RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week
March 18toMarch24
Featured Investigation
On March 1, Paul Sperry reported for RealClearInvestigations that under Obama administration efforts to keep students out of prison, Broward County schools in Florida implemented policies by which Nikolas Cruz was able to escape the attention of law enforcement and buy the weapon he used to slaughter 17 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Now Sperry reports that those lenient policies are only part of the fraught story of school discipline in Broward County. It has a reverse, "prison to school pipeline" too, funneling back into regular classrooms thousands of other potentially dangerous students released from local jails. Sperry reports: Through a little-known "re-engagement" program for serious juvenile offenders, the Florida district has "transitioned" back to school almost 2,000 incarcerated students, a number comparable to student bodies at many high schools, according to district data obtained by RealClearInvestigations. Local probation officers warn that these offenders have a high risk of reoffending. Another initiative, the Behavior Intervention Program, attempts to mainstream a smaller number of "students who exhibit severe, unmanageable behavior," according to a 2017-2018 program handbook, including those who are "convicted of a serious crime such as rape, murder, attempted murder, sexual battery or firearm related [offense]." The number of returning felons and other serious offenders has climbed each year since Broward Schools Supt. Robert Runcie, a close ally of President Obama, started the program in 2013 as part of his crusade to "end the school-to-prison pipeline," which he says has disproportionately harmed young African-American men. Sperry's reporting suggests a lack of transparency in the program. Just how effectively the program is working - whether returning offenders are benefiting from a second chance or harming others, or if the picture is mixed - remains an open question because the school district declines to provide details, case studies or outcomes. Cassandra Evans, Broward County's chief juvenile probation officer, has issued a general warning that juveniles transitioning out of secure detention have a high recidivism rate. "This population is highly at risk of reoffending within the first 45 days [of release],"she saidat a recent Department of Juvenile Justice advisory board meeting. Some critics complain that the entire program is shrouded in secrecy. "I know about the program and I'm against it," said Lowell Levine, founder and president ofthe Stop Bullying Now Foundationin Lake Worth, Fla., in Palm Beach County about 30 miles north of the Parkland school. "But the majority of parents have no clue about the program, or that their child could be sitting next to a violent convicted gang member." Read Full Article Other Noteworthy Articles and Series Facebook Losing Face
Guardian, Daily Caller, Channel 4
Facebook provoked American and British inquiries and wide public scorn this week over news of massive data harvesting said to have help elect Donald Trump in 2016, in the much same way such fine-grained personal information was exploited for President Obama's re-election in 2012. The earlier effort was praised in the media at the time and, it now seems, Facebook actively assisted in it. This time the data was reportedly sucked up by Cambridge Analytica, founded by former Trump adviser Steve Bannon and Republican donor Robert Mercer. (Its boss was shown in clandestine video this week discussing potential bribery and entrapment to affect elections around the world.) But the Trump campaign says it never used the data, and Facebook disavowed knowledge of its harvesting. For Facebook, the opposite was apparently true four years before when its policies were more lax. An ex-Obama data honcho tweeted this week that the social-media giant "allowed us to do things they wouldn't have allowed someone else to do because they were on our side." Age Bias as 'Old Heads' Roll at IBM
ProPublica, Mother Jones
As it scrambled to compete in the internet age, once-dominant tech company IBM cut tens of thousands of American workers, hitting its most senior employees hardest and flouting rules against age bias, a joint investigation by ProPublica and Mother Jones found. Among other tactics, it found, IBM encouraged employees targeted for layoff to apply for other jobs at the company, while quietly advising managers not to hire them and requiring many of the workers to train their replacements. IRS Documented 1.3M Identity Thefts by Illegal Aliens
CNS News
The Internal Revenue Service documented more than 1.3 million cases of identity theft perpetrated by illegal aliensbetween 2011 and 2016. Also, in 2017 alone, there were some 1.2 million cases of illegal aliens filing tax returns using fraudulent Social Security numbers. The IRS could not say if any of these cases were referred for criminal prosecution. A Million Missing Children in the 2010 Census
FiveThirtyEight
There's an epidemic of missing children - at the Census Bureau. In 2010, an estimated one million children under age of 5 year didn't show up in the survey. And unlike other age groups, for whom the count has improved over time, the count of young kids seems to be getting less accurate since 1980. It's not exactly clear why so many kids don't get counted. The rise of split and non-traditional families is part of the answer, as is the increase in illegal immigrants. N.J.: He Told Cops 'I'm a F--king Judge' ... and Beat DWI Rap
NJ.com
Drunken tirades don't seem like the best way to get out of a DWI arrest, but that's the strategy a municipal judge in New Jersey pursued in questioning by the police. Wilfredo Benitez was passed out in the driver's seat of his silver BMW hatchback at 2:13 a.m. with his hazard lights flashing along the shoulder of Route 80, records show. Benitez struggled with the field sobriety test, according to a police report, but insisted he wasn't a "drug addict" or "a drunk." He was, he insisted,"af—king judge,"and the officer who was reading him his rights was "being a d--k," a video of the encounter reveals. Russia Helping Venezuela Evade Sanctions With Cryptocoin
Time
Russia keeps finding new ways to support bad actors.In a half-hidden joint venture, it has been helping Venezuela create a new crypto-currency, the Petro, whose aim is to erode the power of sanctions imposed by the United States, Canada, the European Union and several Latin American nations in response to anti-democratic measures taken by the country's socialist leader, Nicholas Maduro. On Facebook, Cabbage Juice Is the New Snake Oil
BuzzFeed
Jillian Mai ThiEpperlyis a woman with a Facebook page and a theory - that all diseases, including cancer, are caused by a fungus called candida that lives in the gut. The way to health, she claims, is through a severely restricted diet accompanied by large quantities of her signature fermented cabbage juice, a purgative whose "healing symptoms" include nausea, headaches, dizziness, and explosive blasts of diarrhea. Scientists call this "absolutely dangerous nonsense." That is, unlike "Colon Blow," it's not funny.
| 
