Berk’s incarceration rates reflect those of Texas, Alabama

by Steve Reinbrecht

The United States is renowned for the rate at which it locks up citizens, and Berks reflects the trends.

Berks’ incarceration rate more than tripled from 1970 to 2014, according to new, county-level data from the Vera Institute, which calls itself “an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit center for justice policy and practice.”

In that period, the county population grew about 40 percent, from 296,000 to about 414,000.

Berks’ rising incarceration rate matched those of the U.S. and Pennsylvania until leaping significantly higher in 2001. In 2005, the latest available for state and federal figures, Berks’ incarceration rate was way above the state and national levels. Berks’ incarceration rate peaked in 2006 at 489 adults per 100,000 and dropped to 383 by 2014.

The interactive website also shows how Berks compares to counties across America with populations of similar sizes. Berks' profile matches counties in Texas and Alabama much more closely than those in Michigan, Minnesota or New Hampshire.

Berks’ incarceration rate was higher than most neighboring counties but lower than Lehigh and Lebanon counties.

In 2014, according to state figures, nearly 6,800 people were “admitted” to the Berks County jail, which housed about 1,200 a day, on average.

Vera’s website says its Incarceration Trends project “aims to inform the public debate on mass incarceration and help guide change by providing easily accessible information on the number of people in jails and prisons for every county in the United States.”

While large prisons get a lot of attention, small jails like Berks’ have driven the steep rise in the national incarceration rate. And many are in the cells because they can’t pay bail.

“One third of incarcerated men and women are in our city and county jails, and the research is clear: Reducing the over-use of pretrial detention will reduce the size of both our jails and our prisons,” its report states.

“Mid-sized and small counties—which account for the vast majority of jails -- have largely driven growth, with local jail populations increasing since 1970 by 4.1 times in mid-sized counties and 6.9 times in small counties. In contrast, jail populations in large counties grew by 2.8 times.”

The Reading Eagle is very upset about the death-penalty system, publishing thousands of words about the subject.

But what about the thousands of local people incarcerated in Berks County Jail?

A few years ago, I was astounded to learn that most people in our jail are there because they haven’t posted bail.

The Eagle did run a story Saturday about Vera’s project to examine jails at the county level across the U.S.

But did our professional truth-seekers bother to report any of the data about Berks County, a click away at the Vera Institute’s website?

Nah. Too many Christmas events to cover.

Berks economy is stagnant because of poor leadership, crony journalism

by Steve Reinbrecht

To the tax-haters in Berks County, the front page of the Reading Eagle on Friday warned that your payments to support county government are going to rise if more people and businesses don’t move here.

The reporter wrote:

“If the county's property tax base continues to stagnate, budget chief Robert Patrizio warned, commissioners are going to face some tough choices about spending and taxes in the future.

“ ‘This has to be our No. 1 initiative,’ he said of efforts to grow the county's property tax base. ‘We have to find a way to get development in this county.’ "

Off Buttonwood Street in Reading

Why won’t Wegman’s build here? Berks’ economic activity is stagnant for many reasons. And the lack of good reporting on Berks’ serious issues has contributed to our local lack of progress. You can’t fix problems until you identify and understand them.

The county’s economic-development leaders have held their jobs for years with very little to justify their often taxpayer-subsidized salaries. If they identify practical goals and report on their progress, you won’t read them in the Reading Eagle. 

Jon Scott at the Greater Berks Economic Partnership, Ed Swoyer at the absolutely opaque Greater Berks Development Fund, Adam Mukerji at the Reading Redevelopment Authority, Lenin Agudo, the community development director in Reading City Hall, Ellen Horan at the business Chamber, Crystal Seitz at the visitor’s bureau – none is held accountable for demonstrating effective outcomes.

Investors shun Berks because it’s hard to get here. What other city is so isolated? We have no passenger rail or air service. To get to central Berks from Allentown and the north, you drive for miles of one-lane congestion on Route 222. Coming from Philadelphia and the east, you drive through endless traffic lights on Route 422 in Douglassville and Exeter Township. Or take the turnpike for a fee and lots of extra miles. From the west, you’ll get a close look at dozens of intersections on Route 422 from Lebanon through West Reading. 

In the south, we did get a beautiful expressway, Route 222, which my daughters drive to Park City Mall, outside Lancaster, because Berks has no shops they like. The state provided $140 million for highway work in Berks – to improve Interstate 78 so people can drive THROUGH Berks County faster.

The lack of adequate road access is due to the county’s lack of political clout, demonstrated by the obvious gerrymandering that has made Reading irrelevant on the state and national levels.

Here is another example of local leadership failing to lead. The Democratic political machine here can’t handle its responsibilities. The city of Reading will get nowhere without reasonable diplomacy with county and state officials. But the Dems can line up no one better than Vaughn Spencer or Wally Scott to tell the city’s story and grovel for help. 

Entrepreneurs have told me they won’t invest in Reading because they perceived it was corrupt. That perception has become a well-publicized reality.

I suspect Berks County suffers from a xenophobic business climate that favors established businesses over newcomers, discouraging the kind of innovation that is fueling development in the Lehigh Valley and other places. Do banks operating locally loan to minority entrepreneurs? They are not publicly embracing new credit-risk assessments designed to make it easier for deserving poor people and young people to borrow. The Chamber of Commerce promotes right-wing policy that channels growth to the wealthy and leaves the middle class struggling, and not spending, and thus not creating demand for jobs.

From the Chamber of Commerce's tax form

Reading has missed out on economic- development aid from the state. Bethlehem and Lancaster won tax advantages over Reading because of Reading’s shoddy application. 

Berks has received a paucity of development grants from the Ben Franklin Technology Partners compared to Bethlehem, York, and Scranton. On Oct. 15, Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern Pennsylvania announced $651,600 in loans to help young companies in the 21-county region. Berks got $25,000 for one company, about 4 percent of the total.

What’s the progress on the Ride to Prosperity? Berks didn’t regain its pre-recession peak employment [175,800 in July 2007] until December 2014, although it rose through 2015 to 177,000 in October. Economic development officials say we need “shovel ready” sites. So where are they creating them?

Our schools are mediocre. In a ranking of 681 state highschools, Wilson was 105th, Boyertown was 137th, and Wyomissing was 233rd. I’m sure our talented children can’t wait to leave. But that’s OK. Berks has also led the charge to defund public schools even further.

Do we really want visitors? If so, we need to get better people to run the visitor’s bureau. “Take a ride” is the motto; it sounds like “take a hike.” The agency, which got $50,000 in tax money in 2014, paid its president, Crystal Seitz, $135,000 that year. Is she worth it? How do we know?

Drivel from the visitor's bureau website

Once I called the bureau for information about an attraction. A staffer told me she shouldn’t tell me because the business I was interested in was not a member. So it’s clear the bureau, like so many Berks agencies, is more interested in internal politics and survival than serving its mission.

One whopping reason Berks can’t escape its lackluster growth is that Berks’ media – the Reading Eagle, WFMZ, bctv.org – don’t adequately cover the news in Berks. They hold no one accountable. They create no record to hold elected officials to. They ask no tough questions on practical issues. They don’t cover deep problems with health-care access, education, politics, or the environment because advertisers want to project the image that everything is wonderful here, so buy the new car. 

The media are happy to reinforce the world view that everything is OK in Berks County, from the environment to the economy; that people with brown skin cause our problems; and that what we celebrate is celebrated for Christian people who believe themselves white. That sells the media's products, but does nothing to solve the problems limiting our economic growth.

Berks is a great example of the biggest problem in U.S. government

by Steve Reinbrecht

Look at a map,and it's hard to find a place more gerrymandered than Berks County.

The Reading Eagle had a column about this, on a national level, in its print edition Monday. 
[Here it is on another site. I couldn't find it reprinted on the Eagle's website.]

"The result is catastrophic. Almost every member of Congress is totally protected from political accountability. " the writers said about the U.S. in general.

"Fortunately, in a growing number of states, reformers are working to reverse the damage .... Some are actually succeeding," Cokie and Steven Roberts write.

Is anybody from Berks or representing Berks working on this?

The Reading Eagle should ask elected officials the reasons for their votes

by Steve Reinbrecht

Reading City Council on Tuesday voted 5-1 to appoint John Slifko to fill a vacancy until the end of the year.

The Reading Eagle was there, but didn’t do its job -- finding out why elected officials vote the way they do.

If only one person resists a unanimous vote, it’s often for a good reason. The Establishment values unanimity and pressures people who rock the boat.

So let’s hear from the boat-rockers, especially on important things like the composition of Reading City Council.

“Councilman Chris Daubert cast the lone vote against Slifko. He did not say why,” the Eagle reported.

Daubert told me later that he was surprised nobody from the Eagle asked him why, and he gave me his reasons for his no-vote on Slifko.

“I voted the way I voted because I didn't have him ranked as the best candidate, all things considered. (Experience with budget, etc.)

“I also am not a fan of appointing someone who has never run for the office or garnered votes for the office. I am beholden to the people that elected me.

“Anyone that is appointed has Council members to thank, not the people. I'd support a change to the Charter to eliminate long-term appointments, but that doesn't fit in this case as it is only for four months.

“Why I didn't speak up in the meeting to explain my vote was very truly out of respect for my colleagues and for Mr. Slifko. He was going to be appointed, regardless of my vote.

“I spoke with him before I voted to let him know why I was doing what I was doing. I really didn't want to ruin it for him, as I have nothing against him. He's a smart and nice guy.

“I was really expecting a question which I would have then answered just as I shared with you.”

State Rep. Jim Cox mails Republican propaganda at taxpayers’ expense

by Steve Reinbrecht

My state representative, Jim Cox, mailed us a “newsletter” a couple of weeks ago.

Cox represents much of Berks County west of Reading. His mailing is meant to look informative but is more a GOP party propaganda tool. 

It has the Republican line on the state budget and the “Property Tax Independence Act.” It includes a “survey” supposedly to garner constituent opinion. One asks about “welfare reform,” emphasizing the abuse that in GOP mythology is ruining budgets. 

But cracking down on poor people is the last thing Cox should be worried about.
In 2014:

• More than 190,000 Pennsylvania residents were enrolled in Temporary Aid for Needy Families [TANF], about one out of every 67 residents.
• The inspector general’s office reviewed 977 fraud tips involving TANF, about one for every 195 recipients.
• The office filed welfare-fraud charges against 162 people in the TANF program, about one for every 1,175 recipients.
• The office convicted 62 individuals in the TANF program, or about one of every 3,070 recipients.
• The fraud totaled almost $400,000, or about four-hundredths of a percent of the more than $1 billion in TANF expenses.

[This from Department of Human Services and Office of Inspector General spokespeople.]

Cox’s newsletter says:

“WELFARE REFORM: Legislators routinely hear about welfare recipients who abuse the system. While offenders are often prosecuted when caught, far too many welfare recipients continue to misuse the money provided to help them.

“QUESTION 10: Do you support or oppose strengthening state laws to fight welfare abuse and bring to justice those individuals who misuse the social safety net?

“□ I support taking stronger actions to penalize people who abuse the welfare system.

“□ I oppose taking strong actions to penalize people who abuse the welfare system.”

Now you decide. Is this a priority for state lawmakers? What about tax fraud – people not paying their taxes? Why not let Cox know what you think about the matter?

True journalists on the job in Berks County might challenge our elected officials on some of their bullshit and hold them accountable to the real needs of residents: better education and career training, better infrastructure, more help for researchers, innovators and libraries. None of these issues is mentioned in the newsletter.

Google alerts, FB consistently scoop Reading Eagle

I often learn more news about Berks County from Google alerts and Facebook than I do from the Reading Eagle pseudo-newspaper.

Some recent examples:

Cultural sensitivity? Did you know that Ramadan has started? Other local newspapers realize the importance and help explain the holiday to non-Muslims, but not the Reading Eagle. Not that the Eagle is shy about religion – if it’s the Christian kind. Its Christmas coverage goes on ad nauseum for days, and it carries a daily Bible verse and weekly columns about local churches. But Ramadan? Meh.

Hundreds if not thousands of Muslims live in Berks, and many families worship at its two Islamic centers. If you haven’t noticed, Muslims have been in the news a lot lately, often the victims of misperception, prejudice and stigma. Often it’s the media that maintain the misperception, prejudice and stigma. Other local news organizations had stories last week. 

The Reading mayoral election? Al Walentis, not the award-winning Reading Eagle, broke the news on his blog about retailer Al Boscov providing $70,000 to Reading Mayor Vaughn Spencer for his campaign:

“It shows that the Albert Boscov money spigot is at full guzzle feeding the mayor's campaign coffers. Naturally, some might question whether one individual should have such influence in a municipal election. What might Albert Boscov be hoping for in return?” 

When the Eagle editors thought they had figured out how to spin the story without embarrassing Boscov, a major advertiser and de facto but untrained city planner, the result was pathetic.

Deportations? I didn’t see anything in the Eagle about a judge’s dramatic order June 19 to stop the deportation of a woman and her child from a Berks detention center. But other media have the fascinating story.

“A U.S. Court of Appeals judge has ordered U.S. officials to intercept a mother and her 12-year-old daughter on a plane Friday being deported to Guatemala and immediately return them to the United States.

“The 34-year-old mother, Ana, and her daughter were woken up at 3 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time on Friday and pulled from their rooms at a [Berks] Pennsylvania family detention center, where they had been living for over a year, said her attorney, Bridget Cambria. By 10 a.m., the two were placed on a plane flying to Panama City, where they would catch a second flight to Guatemala City.

“In a rare move that will likely draw more attention to the controversial practice of family detention, Chief Judge Theodore A. McKee of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals ordered U.S. officials to stop Ana and her daughter when they arrive in Guatemala City and immediately return them to the United States."

The Reading Eagle’s journalism produced this headline about the center, which it had ignored for years: “Berks County Residential Center: 'family friendly' or 'bad'?”

Pedestrian killed? I first learned that a woman had been killed on Route 422 in Lower Heidelberg Township on Facebook. Other news media identify her and talk of a fight and bikers at a barbecue joint. The Eagle can’t get the story because its reporters no longer seem to develop sources. I can’t remember the coroner’s office not releasing basic info if the police won’t. The Eagle’s lack of credibility has injured it.

Same with a story about possibly contaminated water at a Berks bottling company. A warning from the state came out June 19; nothing in the Eagle as of Sunday night, June 21.

How about this: Police say 30-year-old former teacher Jonathan Ruppert of Hamburg sexually assaulted a 17-year-old student in a Lebanon High School classroom in April.

You can read about it everywhere but the Reading Eagle, because although it LOOKS like a newspaper, it really isn’t one.

We need to know why police can search people's houses, and the Reading Eagle should tell us

One great thing about America is that we have the right to say “No!” when government agents want to, or are ordered to, search our houses and vehicles.

In 2014, Pennsylvania’s top judges decided that cops don’t need to convince a judge to sign a warrant to search your car.

But as far as I know they still need a warrant to get around the Fourth Amendment and search your house without your permission.

And because we rely on the news media to be the watchdog for our rights, reporters who write about police searching homes should always find out why the police were allowed to do the search.

On June 16, the Reading Eagle had a story about Spring Township police arresting two 20-something brothers after finding 2 pounds of marijuana, guns and $3,000 in their home.

“Detective Steve Brock said the search of the residence was conducted June 2 after investigators responded to complaints from residents about suspected illegal drug activity.”

We’re all glad these pot dealers were busted, because their guns were really dangerous. Though now their disappointed customers might have to turn to smoking bath salts or toxic synthetic "marijuana," or alcohol or other Establishment-approved anti-depressants.

But this is where the rubber hits the road with respect to the Big Question of government: How to balance the rights of the individual with the good of society?

This is the exact spot where I want my local media to shine their lights upon, for us all to see exactly how public-safety policy is working. No need to remind you that police behavior is generally under scrutiny lately.

The Eagle reporter should have reported:
• Did the suspects give permission to search?
• Did the police get a search warrant?
• If they did, who was the judge?
• What was the “probable cause,” the reasons why the police believe a crime was probably committed?
• Are reports by suspicious neighbors enough to get a search warrant? The story suggests it is.

In an e-mail, Detective Brock told me: “The incident was based off citizen complaints about drug activity at the residence. The search of the residence was consensual.”

I bet he would have explained it to the Eagle reporter.

Of course, most of us are very law-abiding and never have contraband. So what’s the big fuss? An editor, Dave Warner, once told me it’s the oozing stories – where something slowly, apparently innocently creeps into the world – that are more important than the breaking-news stories.

By publicizing the oozing signs of the erosion of human rights, better journalism could have benefited many societies in the world that are in trouble now. But of course the Establishment leaders always get control of the media and use them for their agendas, not to publish truth.

In the New World Order, when I am appointed editor of the Reading Eagle, I will insist that reporters always ask police chiefs the reasons their officers search pockets, homes and vehicles.

Once I went, as the managing editor of bctv.org, to the state police headquarters for a forum on trooper-journalist relations. I told the room full of troopers and mostly TV reporters that news releases about vehicle stops should always include the probable cause.

I was quickly surrounded by in-leaning troopers decrying my attack on their ability to do their job. Later, one trooper more gently told me that frankly, people are ignorant of their rights and will quickly consent to a search of their vehicle, and that police depend on this to save themselves a lot of trouble.

I don’t really think the police in Berks are doing anything wrong. They are doing their jobs.

But the Reading Eagle newspaper is not doing its job.