Community Leaders to Discuss Poverty Solutions
February 19, 2010 Buffalo News
In these tough economic times, some community leaders are coming together to help with a problem that is no small issue in Western New York. Professors from local colleges will present their thoughts and research at a Buffalo Poverty Research Workshop on Friday, February 26, at the Merriweather Library in the City of Buffalo. The discussion will run from 1-4PM, with a reception from 4-5PM.
The speakers plan to present their recent findings and research about Western New York's economic crisis and suggest innovative ways to help lessen the effect of poverty on residents. The workshop will allow the following five experts an opportunity to collaborate with other scholars and the community to make a difference:
Dr. Kathryn Foster, director of the University at Buffalo (UB) Regional Institute, will give a presentation entitled "Ladders without Rungs: Recent Findings on Poverty and Low-Wage Work in Buffalo Niagara".
Dr. Wende Mix, a professor of the geography department at Buffalo State College, will discuss how geography affects urban poverty.
Dr. Samina Raja, a professor in UB's urban and regional planning department, will discuss her work with the Massachusetts Avenue Project (MAP), a local organization that helps make healthy and nutritious food more accessible and affordable.
Dr. Erin Robinson, a sociology professor at Canisius College, will present her findings, "Creating Peoples Park: Redefining Urban Space through Community Based Research in Buffalo, New York".
Dr. Henry Taylor, director of the Center for Urban Studies at UB, will give a presentation on "Using Research to Support the CAO-Keep Buffalo Neat Workforce Development Initiative."
Sam Magavern, co-director of the Partnership for the Public Good (PPG), who is co-sponsoring the workshop, emphasized that poverty is a huge problem all over the country. However, he noted that residents of the City of Buffalo face especially high rates of economic difficulty.
"The Buffalo metro region has a poverty rate of around 13 percent to 14 percent - unacceptably high, but fairly average for the U.S.," Magavern said. "The City of Buffalo has an astronomically high rate of around 30 percent."
Magavern said that although the professors will have different solutions and perspectives on how to reduce poverty, his organization recommends some important basic steps. According to Magavern, PPG advises that communities start by "expanding living wage policies, reforming economic development subsidies, and using disadvantaged workers to do block by block green rehab of abandoned and deteriorated housing."
Obviously, poverty cannot be solved overnight, and this workshop is one step toward helping an issue that is bigger than any one person. However, the fact that these experts are brainstorming and trying to come up with ways to solve the problem suggests that, with some collaboration and effort, difference can come slowly.
"Researchers and community groups are collaborating in unique and effective ways to fight Buffalo's poverty problems," Magavern said. "We want to highlight some of that work and encourage a lot more of it, because making a dent in this terrible problem requires 'all hands on deck'."
Crime, Punishment, and Mental Illness
Law and the Behavioral Sciences in Conflict
Patricia E. Erickson and Steven K. Erickson
"A provocative, challenging, and thoughtful multi-disciplinary investigation of one of the most serious social issues we face. This is a major contribution to the literature."
- Michael Perlin, professor of law, Director, International Mental Disability Law Reform Project, and Director, Online Mental Disability Law Program,
New York Law School
Hundreds of thousands of the inmates who populate the nation's jails and prison systems today are identified as mentally ill. Many experts point to the deinstitutionalization of mental hospitals in the 1960s, which led to more patients living on their own, as the reason for this high rate of incarceration. But this explanation does not justify why our society has chosen to treat these people with punitive measures.
In Crime, Punishment, and Mental Illness, Patricia E. Erickson and Steven K. Erickson explore how societal beliefs about free will and moral re¬sponsibility have shaped current policies and they identify the differences among the goals, ethos, and actions of the legal and health care systems. Drawing on high-profile cases, the authors provide a critical analysis of topics, including legal standards for competency, insanity versus mental illness, sex offenders, psychologically disturbed juveniles, the injury and death rates of mentally ill prisoners due to the inappropriate use of force, the high level of suicide, and the release of mentally ill individuals from jails and prisons who have received little or no treatment.
Patricia Erickson is a professor at Canisius College, where she serves as chair of the department of sociology, anthropology, and criminal justice.
Steven Erickson is a forensic psychologist, practicing attorney, and a Mental Illness Research, Education and Clinical Centers (MIRECC) fellow at Yale University.
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