They want genuine attachments and large networks of social relations. And like those kids in Iceland, they want opportunities to show others their talents, to be pushed out of their comfort zones and try new things, to be active physically and intellectually. These are all things we, as parents, have stopped providing our kids.

I'll admit, I'm not immune to the problems. It worries me when I see my 14-year-old stepson, head crooked forward, sitting on the couch tuned into his smartphone. But then he is an elite level hockey player and has a large and active network of friends as well. So I stuff my feelings and don't say too much. But it nags at me nonetheless. All those hours doing nothing when there are great books to read and skills to learn. He never builds anything. He never reads a novel. He never talks about the world he is experiencing. Except when we travel, and the phone is turned off. His childhood makes me sad, but then, he is only on his phone a paltry 2-3 hours a day. I can only imagine the disappointment a parent feels watching her child waste even more time waiting for the next Instagram message to appear or desperate for the next "like" on Facebook.
Strategies for Parents
How about we as parents try some new strategies:

1. Model appropriate cell phone use. Start with what we can do. Leave our cell phones at the door. Turn them off at mealtime. Don't harass our kids with endless texts checking up on them. If we model restraint, maybe our kids will see it's possible.

2. Limit access. Stop paying for the darn phones. If your child is addicted, cut them off. A simple rule I hold to is that in general, when a child can afford a device they are likely responsible enough to have it. Let your child buy their own phone, their own data package, their own gaming systems. Hold back from giving them everything they think they need to be like every other kid and let them feel that lovely self-esteem boost of knowing "I'm a little different" which could also translate into "I'm unique". The way I see it, if they're motivated to find work, and get themselves online, then they're less likely to have the time to become addicted to their phone.

3. Set routines and structure. No cell phone use at bedtime. Turn the phone off and put it away. Any addiction that triggers a change in brain functioning is going to be difficult to control as long as it's there at hand ready to light up our neural pathways. As parents our job isn't meant to be easy. It's meant to prepare children for life and that means telling them "No" when really, deep down, that's what they want to hear anyway.

4. Offer substitutes. Create opportunities for kids to keep busy. Give them chores and real responsibilities that matter to the family. Planning a winter vacation and they're coming along? Any 14-year-old with good net surfing skills can find a hotel on a beach, or scope out activities to do off site at the all-inclusive. Let's stop making our children's lives so easy and in the process offer them real diversions. Insist they are active an hour a day. Put them into activities and take away their cell phone. Oh there will be histrionics, but the end result will likely be a happier, more engaged child with the life skills and habits that will make them healthier more successful adults.

It's worth a try, isn't it?

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Teens and Dangerous Levels of Cell Phone Use

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My inbox has been inundated with reports that our kids are literally dying because of excessive cell phone use. From an editorial in the to my local radio station, the news is alarming. In many cases, I'm told, our children are on their phones eight or more hours a day, with experts saying it should be limited to just two.

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Two-thirds, that's right, two-thirds of students graduating from American colleges and universities are graduating with some level of debt. How much? According to The Institute for College Access and Success (TICAS) Project on Student Debt, the average borrower will graduate $26,600 in the red. While we've all heard the screaming headlines of graduates with crippling debt of $100,000 or more, this is the case for only about 1% of graduates. That said, one in 10 graduates accumulate more than $40,000.

It's a negative sum game for both student-borrowers and the economy. According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, student loan debt has reached a new milestone, crossing the $1.2 trillion mark -- $1 trillion of that in federal student loan debt.

This pushes student loan debts to dizzying new heights, as they now account for the second highest form of consumer debt behind mortgages. With the federal debt at $16.7 trillion, student loan debts measure at 6% of the overall national debt. This is no small figure, and national debt carries many consequences including slowing economic growth (translating into fewer jobs being created) and rising interest rates. Capital will not be as easy to access.

The majority of student loans are backed by the U.S. government through banks like Sallie Mae, or since 2010, by the Department of Education. Translation: the creditor in this scenario is the U.S. tax payer, who if students default on these loans will be subject to carry the burden of these loans.
Federal Loans are Safer than Private
Lauren Asher, president of TICAS, a nonpartisan policy group, says that government loans are the safest type of loans to take while financing education. "Federal student loans are the best way to borrow if you have to in order to get through." She identifies a lack of information as a major problem in the debt game as she identifies growing private loan debt as a major problem. "Half of those taking out private loans have not maxed out on federal loans."

Why the preference for federal loans with federal debt being such a hot topic? "Federal loans are subject to income based payback, fixed interest rates, and take nine months to default on, making them a much safer loan for students to take," Asher explains. Conversely, private loans have done away with late fees, and in the fine print have redefined the right to claim default on the loan after missing a single payment. Default is a one way ticket to bad credit. "Any ding in credit rating can affect [a borrower] more now than ever, even employment," says Asher.

Asher argues, however, that higher education "is still the best investment in your future." The college degree is getting more and more weight as political leaders are calling for upwards of 60% national higher education attainment by 2025. And the demand for higher education is increasing. "When the economy is down, more people turn to higher education to get an edge in the job market, but have less money to finance it," explains Asher.
Debt and Community Colleges
If you are under the impression that only four-year schools are subject to debt, think again. Of those students completing an associate's degree from a community college in 2008, 38% graduated with debt. In the for-profit sector of two-year degrees, over 90% have debt. The average debt load at a public two-year institution is $7,000.

One community college, Henry Ford Community College in Dearborn, Mich., is offering a one-time student debt amnesty program that will allow students who owed a balance prior to or including the winter 2012 semester to afford to return to the college. The program "offers the opportunity for students to pay 50% of what is owed on their account to settle their debt with the College." Will this become a norm within the two-year degree space as more and more debt is accumulated?
The Cost of Debt
Of this $1.2 trillion in student debt, about $1 trillion is in federal student loans. This figure does not tell the full story, however, as the $1.2 trillion does not include funds students must divert away from retirement savings, parent borrowing, or credit card debt. President Obama is expected to sign the bipartisan Senate bill to tie federal student loan interest rates to the market this week. On one side, this will reverse the interest rate hike that went into effect on July 1, lowering the current rates for undergraduate students from 6.8 to 3.8%. As the market climbs, however, these rates will climb until they reach a cap of 8.25%. By TICAS calculation, this may cost families $715 million more over the next 10 years.

What does 3.8% interest translate to for students? If we go back to that average figure of $26,600, compounding for interest year over year using the 10-year-payback plan that is the standard, the total cost of your $26,600 loan is about $38,600. Break that down by monthly payments and you are looking at about $320 per month going toward student loan payments. "Debt costs you time in savings, pushes back when and whether you can buy a home, start a family, open a small business or access capital," says Asher. Not to mention the opportunity cost of the education itself at almost $40,000.
Dealing with the Problem
What can we do? With more and more emphasis being placed on college education for all, raising costs of an already expensive degree, and underemployment of college graduates running rampant, student loan debt is a problem that will cripple economic possibilities and success to come. In its recent report, Aligning the Means and the Ends: How to Improve Federal Student Aid and Increase College Access and Succes, TICAS is calling for simplification and better access to information regarding student loan debt, including information on consolidating debt, and increasing students' information to both school's default and graduation rates.

While many have been calling for debt forgiveness to help settle this score, others have a problem with burdening the taxpayer with the responsibility to pay back loans that they are neither responsible for, nor benefit directly from. While a more educated populous has positive externalities, debt forgiveness sets a bad precedent for the financial world. Ohio University developmental economist Julia Paxton says:

One of the problems of debt forgiveness is that it sets a precedent that similar loans in the future will also be forgiven. Although the loans are allocated toward education, money is fungible and will have the net impact of increasing the spending ability of students in other areas of their lives. As the expectation of repayment obligation falls, borrowers may enter into a situation where they take on higher levels of debt and take more risks. This will lead to a weakened ability to repay, creating a vicious cycle that hurts the financial sector and the credit ratings of the borrowers.

I have seen firsthand the effects of this phenomenon that economists call moral hazard. One friend explained to me in my sophomore year that because his student loan money finally came through he was able to put the finishing touches on his beer pong table.
Also on Forbes:

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the institute for college access and success

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How The $1.2 Trillion College Debt Crisis Is Crippling Students, Parents And The Economy

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Total Student Loan Debt: $1 Trillion College (Photo credit: 401(K) 2013) Two-thirds, that's right, two-thirds of students graduating from American colleges and universities are graduating with some level of debt. How much? According to The Institute for College Access and Success (TICAS) Project [...]

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Late last year, graduate students watched as legislators in the House debated giving them a hefty new tax bill: A version of the GOP tax plan proposed to treat tuition waivers as taxable income. Although that plan was later dropped, Congress is once again considering legislation that could affect graduate students' bottom lines. And the federal government is considering ending some of its student loan forgiveness programs, which could raise the economic barrier to entering certain public service professions and leave social workers, teachers and other people in public-service fields that require graduate degrees paying thousands of dollars more for their education.

President Trump's Education Department and its inspector general, as well as lawmakers and think tanks of all ideological stripes, have raised concerns about the growing cost of the federal government's student loan programs - specifically its loan forgiveness options for graduate students. Members of both chambers of Congress have said they are committed to passing new higher education legislation this year that will include changes to these programs.

The costs of the suite of plans currently offered by the government to lessen the burden of grad school debt has ballooned faster than anticipated, and the federal government stands to lose bundles of money. A new audit from the Department of Education's inspector general found that between fiscal years 2011 and 2015, the cost of programs that allow student borrowers to repay their federal loans at a rate proportional to their income shot up from $1.4 billion to $11.5 billion. Back in 2007, when many such programs launched, the Congressional Budget Office projected they would cost just $4 billion over the 10 years ending in 2017.

The cost of the loan forgiveness programs exploded, in part, because policymakers did not correctly estimate the number of students who would take advantage of such programs, according to higher education scholar Jason Delisle. Now there's an emerging consensus that some programs should be reined in, but ideas on how much and in what ways vary by party affiliation. Senate Democrats just introduced a college affordability bill that focuses on creating "debt-free" college plans by giving federal matching funds to states that, in turn, would figure out ways to help students pay for school. In the past, President Barack Obama acknowledged the need to require borrowers to repay more of their debts and made some proposals for modifying the programs' rules. The GOP goes much further in its suggestions: A new proposal from House Republicans would eliminate some loan-forgiveness programs entirely.

The federal government currently offers several types of loans, with varying repayment terms, one of which can cover up to the full cost of a student's graduate program. If, after they leave school, a borrower signs up for an income-driven repayment plan, they will pay back their loan at the rate of 10 percent of their discretionary income each year, and the remaining balance will be forgiven after 20 years.

Under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, however, a student's debt can be forgiven after just 10 years. The program was created to ease economic barriers to entering public service, which is defined as work for any federal, state, local or tribal agency, or any tax-exempt nonprofit.

Right now, a Georgetown Law grad who's gunning for a job at a U.S. attorney's office and enrolled in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program would expect that the federal student loans she took out to help pay her $180,000 tuition will be forgiven after 10 years. If, like the typical lawyer, she graduates with $140,000 in federal student loan debt and her salary rises from $59,000 to $121,000 a year over her first 10 years on the job, she could have the government wipe out $147,000 in debt - the full remaining principal of her debt plus interest - according to a 2014 study from the think tank New America, which Delisle co-authored.

Or let's say a second-grade teacher with a master's degree and $42,000 in federal student loan debt (a typical amount for a first-year teacher after undergraduate and graduate school) earns in the 75th percentile for his age for 10 years. If he dutifully fulfills all the requirements for a federal debt forgiveness program - including completing all of the onerous paperwork - he, for now, stands to have about $33,000 of that debt forgiven, according to the New America report.

But this year the House is poised to consider the PROSPER Act, which would, among other things, reinstate a cap on how much graduate students could borrow (up to $28,500 per year, or $150,000 total) and shrink the number of income-based repayment programs currently available for both grad and undergrad students from five to just one, though a traditional, non-income-based repayment plan will also be available.

Experts say the borrowing cap is unlikely to be a problem for graduate STEM and medical students, since Ph.D.s are often funded by grants and tuition waivers. But graduate students who are enrolled in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program are far more likely to borrow significant sums. A presentation by the Department of Education revealed that nearly 30 percent of all students enrolled in such programs borrowed more than $100,000, with a median debt over $60,000. If the House plan becomes law, students would likely have to go to the private loan market to finance their education, said Seton Hall University higher education professor Robert Kelchen.

Ending the option of having student loans forgiven also removes a bargaining chip for graduate programs that have a reputation for supporting public service careers, like Georgetown University's Law Center. Dean of admissions Andy Cornblatt says the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, among others, helps the school attract the best candidates.

"Everyone in legal education is scared to death that some of these federal programs could go down the drain," Cornblatt says. "Everybody wants to make sure that the ability to attract these kids is not compromised" because of proposals like the PROSPER Act.

So, let's return to our hypothetical Georgetown Law grad, the would-be attorney who wants to go into public-sector law and is enrolled in the loan forgiveness program. If the PROSPER Act passes, rather than paying 10 percent of her discretionary income for 10 years and having $147,000 in federal student loan debt forgiven, she would have to choose from one of the two repayment plans it allows. That means she'd either pay 15 percent of her discretionary income until she's paid off as much as she would have under a 10-year plan, with some of the interest potentially forgiven, or she would have to use a standard 10-year repayment plan, also with no loan forgiveness involved.

It's a bleaker picture for a social worker - who likely needs a master's in social work to practice and typically starts with an annual income of $24,000, earning $57,000 annually by year 10, according to the New America report. If that social worker is enrolled in one of the currently available income-based repayment programs, all of his remaining federal loan debt (typically $49,000 upon graduation) can be forgiven. Including interest, that would be around $51,000 - more than the original loan - even though he would have repaid about $15,000 over the years. Without loan forgiveness, he'd be looking at many more years of loan payments.

Though Kelchen predicts that if the PROSPER Act passes, some colleges will try to either increase how much financial aid they offer or reduce tuition, he cautions, "I don't think it will be enough to make up for loss of loan access, particularly in low-paying fields."

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Student Loans Are Too Expensive To Forgive

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Late last year, graduate students watched as legislators in the House debated giving them a hefty new tax bill: A version of the GOP tax plan proposed to treat tuition waivers as taxable income. Although that plan was later dropped, Congress is once again considering legislation that could affect graduate students' bottom lines.

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Why racial preferences in college admissions hurt minority students -- and shroud the education system in dishonesty.
michaeljung/ Shutterstock

Affirmative action in university admissions started in the late 1960s as a noble effort to jump-start racial integration and foster equal opportunity. But somewhere along the decades, it has lost its way.

Over time, it has become a political lightning rod and one of our most divisive social policies. It has evolved into a regime of racial preferences at almost all selective schools -- preferences so strikingly large and politically unpopular that administrators work hard to conceal them. The largest, most aggressive preferences are usually reserved for upper-middle-class minorities on whom they often inflict significant academic harm, whereas more modest policies that could help working-class and poor people of all races are given short shrift. Academic leaders often find themselves flouting the law and acting in ways that aggravate the worst consequences of large preferences. They have become prisoners of a system that many privately deplore for its often-perverse unintended effects but feel they cannot escape.

The single biggest problem in this system -- a problem documented by a vast and growing array of research -- is the tendency of large preferences to boomerang and harm their intended beneficiaries. Large preferences often place students in environments where they can neither learn nor compete effectively -- even though these same students would thrive had they gone to less competitive but still quite good schools.

The student who would flourish at, say, Wake Forest, instead finds himself at Duke, where the professors are not teaching at a pace designed for him.

We refer to this problem as "mismatch," a word that largely explains why, even though blacks are more likely to enter college than are whites with similar backgrounds, they will usually get much lower grades, rank toward the bottom of the class, and far more often drop out. Because of mismatch, racial preference policies often stigmatize minorities, reinforce pernicious stereotypes, and undermine the self-confidence of beneficiaries, rather than creating the diverse racial utopias so often advertised in college campus brochures.

The mismatch effect happens when a school extends to a student such a large admissions preference -- sometimes because of a student's athletic prowess or legacy connection to the school, but usually because of the student's race -- that the student finds himself in a class where he has weaker academic preparation than nearly all of his classmates. The student who would flourish at, say, Wake Forest or the University of Richmond, instead finds himself at Duke, where the professors are not teaching at a pace designed for him -- they are teaching to the "middle" of the class, introducing terms and concepts at a speed that is unnerving even to the best-prepared student.

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The Painful Truth About Affirmative Action

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Why racial preferences in college admissions hurt minority students -- and shroud the education system in dishonesty. michaeljung/ Shutterstock Affirmative action in university admissions started in the late 1960s as a noble effort to jump-start racial integration and foster equal opportunity. But somewhere along the decades, it has lost its way.

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Is Your Child a Phone ‘Addict’? (Published 2018)

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Parents can have difficulty distinguishing phone abuse from appropriate use.

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juul e-cigarettes and teens: 'health problem of the decade'? - cnn

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Juul e-cigarettes and teens: 'Health problem of the decade'?

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The teenage smoking sensation appearing on high school campuses across the country is an easy-to-hide, high-nicotine device called the Juul.

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Liz Blackwell, a school nurse in Boulder, Colo., showed a collection of vape pens that had been confiscated from students during a presentation at Nevin Platt Middle School in March. Credit... Nick Cote for The New York Times

The student had been caught vaping in school three times before he sat in the vice principal's office at Cape Elizabeth High School in Maine this winter and shamefacedly admitted what by then was obvious.

"I can't stop," he told the vice principal, Nate Carpenter.

So Mr. Carpenter asked the school nurse about getting the teenager nicotine gum or a patch, to help him get through the school day without violating the rules prohibiting vaping.

E-cigarettes have been touted by their makers and some public health experts as devices to help adult smokers kick the habit. But school officials, struggling to control an explosion of vaping among high school and middle school students across the country, fear that the devices are creating a new generation of nicotine addicts.

In his four years at Cape Elizabeth, Mr. Carpenter says he can't recall seeing a single student smoke a cigarette. But vaping is suddenly everywhere.

"It's our demon," he said. "It's the one risky thing that you can do in your life - with little consequence, in their mind - to show that you're a little bit of a rebel."

Schools say the problem sneaked up on them last fall, when students arrived with a new generation of easily concealed devices that have a sleek high-tech design. The most popular, made by Juul, a San Francisco-based company that has received venture capital money, resemble a flash drive and have become so ubiquitous students have turned Juul into a verb.

Tasting like fruit or mint, these devices produce little telltale plume, making it possible for some students to vape even in class.

"They can pin them on to their shirt collar or bra strap and lean over and take a hit every now and then, and who's to know?" said Howard Colter, the interim superintendent in Cape Elizabeth.

E-cigarettes are widely considered safer than traditional cigarettes, but they are too new for researchers to understand the long-term health effects, making today's youth what public health experts call a "guinea pig generation."

School and health officials say several things are clear though: Nicotine is highly addictive, the pods in vaping devices have a higher concentration of nicotine than do individual cigarettes, and a growing body of research indicates that vaping is leading more adolescents to try cigarettes.

Ashley Gould, the chief administrative officer of Juul, said that the company's products are intended solely for adults who want to quit smoking.

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Jim Lefebvre, dean of students at Fairview High School in Boulder, Colo., demonstrated vaping equipment to parents. Vape pens, which often resemble flash drives or other electronic devices, are harder to spot than other tobacco products. Credit... Nick Cote for The New York Times

"We do not want kids using our products," she said. "Our product is not only not for kids, it's not for non-nicotine users."

She said schools and the e-cigarette industry need to work together to understand why teenagers are vaping, and suggested that stress is a big reason. To that end, she said, Juul has offered schools a curriculum that includes mindfulness exercises for students to keep them away from the devices the company sells.

"We saw the same thing from Philip Morris with the We Card program, and the evaluation was that those things don't work," Jennifer Kovarik, who runs tobacco prevention programs for Boulder County, Colo., said of the company's efforts to keep their products away from teenagers. "If they didn't want youth to use it, it would be sold in 18-and-over-only establishments. It's available at Circle K's across the country."

E-cigarettes deliver nicotine through a liquid that is heated into vapor and inhaled, cutting out the cancer-causing tar of combustible cigarettes. But vaping liquids contain additives such as propylene glycol and glycerol that can form carcinogenic compounds when they are heated. Diacetyl, a chemical used to flavor some vape "juice," has been linked to so-called popcorn lung, the scarring and obstruction of the lungs' smallest airways. A study published in the journal Pediatrics in March found substantially increased levels of five carcinogenic compounds in the urine of teenagers who vape.

"I'm afraid that we're going to be hooking a new generation of kids on nicotine, with potentially unknown risks," said Dr. Mark L. Rubinstein, the lead author of the study and a professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco. "With cigarettes, we've been studying them for many years, we have a pretty good idea of what the risks are. We just don't know what the risks of inhaling all these flavorings and dyes are, and what we do know is already pretty scary."

The industry points to a 2016 British study that says that vaping does not lead nonsmokers to become smokers. But the 2016 Monitoring the Future study, sponsored by the federal government's National Institute on Drug Abuse, followed students who in 12th grade had never smoked a cigarette and found that a year later, those who used e-cigarettes were about four times as likely to have smoked a cigarette. A study released in January by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine similarly concluded that vaping led students to smoke cigarettes, although it did not determine whether they became habitual smokers or just experimented.

Schools and local officials have stiffened penalties for students caught with vaping devices, suspending and even expelling them, and sent home letters pleading with parents to be on the lookout for a waft of fruit smell and, as one superintendent wrote, " 'pens' that aren't pens."

Several school districts in New Jersey have recently adopted policies requiring any student caught with an e-cigarette to be drug tested, because the devices can be used to smoke marijuana.

Oak Ridge High School in Placerville, Calif., shut down all but two bathrooms during classes in November and placed monitors at the doors during lunch to make sure not too many students are in the bathroom together. (Juul devices, for example, contain as much nicotine as a pack of cigarettes, so they are easy to share.) New Trier High School in Chicago's northern suburbs is considering installing vaping detectors in bathrooms.

With so many students caught multiple times, some schools have moved from punishment to intervention, requiring students caught vaping to receive counseling or substance abuse treatment.

"Despite all of the boundaries set by families and parents and the schools, and at risk of even expulsion, students are continuing to use," said Liz Blackwell, a school nurse in the Boulder Valley School District in Colorado. "They don't want to be kicked out of school, they don't want to suffer any punishment or discipline, and they don't want to have a bad relationship with their parents. They continue to use because it's an addiction."

As part of her treatment plan, one of Ms. Blackwell's students asked if she could stand at the back of the class and shake her foot when she started to feel the twitch to vape.

Ms. Blackwell gave a presentation on vaping to parents and students. Credit... Nick Cote for The New York Times

Two years ago, Boulder surveyed its students and found that 45 percent of high school students had used e-cigarettes, with 30 percent as current users. Officials say they expect the most recent survey, taken last year, to show about 45 percent of middle school students have used e-cigarettes.

The 2017 Monitoring the Future survey on adolescent drug use found that 11 percent of 12th graders, 8.5 percent of 10th graders and 3.5 percent of 8th graders had vaped nicotine in the previous 30 days. Of those high school seniors, 24 percent reported vaping daily, which the study defined as vaping on 20 or more occasions in the previous 30 days, said Richard A. Miech, a professor at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan and a principal investigator of the study. Nineteen percent reported vaping on 40 or more occasions during that period.

Fifty-six percent reported vaping only on one to five occasions. Gregory Conley, the president of the American Vaping Association, which supports what he calls "fair and sensible" regulation of e-cigarettes, said that number indicated that most students who are vaping are not becoming addicted. "You can't use the definition of dependence and apply it to anyone using only one to five days in the prior month," he said.

Schools say that unlike adults, most students who vape are starting out as nonsmokers.

"I have the same conversation with every student we catch vaping," said Scott Carpenter, the dean for discipline at Cumberland High School in Rhode Island. "I say, 'If I handed you a cigarette would you smoke it?' And 100 percent of them look at you like you're absolutely crazy for even suggesting that they'd do that."

Federal law prohibits the sale of e-cigarettes to anyone under 18, and Juul and some other e-cigarette companies ask web purchasers to check a box saying that they are 21 or older. But the growing vaping industry has many items and campaigns that seem to appeal specifically to youth. There are vaping cloud contests, a line of hoodies and backpacks called VaprWear that make it easy to conceal the devices, and labels of vape "sauce" that resemble the designs of well-known candy wrappers like those of Jolly Ranchers and Blow Pops.

In Millburn, N.J., one of the school districts that now require any student caught with a vaping device to be drug tested, teenagers said Juuls began showing up at parties last year, and by fall were at school and football games. Now, students post videos of themselves doing vapor tricks on social media.

At a local deli where seniors go for lunch, a dozen students interviewed said it was easy to buy a Juul online or at a gas station or convenience store, and to buy refill pods in the hallway at school. None would publicly admit to owning a device, but all said they had tried vaping.

Ryan Wenslau, 18, said he thought vaping started for most students as an occasional diversion, "something to do." A stern talk from his baseball coach had convinced him not to use, he said. But for those students who continue, "I wouldn't necessarily call it an addiction," he said, "but it's habitual."

While there might be chemicals in vaping, they argued, there are more in cigarettes.

"Technically, it's better," said Fares Alhabboubi, 17.

Schools lament that teenagers equate safer with safe. But many say the unfamiliarity of e-cigarettes has made it hard to convince parents of the risks as well.

"If I had a pack of cigarettes in my room as a kid, that would have been discovered, here we're dealing with, first of all, what's a Juul?" said Michael McAlister, the principal at Northgate High School in Walnut Creek, Calif. The school has about 1,600 students, but parent education nights on the issue have turned out only about 70 people. Yet, out of 53 suspensions last year, 40 were for vaping devices.

"We're losing a battle and to me, it's predatory," Mr. McAlister said. "There's no way you're going to suspend your way out of this."

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'I Can't Stop': Schools Struggle With Vaping Explosion

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The student had been caught vaping in school three times before he sat in the vice principal's office at Cape Elizabeth High School in Maine this winter and shamefacedly admitted what by then was obvious. "I can't stop," he told the vice principal, Nate Carpenter.

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"Reimagining the Southbury Training School"

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There are 229 people with intellectual disabilities, many of them elderly and medically fragile, remaining at the Southbury Training School, which is being mothballed as cottages close.

Yet overtime paid to the 615 full- and part-time state workers still employed at the residential facility was $12.3 million last fiscal year. It's an amount, in the eyes of advocates and families with sons and daughters waiting years for other services, that is staggeringly high.

A direct-care worker with a base salary of $60,225, took in an additional $136,337 in overtime alone in the fiscal year ending this past summer, public records show. Including fringe benefits, her compensation was $237,886 - easily surpassing Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's total earnings of $192,145.

Four other direct-care workers, the non-medical employees who work directly with patients, topped $100,000 in overtime earnings alone in the last fiscal year. Nearly 50 earned $50,000 or more.

Advocates say they aren't looking for a single additional dollar to go to DDS; they just want the agency to spend the public money it does have differently. The state could save over $8 million simply by cutting overtime to the staff at the Southbury campus, with no layoffs involved, a parents' group has concluded in their second comprehensive report on institutional spending by DDS.

Spokesman Chris McClure of the state's budget-writing agency said the need for adequate staffing around the clock at the Southbury campus drives the overtime costs.

The Southbury campus is gradually closing, but there has been no recent talk of when or how, notes Collette Bement, of Tolland. She is a PhD toxicologist and consultant, and one of the four parents of sons or daughters with intellectual disabilities who worked on the comprehensive overtime report. The study was done in advance of Thursday's scheduled presentation by the Department of Developmental Services to the legislature's appropriations committee, the panel that shapes the budget.

A report by DDS on the cost and method of closing the Southbury campus, ordered by the legislature in December 2015, still has not been completed, state officials acknowledged Wednesday.

Advocates for the more than 15,000 clients of DDS who receive services in the private sector say the silence over Southbury's inevitable closing in the next few years is bewildering. When former Gov. Lowell P. Weicker Jr., signed the order to close the the Mansfield Training School in the early 1990s, there were 200 residents there, 29 more than were at Southbury on Wednesday. All of the residents of the Mansfield campus were moved into private settings. The same is true for dozens of former Southbury campus residents who have left the facility over the last several years. Advocates in 2015 asked the state for a commitment to close the costly Southbury campus by 2020 but were met with silence.

Relatives and guardians of the remaining residents of the Southbury campus are adamant that the residents stay in what has been their home for decades.

The annual costs of caring for one resident of the Southbury campus eclipsed $360,000 in the last fiscal year, according to the parent group's most recent analysis. Costs in the private sector are typically half the state rate, or less, according to a state analysis.

"It's an inefficient model, and it's denying services to other people," said West Hartford parent and former assistant state attorney general Thomas Fiorentino, one of the authors of the overtime report.

Referring to the fragile medical condition or difficult behaviors of the remaining residents at Southbury, Fiorentino said, "There isn't a level of need that can't be met, and isn't being met every day, in the private sector."

Christine Pollio, a spokeswoman for the developmental services agency, said personnel expenditures are dropping and are projected to be at a several-year low this year and next. She said fixed costs, such as payments toward the state's pension debt, are included in the fringe-benefits of DDS workers, and drive those costs up.

She said in the last two years, personnel expenses at Southbury Training School have dropped by about 20 percent, in line with the decrease in the number of residents at the campus over that time.

But advocacy groups such as The Arc Connecticut and families across the state point out that overtime costs at Southbury and all the state facilities remain disproportionately high in the face of the state's $1.68 billion budget deficit.

The overtime story for the last fiscal year was the same at the other state-run facilities. A direct-care worker at the Newington regional institution, with a base salary of $57,274, was paid an additional $150,542 in overtime alone in the last fiscal year. His total compensation, with fringe benefits was $262,063, a few hundred dollars less than his earnings in fiscal 2015.

Across the state, 641 direct-care workers at DDS earned at least $25,000 in overtime in the last fiscal year. In total, the developmental-services agency paid out $43 million in overtime in the last fiscal year to the staffs of the remaining state institutions and group homes.

Meanwhile, others go wanting.

Malloy's budget proposal includes no money for day programs and employment services for the more than 600 students with intellectual disabilities who will turn 21 this year and next, and graduate from high school. And there are 2,100 families on the waiting list for residential placements or in-home services. Some clients of DDS have been on that list for more than 20 years.

The vast majority - about 95 percent of the more than 16,000 clients of the Department of Developmental Services - live in, and receive their support from, the private sector. The cost is half of what the state spends, with no discernible difference in the quality of care, according to a 2012 report by the legislature's Program Review and Investigations office.

The transfer to the private sector of 30 state-run group homes, promoted by Malloy and DDS as a cost-saving measure, has been stopped as the state and employee unions try to negotiate a new contract.

A 2013 series by The Courant on deaths in public and private group homes, which prompted a federal investigation, found lapses of care in both sectors.

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At $12.3 Million, Southbury Training School OT Continues To Rile Advocates, Parents

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There are 229 people with intellectual disabilities, many of them elderly and medically fragile, remaining at the Southbury Training School, which is being mothballed as cottages close. Yet overtime paid to the 615 full- and part-time state workers still employed at the residential facility was $12.3 million last fiscal year.