I found a small article in der Spiegel magazine disturbing although I know there are those who will find in it a good tip, or a good move. I had already read that the Trump administration, in this case the Justice Department under Jeff Sessions, was undoing the phasing out of private prisons begun under the Obama administration. But this article went further. It took notice of this action because Deutsche Bank issued a report saying Continue reading “Private Prison Boom”
Category: Civil Rights
Homicide and Racial Discrimination
It is more likely fort a black man killing a white man to be found guilty than for a white one killing a black one. That is not new. Yet because so many are not yet convinced and because the judicial system does not yet reflect that reality, any study that reinforces that fact, needs to be mentioned and noticed. The Marshall Project which specializes in the criminal justice system did an examination where they looked at 400,000 homicides committed by civilians between 1980 and 2014. They found that when one person killed another, one out of every 100 homicides were found justified. But when a white person killed a black man, 17 out of 100 homicides were found justified. The thing is that to Continue reading “Homicide and Racial Discrimination”
Bias Against Atheists
When I first looked at the headline I thought oh no they’ve documented that atheists aren’t as moral as other people. But when I kept on reading, the article talked about a finding that people believe that atheists aren’t as moral as people who are religious. A study from psychology professors published in Nature Human Behavior journal asked 3000 people from 13 countries across 5 continents whether a person who tortured animals as a child Continue reading “Bias Against Atheists”
Modern Slavery–The Scope of The Problem
We all know that human trafficking is a bane, that it is a form of modern slavery. What is new according to new research by Siddarth Kara, a slavery economist at Harvard Business School and whose book on this subject is soon to be published, is that its scope is much larger than we normally think of. Kara’s research is based on 5000 interviews with people who have been victims of slavery which makes its finding all the more meaningful. Modern slavery involves a minimum of 21 million people and, generates profits that are estimated to be as high as $150 billion a year. Each victim brings about $4000 a year and generates about $36,000 for the traffickers, letting us know that once a victim Continue reading “Modern Slavery–The Scope of The Problem”