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A recently introduced bill could have far-reaching impact on the U.S. sugar industry, including American Crystal Sugar, a farmer-owned cooperative that locked out 1,300 Midwest workers on Aug. 1.
The chairman for Herman Cain’s Iowa effort says the campaign “relied more on the word of farmers than Washington regulators” in deciding to run an ad containing claims the Environmental Protection Agency says are false.
The Iowa Senate will remain under the control of a slim 26-25 Democratic majority when it reconvenes in January 2012.
Iowa’s reputation for imprisoning African-American adults at a rate higher than any other state in the nation and its high arrest and detention rate of black juveniles must end, said Gov. Chet Culver to a crowd who gathered for the sixth annual Disproportionate Minority Confinement (DMC) Conference held on Thursday in Des Moines.
“This is a distinction that we don’t want,” Culver said. “And we all know that we must and can do better.”
Culver laid out three steps his office has taken to reduce the racial disparities in Iowa’s prisons, juvenile justice system and public schools.
“Unfortunately, on too many occasions, racial disparities still exist in our society and in our institutions,” Culver said. “This is wrong and it is time for us to do something about it.”
But a researcher and adjunct professor from the University of Iowa who organized the three-day conference, which ends tomorrow, said it could take years before the racial disparities are reduced — and it probably won`t happen while Culver is in office.
“I think we can bring the numbers down considerably, but can we bring them down one to one? I don’t know if we’ll ever reach that,” said Brad Richardson, coordinator of Iowa’s DMC Resource Center, which is part of the National Resource Center for Family Centered Practice.
About 350 people attended the conference. Dozens of experts from across the nation presented information on the causes of the racial disparities and how to better serve minority populations. The conference runs from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday at the Downtown Holiday Inn.
Blacks are the hardest hit by the disparities found in Iowa’s prisons, juvenile detention centers and school discipline rates. Blacks account for just 2.3 percent of Iowa’s population, but 25 percent of its prison population. Black juveniles are arrested at five times the rate of whites. Blacks account for 5 percent of Iowa’s public school enrollment, but 22 percent of school suspensions.
Culver told conference-goers the state will work to “eradicate the problems of racial disparity in Iowa, whether it exists in hiring practices, in our schools, in our businesses or in our correctional system.”
Proposals from a group Culver convened last April to study the racial disparities in the prison system will go before the Iowa Legislature in January, he said. His office is working with the Iowa Department of Education to identify why black children are suspended at a higher rate than whites. Culver signed an executive order last month creating the Youth Race And Detention Task Force that will make recommendations to ensure that young minorities are “fairly and justly” treated by the system and to develop policies to combat recidivism.
“Let me make it clear, it is my administration’s policy to end the overrepresentation of minorities in Iowa’s correction system for adults and juveniles,” Culver said.
Shay Bilchik, director for the Center for Juvenile Justice Report and Systems Integration at Georgetown University, told gatherers that most studies show there is no evidence that the racial disparities in the child welfare system occur because of higher rates of abuse and neglect. The studies show there is “no significant difference” in the crime rates between blacks and whites in the juvenile justice system, he said.
“I will take the position that it is indeed both of these things that come into play that leads to the disproportionality that’s present both in child welfare and juvenile justice — a broad set of underlying societal issues and system decision-making contributing to the problem as well,” he said.
More must be done to help families mired in poverty, improve access to job training for adults and youth, and keep families connected to education, among other things, Bilchik said.
“We have failed our children, and in particular we have failed our children of color,” he said. “We have failed to treat them and their families equitably and equally in how we ensure children of color have the connections to people who provide not only safety and well-being, but a permanence that includes those intimate relationships to provide healing power and a bridge to a healthy future.”
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