Urban Issues

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23432385-2862,00.html

 http://mentalhealth.about.com/b/2003/08/22/more-drug-use-in-bored-rich-and-stressed-teens.htm

                Drug use isn’t just for poor people.  A recent study indicates that teens  with 21-60 dollars a week disposable income were 60 per cent more likely to have used drugs in the past year than those with 20 dollars  or less.  Also students who had more than 60 dollars were more than twice as likely to have used drugs than those with only 20 dollars.  Also students with 25 or more dollars a week were more than twice as likely to get drunk.  This defies the common misconception that drugs are for the poor.  It also opens up a fact that we must realize as drugs are now in all parts of our society. 

                However in my own personal view drugs are not necessarily a bad thing.  The reason people think that drugs are bad is because they are told that they are bad.  If somone can use them safely and responsibly then its up to every individual to decide for themselves wether or not it is something that they wish to experience.  We need to realize that all the anti drug messages arent working kids use drugs anyways and will continue to use them.  We need to come to the realization that drugs have always been a part of our society and that trying to remove them alltogether is impossible we need to try to tame it and incorporate it into our society as many people use drugs and will continue to use drugs wether or not you approve of their behavior.

                 The study also shows that many teens use drugs not because of problems but out of bordem. 

Street violence is a broad topic, but in total it accounts for about one third of all violent crimes. It applies to fatal and non-fatal acts and is closely associated with gang and youth violence. Gang violence accounts for most street homicides and nearly all cities with a population of 100,000 people or more reported street gangs. It’s not something I find surprising, which in a way is even more frightening, it means people have become accustom to having gangs.

http://www.answers.com/topic/street-violence?cat=health http://www.surfsantamonica.com/ssm_site/the_lookout/news/News-2004/Dec-2004/12_07_04_Youth_and_Street_Violence.htm

It’s common knowledge; Look where your walking/stepping . It’s something that we have been taught since that first step at the age of 3. But it seems that not only the youth but the “grown up” have forgotten to pay attention to their footsteps. Studies are showing an increase in accidents from texting. Yes! Texting! I’m not talking about sore thumbs and swollen pinkies; we’re talking about running into things and sever injuries. In places like the UK precautions have been taken in order to soften the blows.

In the towns and the most heavily foot traffic known places the lamppost, telephone poles, and everything else has been padded. Even though all of this …. Padding is happening in Britain the issue is still happening here. Unaware pedestrians hurting themselves, and placing others in danger. In the news a report of a boy who was hit by a train while he was texting with I mobile. How much longer until we need some padding on our main streets.

The Bigger question would be whether or not texting while transporting one’s self should be legal? A huge percentage of people have cell phones. And the AAA has placed a study stating that 46% of teen’s text while driving and that’s just the teens. What about all the adults; who have a larger need of the texting capability.

The trend of texting has become a danger to the functioning of our daily lives.

The pill. It’s maybe even more controversial than sex itself, but its not widely talked about. The the thing that really hits home, is since we hear that many teens are becoming pregnant these days, then why not offer FREE birth control? According to the Department of Health and Human Services these stats state that “Between 2005 and 2006, the birth rate for teenagers 15-19 years rose 3 percent, from 40.5 live births per 1,000 females aged 15-19 years in 2005 to 41.9 births per 1,000 in 2006. This follows a 14-year downward trend in which the teen birth rate fell by 34 percent from its recent peak of 61.8 births per 1,000 in 1991.” And “Between 2005 and 2006, the birth rate rose 3 percent for teens aged 15-17 and 4 percent for teens aged 18-19.” That’s a shocking rise and it’s pretty drastic since it had been a downward trend for 14 years prior. But I have to say that this really grinds my gears. The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) have recieved funding by President Bush’s for teen pregnancy programs, which will be teaching more on the lines of abstinence then safer sex. His budget provides an additional $33 million in funding for the abstinence education, fulfilling the President’s promise to increase abstinence funding to $135 million. This to me makes no sense at all. This is not reality. Teens everyday around the world are having sex. Hormones rage and sometimes you can’t rely on your faith and vales to save you from ripping off all your clothes and jumping into the sack. And i won’t forget to mention the profound sexual images we are being fed everyday. Everything from advertisements, popular television shows, and online. Sex is everywhere, and even though abstinence is the safest way not to get pregnant, its also the dumbest. Cause we aren’t living in a dream world people. I’m not saying that its bad to promote abstinence, cause that could weed out many of teens bad morals and values these days, but i think its dumb not to teach both methods. Abstinence and the proper use of condoms and birth control.

The real matter is those things are available, but now they are getting pricey to attain. The best method between condoms [which are cheaper] and birth control, is birth control. Condoms are better for STD’s but im just talking about pregnancy. Their percentages with effective use range from 64 percent to 97 percent for condoms. With oral contreceptives it’s about 99 percent for the combination pill and about 97 percent for the mini-pill. The prices though are hard to aquire when you’re a teenager in highschool, and of course, you dont want your parents to know when you’re using their insurance to pay 100 to 40 bucks a pop for a packet of 28 day pills from your regular doctor. Planned Parenthood has always provided low cost birth control since the seventies under Title X when it went into affect. But now with a loss of funding to many Planned Parenthoods around the nation its getting harder for them to supply teenage women with the pill. “Most agencies that provide free or low-cost services don’t have tremendous resources,” states Dr. Vannessa Cullins, vice president for Planned Parenthood’s Federations of America and medical affairs. Title X money is now being spent on a broader range of services, like STD testing. And the president’s appropriations for the program have stagnated. Right now, Title X’s annual allotment is $283 million a year; if it kept pace with inflation, that number would be $693 million. But instead of increasing funding, the Bush administration is funneling money to abstinence-only education, like ive stated before. And it doesn’t provide information on contraception or health care.

What a waste of money, on something that could help the lives of so many women and better families altogether.

http://www.alternet.org/story/32759/
http://www.policyalmanac.org/health/archive/hhs_teenage_pregnancy.shtml

I assume most of you know what human trafficking is, but if you didn’t it is the recruitment, transportation, harbouring, or receipt of people for the purpose of exploitation. According to United States State Department data, an “estimated 600,000 to 820,000 men, women, and children are trafficked across international borders each year, approximately 80 percent are women and girls and up to 50 percent are minors. The data also illustrates that the majority of transnational victims are trafficked into commercial sexual exploitation.” This is just a grotesque fact to uncover. Also finding out that it is a seven billion dollar business makes me want to puke. You may now be asking yourself how can this be a corporation? Well many causes of trafficking are linked but not limited to:
Lack of employment opportunities
Organised crime and presence of organised criminal gangs
Regional imbalances
Economic disparities
Social discrimination
Corruption in government
Political instability
Armed conflict
Profitability
Growing deprivation and marginalization of the poor
Insufficient penalties against traffickers
Driven by demand; demand is high for prostitutes and other forms of labor in host countries; therefore there is a very profitable market available to those who wish to become handlers.

According to the UN a major factor that has allowed the growth of sexual trafficking is
“Governments and human rights organizations alike have simply judged the woman guilty of prostitution and minimized the trafficker’s role.”
There are attempts from the government, international associations and nongovernmental organizations to stop trafficking. Some work better then others. The government tries to fight it with laws and legislation. However in the state of Maryland it is considered a felony to have sex with a minor but only a misdeamenor to make it available for those who wish to have sex with a minor. Even though the whole world is trying very hard to win the battle of human trafficking, it is looking harder and harder to fight. Looking at the statistics and facts and even recognizing the stricter laws and enforcement provided to the U.S. The numbers just look like they’re growing everyday.

http://www.humantrafficking.org/

This site gave lots of information and updates on humantrafficking all around the world.
You should definately check it out. Update yourself as well to this certain topic.

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN1157399920080311

 http://www.cdc.gov/NCHSTP/dstd/Stats_Trends/Stats_and_Trends.htm

More than one in every four united states teen girls are infected with at least one sexually transmitted disease. An estimated 3.2 million united states girls ages 14 through 19 about 26 percent of that age group has been infected with a sexually transmitted disease like h.p.v, chlamydia, genital herpes, or trichomoniasis. The majority of the young females receiving the stds are African American then the next race in line is Caucasian and then Mexican American.

the ratios

-48% of black girls.

-20% of white girls.

-20% of mexican girls.

Among the girls who had stds 15% had more than one. 20% of the girls who only had sex with one partner had at least one std. HPV was found in 18 percent of the tested girls.

I find these numbers outrageous and the most defiantly need to be tamed. This is not healthy for the human population once so ever and it is not cool once so ever. In my opinion i believe that the doctors who specialize in this sorta deal really need to find cures and answers fast. I don’t have to much of a response except for the fact i feel this needs to be taken care of a.s.a.p. The std issue in the young society in the world needs to be addressed.

http://www.pewcenteronthestates.org/uploadedFiles/One%20in%20100.pdf

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23392251/

                If you read these you’ll see that in the United States there is now 1 person incarcerated for every 100 people.  That is an incredibly high number of people somewhere in he ballpark of 2 million.  The only other country in the world that comes close is China with 1.5 million but even then china has around 4 times as many people as the United States.  In third comes Russia which pales in comparison with 2nd and 1st place with around 890 thousand inmates.  The number of inmates in the united states penal system has more than tripled in the past 30 years.

                The ratios are even worse if you break down the people by racial group.  While the overall ratio of men in jail is 1 in 54 the ratio for white men is 1 in 106.  However on the other-side of that the ratio for Hispanic males is 1 in 36 and for black men the ratio is 1 in 15 and worst of all the ratio for black males ages 20 to 34 is 1 in nine meaning for every nine black men ages 20 to 34 one of them is in either jail or prison.  The number for women, while not as high as men are also skewed in a similar pattern.  The overall numbers being 1 in 265.  However the numbers for white women are as low as 1 in 355.  The Hispanic females while still above the average is higher than whites being 1 in 297.  The group that is seriously screwed however is black females with 1 in every 100 being incarcerated. 

                Another fact is that we are spending huge amounts of money to fun these prisons.  The costs to run these 24-7 facilities was 44 billion dollars last year and is estimated as rising another 25 billion by 2011.  When you look at the increase of cost that the states spend on higher education and corrections in the past 30 years higher education increased by 21 percent while corrections increased by as much as 127 percent.  There are now 5 states that spend as much or more on corrections as higher education with our own state Michigan being second only to Vermont with a rate of 1 to 1.19.

               The problem is that we are incarcerating many people that probably should be sent elsewhere.  There’s a big difference between a murderer and a person charged with possession.  When you look at the prison system many of those incarcerated are charged with simple possession and haven’t done much.  I think that we are using the prison system as a place to send everybody who defies the government in any way and unnecessarily throwing away tax dollars to keep people jailed who would probably be much better of in rehab.  We should do a major revamp of the prison system if we ever want to solve the problem of crime in our society we should be giving these people help and support instead of sending them to prison where they learn to be better criminals.

I recently saw a news story about the horrible conditions of Michigan roads that seem to have the whole state in a bad mood. It explained the extent of the damage and how much it would coast to fix . It then, went on to explain that Michigan is facing cuts that would take away from the funds needed to repair these roads. I asked my self“ isn’t that why we pay taxes?” and I got to wondering. Where exactly does all that money go? Do people even know? I certainly didn’t. This affects urban area especially because so much of the tax services (libraries, etc.), that we see everyday, are centered around big cities, but every one can relate to this. No like paying taxes and no one is happy when services get cutOn http://www.federalbudget.com/ I found some pretty clear cut information about federal tax spending for the last four years ( 2004- 2007) I was surprised at the distribution. The top three uses of taxes where treasury department (3), department of defense (2), and health an human evidence (1). Theses three expenditures far exceed any other, by 280- 580 billion dollars. What surprised me most was that department of defense took up that much money I always heard people talk about the billions of dollars we are spending on the war but I never really thought about how much it added up to. Is it doesn’t seem right for the government to spend our money on a country that we probably will never visit, in a war most of us don’t want any way. I guess that kind of getting in to a different topic, I’m talking about road conditions. Local taxes are a lot more relevant for this topic. statistics for local taxes vary from place to place, from year to year I was pleased to find out that education takes up 24 percent of property taxes, Michigan in 2006, and 14 percent goes to streets and sewers. In the past year, which many have call the worst for pothole for all of the Midwest, transportation departments and related officials have work hard to get more money to fix the still worsening road but that money isn’t being pick off trees. It is either coming out of your pocket or coming form another public service.Matters are not being help by the growing number of damage claim causes by the potholes. I thinks it’s sad that people take advantage of the situation like that. It is frustrating when your car damaged but it is not the government’s fault there is no way that every road is going to be clear all the time. When people sue the government it just being selfish and it not going to help any one but them, it’s certainly not going to make the roads get fix faster

Laziness, carelessness, and malice. Unemployment rockets, but not because of inability to work but just deciding “work just isn’t for you and there is no need to work anymore”. These people or better called “Free loaders” are using the money that the citizens pay to the government. Guidelines were once in place for being capable of inheriting benefits form the Government but now it’s become on of the simpler things in life people can claim unemployment benefits with out due reason. The more and more this continues the faster and faster we are falling into a depression. The Government just seems to complain and complain about this issue but never seems to make a different. The easiest way to solve these issues?, is to input some laws, rule, and jurisdiction into our system.

I know that the government does have a deal in this but again we have to bring it back to the citizens. Using our system to their own desire and no consideration of the mass and effect. Each and every “Free loader” is another notch we have to place in our financial belt. So, how much longer is this going to go on? We complain and complain but it seems there just words.

We have all heard of identity theft, people using your identity to buy, sell, purchase and manage accounts, but now there is more to this travesty people are using this theft to benefit their health care and medical expenses. If that’s not all, this form of identity theft can kill you. The simplest change of your age, blood type, ect. could be fatal, but why hadn’t the insurance companies placed a larger protection label on this? In 1999 Identity theft was commercialized a lot and on since, so why hadn’t they started making it harder to obtain so much information on a person?

The blame I guess can’t be placed on the insurance right away; the owners have the obligation to “help” themselves. My biggest question is when and if ever will we be able to be ourselves and have this threat over our heads?, When will we have a government that provides us with what we need so we don’t resort to these kinds of behaviors?

http://blogs.computerworld.com/node/2733

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.idtheftfirstaid.com/images/identity_theft_statistics_clip_image001.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.idtheftfirstaid.com/statistics_identity_theft.php&h=246&w=382&sz=9&hl=en&start=3&um=1&tbnid=zsuHef7YKSufQM:&tbnh=79&tbnw=123&prev=/images%3Fq%3Didentity%2Btheft%2Brates%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN