TRUMP decision to withdraw troops dismays Somalis

ONLY 700 US SPECIAL FORCES ASSIGNED INSOMALIA

By Katharine Houreld

© Reuters/Feisal Omar FILE PHOTO: 

Somali police officers tow their car from the scene of a roadside explosion in Hodan district of Mogadishu

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - President Donald Trump's decision to pull U.S. troops out of Somalia in the waning days of his presidency triggered dismay on Saturday from some Somalis, who appealed to the incoming U.S. president to reverse the decision.

"The U.S. decision to pull troops out of Somalia at this critical stage in the successful fight against al-Shabaab and their global terrorist network is extremely regrettable," Senator Ayub Ismail Yusuf told Reuters in a statement, referring to the al Qaida-linked al Shabaab insurgency.

"U.S. troops have made a huge contribution and had great impact on the training and operational effectiveness of Somali soldiers," said Yusuf, a member of Somalia's Senate Foreign Affairs Committee.

He tagged U.S. President-elect Joe Biden in a tweet criticising the decision.

The Somali government could not immediately be reached for comment early on Saturday to Friday's decision to withdraw almost all the roughly 700 U.S. troops by Jan. 15.

Somalia's fragile internationally backed government is due to hold parliamentary elections this month and national elections in early February, a precursor to the planned drawdown of the 17,000-strong African Union peacekeeping force.

U.S. troops have been in Somalia, mostly supporting Somali special forces known as Danab in operations against al Shabaab, whose attacks in nations like Kenya and Uganda have killed hundreds of civilians, including Americans.

SUPPORTING SOMALI FORCES

Danab punches above its weight because regular forces are often poorly trained and equipped, frequently desert their posts or become enmeshed in power struggles between the national and regional governments.

If the withdrawal is permanent, "it will have a huge toll on counterterrorism efforts," said Colonel Ahmed Abdullahi Sheikh, who served for three years until 2019 as the Danab commander.

He fought alongside U.S. forces, he said, and during his command two Americans and more than a hundred of his own men had died. Both U.S. and Somali forces opposed the withdrawal, he said.

The U.S. program to expand Danab to 3,000 men was supposed to continue until 2027, Sheikh said, but its future is unclear.

Airstrikes will likely continue from bases in Kenya and Djibouti, which could also provide a launchpad for cross-border operations. Rights group Amnesty International says the airstrikes have killed at least 16 civilians in the past three years.

The U.S. withdrawal comes at a turbulent time in the region. Ethiopia, which is a major troop contributor to the peacekeeping forces and has thousands more troops in Somalia bilaterally, is distracted by an internal conflict that broke out last month. It has disarmed hundreds of its peacekeepers already.

Somalia has been riven by civil war since 1991, but the entry of the peacekeeping force in 2008 helped incubate fledgling government structures that allowed for gradual reforms of the military, such as a biometric system to pay soldiers and the formation of Danab.

But many problems with the Somali military remain, including corruption and political interference. Perhaps a withdrawal will force Somalia to confront them, said Sheikh. Or perhaps it will make them worse.

(Reporting by Katharine Houreld in Addis Ababa; Editing by William Mallard)

UCP RENT A MOB TURNS ON KENNEY
Despite warning from Kenney and stiff fines, anti-maskers vow larger protests on weekend

Bill Kaufmann POSTMEDIA 

© Provided by Calgary Herald 

Hundreds of people protest mandatory masks at Calgary city hall on Saturday, Nov. 21, 2020.

Despite the threat of fines and an appeal from Premier Jason Kenney that they halt their large gatherings, opponents of COVID-19 restrictions are vowing province-wide protests this weekend.

One organizer said the movement has gained momentum and he expects a larger turnout than previous events that have drawn fines.

In a virtual town hall Thursday evening, Kenney condemned narratives that paint the COVID-19 crisis as fake. And, he implored activists opposed to restrictions imposed by his government to abandon large gatherings in favour of other protest forms.

“Go ahead, call me a dictator but send me emails; organize online petitions or a safe protest that’s socially distanced,” said Kenney.

“You don’t have the luxury of increasing the chances of transmission … . If you think this is a hoax, talk to my friend who spent nearly two months in ICU fighting for his life or speak to those who have lost loved ones.”

Kenney said while government measures such as limiting outdoor gatherings to 10 people and banning private indoor gatherings violate constitutional rights, the restrictions are legally and morally defensible.

“I do believe in order to avoid the catastrophic situation from the pandemic, certain abridgements of those rights and freedoms can be reasonably justified in a free and democratic society,” said Kenney.

He and physicians have warned repeatedly that sharply rising numbers of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations threaten to overwhelm the province’s health care system.

Nonetheless, some of the premier’s critics contend he’s refused to impose a province-wide mandatory mask edict out of fear of a backlash and that has fuelled the resistance to health orders.

In a statement sent by an organizer of the Walk for Freedom, its writer said there would be protests in several Alberta cities this weekend, including at Calgary’s city hall and at the legislature building in Edmonton.

The statement said the movement is growing and sets an example for the rest of the country.

“Alberta is rapidly becoming a beacon of freedom in Canada, with rallies happening across the province every week now,” it stated. “It’s time for Alberta to show the world that we are the creators of our own destiny.”

The statement said that although city police have issued six tickets to protest organizers, which it called “unconstitutional,” the group sympathizes with officers in “a tough position.”

The organizer also said protesters would seek to social distance but added “there is a lack of feasibility … considering the expected turnout.”

Kenney’s suggestion that protesters rely on online or written tactics were rejected as being less effective than more visible demonstrations.

The group’s statement also said a speaker at the Calgary rally would be the head of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedom (JCCF), John Carpay, whose group says it’s launching a constitutional challenge against Alberta’s COVID-19 restrictions.

       CARPAY IS A RIGHT WING PRO EMPLOYER UCP        SUPPORTER 

The JCCF and protesters contend the restrictions — that also include strict limits on attendance at funerals, wedding and places of worship, while mandating mask-wearing in public spaces in Edmonton and Calgary — unnecessarily infringe on civil liberties.

APPEALING TO THE BASE OF UCP THE EVANGELICAL RIGHT WING IN SOUTHERN ALBERTA  

With 590 COVID-19 deaths now reported in Alberta and a test positivity rate having passed a “grim milestone” of 10 per cent, Alberta’s chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw implored residents to stay home or to maintain social distance this weekend.

“By bend the curve and not the rules, you are sparing someone from watching a loved one battle COVID-19,” she said Friday.

Those representing Alberta’s registered nurses delivered a similar message, saying over-stretched health care workers are fearful of what lies ahead as infections mount.

“Please don’t go out this weekend. Think of yourself, your family and neighbours, and the ability of your health care workers to care for Albertans who are already sick with COVID-19 as staffing shortages grow more severe.” said United Nurses of Alberta President Heather Smith Friday.

On Thursday, the heads of the city’s bylaw and police departments said issuing tickets would continue if those protests resumed.

“There’s a segment of the population that doesn’t care to follow the rules, so we’ve got to get serious,” said Calgary Police Chief Mark Neufeld.

He also said he’s confident crowd concerns sparked by fights and lack of social distancing at Chinook Centre mall a week ago won’t occur again.

BKaufmann@postmedia.com

on Twitter: @BillKaufmannjrn

Interest-free loans to help cover rent payments are being offered to more B.C. residents

© Submitted by Luz Lopez Dee 

Langley resident Luz Lopez Dee was nearly evicted by her landlord for failure to pay her monthly rent, but thanks to a short-term loan from a local rent bank, she was able to pay the rent of $1,300.

Luz Lopez Dee has rarely missed paying her rent, but sometimes mishaps happen.

Years ago, the 76-year-old Langley resident forgot to reply to a Service Canada letter which created a delay in her pension cheques and meant she didn't have enough money to cover the monthly rent on her apartment. That almost led to her becoming homeless.

"My [housing] manager said, 'If you aren't going to pay me this week or if you aren't going to pay rent, I will evict you," she said. "That was scary."

Instead, Lopez Dee secured an interest-free loan through a rent bank designed to help people with lower incomes maintain housing.

"My goodness, it was really a big help," she said.

Rent banks have long been established in B.C., but work is now underway to expand them throughout the province.

Last June, the B.C. Rent Bank was established with funding from the B.C. government. So far, it has provided money to charities in the Lower Mainland, Fraser Valley and Prince George to sustain their existing rent bank programs or open new ones. 

The program will expand to the Central Okanagan and Nanaimo in January.

Through the initiative, people in crisis will be offered loans of up to $2,000 to help cover housing costs. They repay the loan, interest-free, over the course of six to 24 months.

Crises are unexpected events that can come in many forms, says B.C. Rent Bank project lead Melissa Giles.

"A lot of these examples are things like a single parent … [who doesn't] have benefits at their workplace. They have to miss a few days of work because their child is sick and now their rent payment is at risk," Giles told Chris Walker, host of CBC's Daybreak South.

"Other examples would be people who have an expense related to their cars. They've had an accident or they've had a repair that has cost them money," she said.

The non-profit Canadian Mental Health Association will operate rent bank programs for residents of Kelowna, West Kelowna, Lake Country and Peachland, where housing affordability is increasingly an issue.

"It's not the answer to our affordable housing issue," Giles said. "But it will be a support for people … [in] these times where they just can't make that month's rent."

Giles says, on average, 65 to 70 per cent of loans are repaid to rent banks every year. Rent bank case managers tailor repayment plans to their clients and allow them to make partial payments or defer payments should another personal crisis come up.

The Aboriginal Business and Community Development Centre in Prince George — which has run a rent bank program since 2002 — says it tries to make clients' lives as easy as possible.

"We do not chase our clients, but we do offer financial literacy courses and we do remind them of their payments," Catherine Anderson, the centre's financial literacy coordinator, told Sarah Penton, host of CBC's Radio West.

"I'm all for creating a sustainable future for everyone," Anderson said.

'Wage theft': Employees are working long hours at home — but some employers feel they don't need to pay them more

Howard Levitt

© Provided by Financial Post Employees are working longer hours than those in the office

There was a spirited, indeed clamorous, uproar in response to my columns discussing employees who are ostensibly ‘working’ from home but not doing very much work at all. My point was that remote working could be a vehicle for abuse and some will take advantage to the extent that they could not at the office surrounded by their co-workers and managers. Why complain of such ‘time theft’, my inbox reverberated, while ignoring ‘wage theft’?


Not wishing to be inequitable, here goes.

Just as some employees will take advantage of their employers, some employers are equally unscrupulous. The productivity of Canadians working remotely, on an hourly basis, is 21 per cent less than employees working from the office, according to Aternity’s Global Remote Work Productivity Tracker. While their productivity is decreasing the longer remote work continues, at-home employees are spending 10 per cent more time working than those in the office.

Are they entitled to more money as a result of working these additional hours even if their overall productivity has declined? And is not paying for that extra time ‘wage theft’ in the same way that pursuing personal endeavours while on the clock is ‘time theft’?

Howard Levitt: Here's why the work-from-home arrangement isn't working for many companies — and their staff

Howard Levitt: Some employers are manipulating terminated employees with lowball settlement offers. Here's how to fight back

Howard Levitt: Working from home giving rise to insidious trend — time theft by employees

Employees paid hourly are entitled to be paid for all hours worked, however inefficiently deployed. Salaried workers will generally not receive overtime pay, unless their agreement with their employer requires overtime for hours in excess of their scheduled working day.

If salaried employees’ work hours increase dramatically over a prolonged period, they have three options. They could potentially claim constructive dismissal, refuse to routinely work the increased hours, or sue for the additional hours based on it being a breach of their written or implied employment agreement.

But all employees, who are not exempt from the overtime provisions of their Employment Standards Act, have an entitlement to overtime pay of 1.5 times their hourly wage.

The hours differ in each province. For example, it’s more than 44 hours in a week in Ontario and 8 hours in a day for employees of federally regulated employers.

Those hours include breaks but not lunch periods. In most provinces, managers are exempt from the overtime pay and a common form of ‘wage theft’ is to not pay overtime to employees labelled ‘manager’, who are essentially lead hands performing largely the same functions as others. In other words, to be exempt from overtime, you have to spend your hours managing others or involved in executive functions. Routinely miscategorizing employees in that way is an invitation to a class-action lawsuit.

Why, some employers ask me, should I pay an employee more to be less productive, as the statistics show. That would mean that employers are paying more for less. As I say to them and to my callers on my Bell Media radio show, I don’t write the law, I just explain it. In other words, a valid point but entirely academic.

But here is the problem. Employees, particularly if they are working from home, have less evidence of the hours that they work. The fact that their computer is turned on for a certain period is not entirely determinative and often their activities are not tracked. Since they are working remotely, their start time and completion time also vary.

So the employers’ instinct, in many instances, is not to pay the overtime, although it’s technically owing. If employees sue to recover it, they have the burden of proof and an employment relationship rendered untenable. At the very least, they are unlikely to receive the next promotion. And although reprisal against an employee for making an overtime claim is itself a direct violation of the Employment Standards Act, the employee may not be up for yet another legal battle with an increasingly outraged employer.

In short, overtime, which would be paid as a matter of course at the office, will less likely be quickly paid to employees working remotely which is also seen a form of wage theft.

Another issue, overlooked by employers and employees, are the many conversations most employees have in a day “off the clock”, for example, in responding to a call or email after their regular hours. If they are for business purposes, that’s part of their work hours and legally must be treated as such, including as overtime.

Employees should best keep a record and inform their employer if they wish them to be accounted for, so lieu time or overtime pay can be agreed to. It’s fair to say that few employers are monitoring and paying for such calls as overtime pay even though they are required to. That failure will be keeping my firm’s class-action group busy, on behalf of employers and employees alike.

The reality is that many employees are working overtime for which they are not paid and that is exacerbated, just as is time theft, due to the absence or limits of time tracking. Although most employees are paid for their time, when an employer cannot personally vouchsafe for the employees’ additional hours, particularly if they see no increase, and possibly a decrease, in productivity, they are loathe to pay. Employees wishing to ensure payment for their time should keep track and send their employer their time sheet on a weekly basis.

Employers wishing to avoid a class-action lawsuit for overtime pay, particularly from their remote workers, should have written policies, signed off by employees, prohibiting overtime without a written sign-off by the management. Although that will not protect employers who are willfully blind to their employees’ increased hours, it is more difficult for an employee working remotely to argue that the employer was aware of all of the hours they were working.

Got a question about employment law during COVID-19? Write to me at levitt@levittllp.com.

Howard Levitt is senior partner of Levitt LLP, employment and labour lawyers. He practises employment law in eight provinces. He is the author of six books including the Law of Dismissal in Canada.

More than a quarter of Yukon businesses laid off staff during

 COVID-19

© John Fulton/CBC Many Yukon businesses have scaled back operations during COVID-19 and have concerns about their ability to navigate the next few months without layoffs, closures or bankruptcy.

More than a quarter of Yukon businesses have laid off at least one employee during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In some cases, cuts have been deep.

A new survey reveals that among Yukon companies that reported layoffs, well over half (58.1 per cent) have reduced their workforce by at least 50 per cent.

Sectors hit the hardest include manufacturing, food service, arts, entertainment and retail.

The information comes from Statistics Canada's Canadian Survey on Business Conditions. A summary of Yukon's information was published this week by the Yukon Bureau of Statistics.

"It's a pretty good snapshot of the business community right now, it will be good for policy makers to identify which sectors are being hit," said Gary Brown, Chief Information Officer for the Yukon Bureau of Statistics. 

Yukon still faring better than national average

Across Canada, 37 per cent of businesses report having laid off at least one staff member due to COVID-19.

"We seem to be somewhat less affected overall but obviously some businesses are hammered hard here," Brown said.

In October, Yukon still had the lowest rate of unemployment in the country.

There are also some signs of a rebound effect, as about 40 per cent of businesses who had laid off staff have rehired at least one person.

Private sector employment accounts for the livelihood of more than 7,000 people in the territory.

The new survey does not look at government and NGOs.

It also does not give a total number for people laid off, but rather frames the question through percentages of businesses who have laid off workers.

© Wayne Vallevand/CBC 

'We seem to be somewhat less affected overall [than in the rest of Canada] but obviously some businesses are hammered hard here,

Revenues are down

When it comes to revenues, sales and transactions are down.

More than one quarter (27.4 per cent) of Yukon businesses reported that their revenues from August 2020 were down by at least a third compared to the year prior.

About one in six (15.9 per cent) businesses reported that their revenues were down by 50 per cent or more.
Changes since August

The survey is accurate to August but conditions in Yukon have changed since then.

Yukon entered Phase 3 of reopening on Aug. 2 and recently saw the BC, NWT and Nunavut travel bubbles close.

When asked to look ahead to September, October and November, many Yukon businesses expressed concerns.

One-third of Yukon businesses "did not know how long they could continue to operate at their current level of revenue" before considering further layoffs or even closure or bankruptcy, says the summary document from the Yukon Bureau of Statistics.

One in 12 businesses reported they could continue for "less than six months at current levels of revenue." 

More layoffs possible

The survey anticipates more layoffs ahead, though not for most businesses.

Brown said about 70 per cent of Yukon employers expected the number of employees to remain the same over the next three months.

About 13 per cent expected their number of employees to decrease during this time and about eight per cent expected to increase their workforce.

Tesla says Black people hold just 4% of its U.S. leadership roles

(Reuters) - Black employees make up just 4% of Tesla Inc's American leadership roles and 10% of its total workforce in the country, the electric carmaker has disclosed in its first U.S. diversity report.

© Reuters/ALY SONG FILE PHOTO: Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk speaks onstage during a delivery event for Tesla China-made Model 3 cars at its factory in Shanghai

Women comprise 17% of the company's U.S. leadership roles - directors and vice presidents - and 21% of the overall workforce, according to the report. The figures for Asian, Black and Hispanic people combined are 33% and 60%.

The carmaker noted, though, that leadership roles were a "very small cohort", or less than 0.4%, of its workforce.

Elon Musk's Tesla, whose meteoric rise has seen it become the most valuable auto company in the world and worth about $550 billion, acknowledged the lack of representation.

"We know that our numbers do not represent the deep talent pools of Black and African American talent that exist in the U.S at every level – from high-school graduates to professionals," it said in the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Impact Report https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/downloads/2020-DEI-impact-report.pdf 2020 published on Friday.

"While women are historically underrepresented in the tech and automotive industries, we recognize we have work to do in this area," it added.

Tesla, based in Palo Alto, California, said it planned to increase representation of all under-represented groups next year and would be recruiting at historically Black colleges and universities.

Nasdaq Inc filed a proposal with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday that, if approved, would require all Nasdaq-listed companies to adopt new rules related to board diversity.

The rules would require most of the companies to have, or publicly explain why they do not have, at least two diverse directors, including one who self-identifies as female and one who self-identifies as either an underrepresented minority or LGBTQ+.

(Reporting by Aakriti Bhalla in Bengaluru; Editing by Pravin Char)

Study finds Canada a "laggard" on homophobia in sports

TORONTO — Chris Voth's sexuality cost him a job with a professional volleyball team overseas four years ago.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The Winnipeg native, who has never named the team nor country, was told outright that the club wasn't interested in having a gay player.

The 30-year-old came out publicly seven years ago because he hoped to be a role model for young LGBTQ athletes, and given the chance to go back and change that, he wouldn't.

But Voth was disheartened to learn that the majority of gay athletes still don't come out, and that homophobic language on the field or court remains rampant — and Canada is among the worst offenders.

"That was disappointing, because I always like to think that we're a bit more further ahead up north (compared to the U.S.)," said Voth, recently home from coaching in the Netherlands.

The former national team player was responding to two studies released Thursday by Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.

The first study analyzed survey responses from 1,173 lesbian, gay and bisexual people aged 15 to 21 living in Canada, the U.S., Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland.

The study found that about 48 per cent of Canadian youth who come out to teammates reported being the target of homophobic behaviour, including bullying, assaults and slurs — and it was more prevalent among Canadian youth than Americans (45 per cent).

Among females, 44 per cent of Canadians who've come out to teammates reported being victimized — more than any other country surveyed by Monash's Behavioural Sciences Research Laboratory.

"It's easy for Canadians to dismiss the data and say, 'No, no, that's not in our country. We're inclusive and welcoming. And we're known around the world for being friendly and polite and nice,'" said lead author Erik Denison, who's Canadian.

"Canada has been a laggard globally, full stop. There's no other way to say that."

Young people who came out were significantly more likely (58 per cent versus 40 per cent) to report they’d been the target of homophobic behaviors in sport settings than those who didn't, the study found.

Every study over the past 15 years has shown that LGBTQ kids play sport at lower rates than straight kids, Denison said, and while there's a perception that the gap is more prevalent in boys than girls, that's not accurate.

"And seeing these big gaps in participation, I can only use the word alarming," said Denison. "We're really alarmed about both discrimination in sport, and the fact these kids are avoiding sport.

"Because the No. 1 thing we could be doing to reduce rates of suicide and self-harm is encouraging these kids to become active in safe and supportive environments."

Numerous studies have shown that suicide attempts and ideation about suicide are significantly higher in LGBTQ kids.

Voth's experiences as an out athlete varied wildly. The 30-year-old believes discrimination cost him spots on several pro clubs, contract negotiations inexplicably stalling with no explanation. On the other hand, when he signed with a pro team in Finland, he was "the first gay person that any of them had met. And only a month-and-a-half later, we were the first pro volleyball team to walk in a pride parade. So it can really go either way."

Voth said LGBTQ youth are doubly impacted, losing out on the mental health benefits that come from being part of a team.

The second Monash study investigated why some athletes use homophobic language.

Denison pointed out that while there are "homophobes, racists and sexist people everywhere," they tend to control their behaviour around others.

"The opposite is happening in sport. In sport, the culture is very supportive of homophobic language being used," he said. "Canadian sport has three official languages: French, English and homophobic language."

And while most people believe it's slurs aimed at opponents during games, their studies found that homophobic language is being used at practices, in the locker-room, and at social events, as jokes and banter.

"And we're not just talking about words like 'gay,' we asked about much more severe language,'" Denison said.

He is working with the University of British Columbia among other schools around the world on a program aimed to train team captains to be leaders on this issue, because coaches can't necessarily create change, it's more effective when it comes from an athlete's peers.

Denison said that Volleyball Canada is the only national sport organization in the country that has done work specifically targeting homophobia, and it occurred around the same time Voth came out publicly.

"I don't want to denigrate what the NHL (among other leagues) has done, but at the end of the day, the NHL is a professional sporting organization, they're ultimately a business," Denison said. "It's up to Hockey Canada, it's up to Soccer Canada, it's up to Rugby Canada, it's up to those bodies and provincial bodies as well to be driving change."

The Canadian Olympic Committee has done anti-homophobia social media campaigns, mall installations, and regularly marches in pride parades across the country.

Pro sports teams such as Toronto FC and the Toronto Raptors host annual pride games.

Denison said his research, however, has shown those initiatives do little to reduce homophobic behaviour and language among fans. He'd rather see pro teams work with teams and programs at the grassroots level to hold their own pride games, among other initiatives.

"What we've seen is that when amateur-level teams hold pride games, the players on those teams use half the homophobic language than those who don't hold these events," Denison said. "These events are really good at getting those conversations going around 'Hey, guys, what kind of language do we actually want on our team?' That's where we can change those norms and culture, we think quite effectively."

Denison pointed out that there are openly-LGBTQ people in entertainment, government, and major corporations, but by comparison, they largely remain invisible in sports, particularly on the men's side, and have since David Kopay came out in 1975 after he retired from the NFL. He's believed to be the first pro athlete to come out.

Michael Sam became the first publicly gay player to be drafted in the NFL. He signed with the Montreal Alouettes after being released by St. Louis, but abruptly left after playing one game.

Brooklyn Nets forward Jason Collins came out in 2013, and former Major League Soccer midfielder Collin Martin followed suit in 2018. Collins has retired, and Martin plays in the USL, and there have been no active gay players in any of the five major North American sports leagues since.

Women's pro sport has been a different story. Sports power couple Sue Bird and Megan Rapinoe are two of the numerous out athletes in the WNBA, NWSL, and other women's leagues.

For Denison, Canada's track record is particularly disheartening.

"It's quite embarrassing for me as a Canadian researcher who happens to be down in Australia now to see that Canada is a laggard. Because I'm a proud Canadian, and I think Canadians have a reputation for being friendly and inclusive.

"But it looks like either Canadians have been ignoring this issue, we're not aware of this issue, or worse, maybe there's some deliberate resistance to do anything about this problem."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 4, 2020.

Lori Ewing, The Canadian Press

How a police contact by middle school leads to different outcomes for Black, white youth

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

Research News

 

For Black youth, an encounter with police by eighth grade predicts they will be arrested by young adulthood - but the same is not true for white youth, a new University of Washington study finds.

Black young adults are 11 times more likely to be arrested by age 20 if they had an initial encounter with law enforcement in their early teens than Black youth who don't have that first contact.

In contrast, white young adults with early police contact are not significantly more likely to be arrested later, compared with white peers without that history.

The study's authors found that Black youth are more likely than white youth to be treated as "usual suspects" after a first encounter with police, leading to subsequent arrests over time. Even as white young adults report engaging in significantly more illegal behavior, Black young adults face more criminal penalties, the study finds.

Researchers also said it's not just the number of stops, but what transpires during a police stop that sets the tone for future interactions with police.

"What we know about police contacts and youth generally is that Black youth are more likely to be stopped by police to begin with, and are more likely to have a negative experience when that happens," said first author Annie McGlynn-Wright, a postdoctoral fellow at Tulane University who led the study while pursuing her doctorate at the UW. "What we haven't known previously is the long-term effects of police contacts in terms of criminal justice outcomes."

McGlynn-Wright added that the study, published Oct. 31 in the journal Social Problems, shows these early contacts with police create a "system response" to Black youth not experienced by white youth.

Racial differences in who is stopped, why and for what penalty have been well documented, the researchers said. Also, police stops have been linked to individuals' later run-ins with law enforcement.

For this study, UW researchers wanted to examine the effects of the first stop on the lives of Black and white adolescents, and whether a stop in the early teen years is associated with "secondary sanctioning," or a "usual suspects" treatment by police that plays out over future stops and/or arrests. The study is among the first to explore the racial differences in police contact over time.

Using longitudinal data from more than 300 Seattle young adults, researchers found stark differences in the law enforcement trajectory of adolescents based on race, from the numbers of Black and white youth who encounter police by middle school, to the numbers arrested in high school and beyond.

It also comes during a period of significant reckoning over race and policing in the United States, after a series of law enforcement killings of Black people around the country. As communities grapple with how to address institutionalized racism, police procedures and accountability, many school districts, including Seattle, have ended their contracts with law enforcement agencies for school resource officers, the personnel who are assigned to specific school buildings. Research has shown that students of color are disproportionately subject to discipline and monitoring by school resource officers.

The UW study launched nearly 20 years ago, with students at 18 Seattle schools. Nearly half of the 331 students were Black. Researchers surveyed students and parents, then followed up with participants in 10th grade and at age 20 to learn more about behavior and consequences. Full data are available on 261 participants.

Differences were clear early on. While there were no differences in self-reported illegal behavior between Black and white youth at 8th grade, 37% of Black teens said they had had some sort of contact with police, compared to 22% of white eighth-graders.

Researchers examined two trends at age 20: whether study participants had been arrested in the past year and whether they had engaged in any illegal activity, from violent crime to drug use to other criminal behavior, such as drawing graffiti, stealing from a store or breaking into private property. The idea, researchers said, was to determine not only who was being arrested, but also who was not.

Significantly more white participants reported engaging in some level of criminal behavior: 53% of white young adults, compared to 32% of Black young adults. But at age 20, Black youth were more than twice as likely to be arrested as white youth (15% compared to 6%). When the eighth-grade police contact is taken into account, it shows that early police contact for Black youth was uniquely predictive of being arrested by age 20, but not for white youth.

Simply put, Black respondents experiencing police contact by eighth grade have an 11 times greater chance of reporting an arrest by age 20 than Black respondents who did not experience early police contact. This was not the case for white youth.

The study was unable to explore the reasons behind these differences, but researchers said the results are clear:

"White people are engaging in more illegal behavior, largely because of their greater drug use, and getting arrested less often at age 20 than Black people, who are committing fewer crimes and getting arrested more," said co-author Kevin Haggerty, a professor in the UW School of Social Work and director of the Social Development Research Group.

Of the 261 respondents surveyed as young adults, white respondents were more likely to report illegal behavior than Black respondents (53% and 32%, respectively), primarily because they were substantially more likely than Blacks to report illegal drug use (40% and 14%, respectively).

While the data was collected in Seattle, researchers say the patterns they found are likely occurring in cities around the country -- Seattle is "more like every other town" than some larger metro areas like Chicago and Philadelphia, where many criminal justice studies are located, noted co-author Robert Crutchfield, a professor emeritus of sociology at the UW.

The bulk of the UW research was conducted before the 2012 Seattle Police Department consent decree with the U.S. Justice Department, whereby the department was to address an excessive use of force, Crutchfield pointed out.

Still, the indisputable differences in the experiences of Black and white youth raise a number of policy and institutional issues. The authors note that it's not just the quantity but the quality of stops - what are often called "investigatory stops" of a young person that raise alarm.

"When police interact with communities, and young people in communities, they have to be especially mindful of the nature and substance of the encounters, and police really need training to avoid negative interactions," Crutchfield said. "What we found is that contact matters. In this study, we couldn't parse out the nature of the interactions, but I suspect most kids experienced the interaction in a negative way. The message is, cops need to do better to minimize unnecessary contacts, and when they do contact people, to treat them better."

The paper's findings also may support the choice by some school districts to end the practice of deploying police officers in schools, the authors said. Given the tendency for school resource officers to get involved in school discipline -- though their primary assignment is to enforce the law and keep buildings safe -- it presents another situation where Black students are often treated differently than white students.

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The study was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Martie Skinner, a research scientist at the UW Social Development Research Group, was a co-author.

PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

Mass incarceration results in significant increases in industrial emissions, study finds

PORTLAND STATE UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

Mass incarceration is as much an environmental problem as it is a social one, according to a new Portland State University study that finds increases in incarceration are significantly associated with increases in industrial emissions.

Julius McGee, the study's lead author and an environmental sociologist, argues that the construction and maintenance of prisons, the production of goods and materials used inside prisons and the use of prison labor to manufacture industrial equipment for the government and private companies all contribute to increased emissions.

"As we shift the population into prisons, we see a clear impact on how economic development contributes to emissions," said McGee, an assistant professor of urban studies and Black Studies at PSU.

The prison population began to grow in the 1970s, largely as a punitive response to the social movements that emerged post-World War II, McGee said. Today, more than 2.3 million people are incarcerated in the U.S.

Between 1980 and 2004, 936 prisons were built in the U.S., compared with the 711 prisons built in the 168 years prior. McGee says the construction of new prisons, as well as the renovation of existing prisons, require substantial amounts of fossil fuels. Cement, for example, is one of the largest emitters of carbon dioxide in the built environment.

"This is housing infrastructure that otherwise wouldn't have been built," McGee said, adding that most incarcerated people are forcibly removed from inner-city neighborhoods and transported to massive warehouse-like structures in rural areas.

Mass incarceration disproportionately affects black and brown people -- those whose contributions to carbon dioxide emissions are relatively small, McGee said. But once they go to prison, they become coerced consumers of industrial goods and increased industrial activity. Prisoners require beds, clothing, hygiene products and furniture -- and the prison supply companies that manufacture and distribute these goods have continuously expanded their production in response to a growing incarcerated population.

Lastly, prison labor programs help to stimulate industrial growth by reducing the cost of labor. Prisoners are paid as little as $.023 to $1.15 per hour or sometimes not at all.

"Employment in industrial manufacturing has gone down, but manufacturing in total dollars has not gone down," McGee said. "What's changed is where the labor and jobs are."

If companies did not use prison labor, McGee says, they'd use unionized labor, which requires them to invest more in workers and less into expanding growth.

"Industrial manufacturing has exploited workers, consumers, and the environment by continually reducing the cost of labor, increasing the demand of industrial goods, and increasing the use of fossil fuels," the study reads. "Incarceration allows these patterns to continue unabated, and in many instances provides the tools necessary to accelerate the pace at which such patterns recur."

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The findings were published in the journal Social Currents. Co-authors include Patrick Greiner, an assistant professor of sociology at Vanderbilt University, and Carl Appleton, a PSU graduate and now Ph.D. student in George Mason University's Criminology, Law and Society program.

 

The climate changed rapidly alongside sea ice decline in the north

UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN

Research News

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IMAGE:  "WE HAVE INVESTIGATED HOW THE SEA ICE COVER CHANGED DURING THE LAST GLACIAL PERIOD IN BOTH MARINE CORES AND ICE CORES, " SAYS HELLE ASTRID KJÆR, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR AT THE NIELS... view more 

CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN

Researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen have, in collaboration with Norwegian researchers in the ERC Synergy project, ICE2ICE, shown that abrupt climate change occurred as a result of widespread decrease of sea ice. This scientific breakthrough concludes a long-lasting debate on the mechanisms causing abrupt climate change during the glacial period. It also documents that the cause of the swiftness and extent of sudden climate change must be found in the oceans.

Scientific evidence for abrupt climate change in the past finally achieved

During the last glacial period, app. 10,000 - 110,000 years ago the northern hemisphere was covered in glacial ice and extensive sea ice, covering the Nordic seas. The cold glacial climate was interrupted by periods of fast warmup of up to 16.5 degrees Celsius over the Greenland ice sheet, the so called Dansgaard Oeschger events (D-O).

These rapid glacial climate fluctuations were discovered in the Greenland ice core drillings decades ago, but the cause of them have been hotly contested. D-O events are of particular significance today as the rate of warming seems to be very much like what can be observed in large parts of the Arctic nowadays. The new results show that the abrupt climate change in the past was closely linked to the quick and extensive decline in sea ice cover in the Nordic seas. Very important knowledge as sea ice is presently decreasing each year.

"Our, up until now, most extensive and detailed reconstruction of sea ice documents the importance of the rapid decrease of sea ice cover and the connected feedback mechanisms causing abrupt climate change", says Henrik Sadatzki, first author of the study.

Sediment core and ice core data were combined in order to achieve the result

The Norwegian researchers investigated two sediment cores from the Norwegian sea and the Danish researchers investigated an ice core from East Greenland for changes in the sea ice cover. Both sediment and ice cores were meticulously dated and further linked to one another through several volcanic layers of ash (tephra) identified in both.

Past sea ice cover was reconstructed in the marine cores by observing the relation between specific organic molecules produced by algea living in sea ice and others by algea living in ice free waters. In the Renland ice core from East Greenland the researchers looked at the content of Bromin. This content is connected to newly formed sea ice, since Bromin contents increase when sea ice is formed. A robust chronology and sea ice information in both sediment cores and the ice core could be established and used to investigate the extent of the sea ice changes in the Nordic seas during the last glacial period.

"We have investigated how the sea ice cover changed during the last glacial period in both marine cores and ice cores. With the high resolution in our data sets we are able to see that the Nordic seas, during the rapid climate changes in the glacial period, change from being covered in ice all year round to having seasonal ice cover. This is knowledge we can apply in our improved understanding of how the sea ice decline we observe today may impact the climate in the Arctic", says Helle Astrid Kjær, Associate professor at the Ice, Climate and Geophysics section at the Niels Bohr Institute.

Sea ice changes in the past show how the climate today can change abruptly

The data the group of researchers present shows that the Nordic seas were covered by extensive sea ice in cold periods, while warmer periods are characterized by reduced, seasonal sea ice, as well as rather open ice free oceans. "Our records show that the extensive decline in sea ice could have happened during a period of 250 years or less, simultaneously with a phase in which the water in the oceans to the north mixed with the Nordic sea, and that this situation led to sudden changes in atmospheric warming", says Henrik Sadatzki.

As the Nordic seas changed abruptly from ice covered to open sea, the energy from the warmer ocean water was released to the cold atmosphere, leading to amplification of sudden warming of the climate. The result of the study documents that sea ice is a "tipping element" in the tightly coupled ocean-ice-climate system. This is particularly relevant today, as the still more open ocean to the north can lead to similar abrupt climate change.

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