‘We Have a Lot of Lost Time to Make Up’

This week, the Campaign for Fair Sentencing for Youth celebrated two landmark occasions. It has been 10 years since the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional to impose a life-without-parole sentence on someone under age 18 in all but the rarest of cases. Since then, the campaign's work to release those already sentenced has continued, and now, the 900th person to survive an extreme sentence as a child is free.
 

What's Happening: A "Freedom Party" to celebrate the lives and dignity — and freedom — of those 900 people was held on the 10th anniversary of the Miller v. Alabama ruling. Members of the Incarcerated Children's Advocacy Network gathered — dressed up, laughing and joking. "This is many of their first proms, their first dates, it is many of their first graduation parties they never attended," said Donnell Drinks, CFSY leadership and engagement coordinator.
 

Drinks was arrested at 17 and was serving life in prison when he was released after more than 27 years. AV sat down with him for a Q&A to commemorate the event and talk about why this milestone is important, choosing redemption, and how "these children that you threw away ... now are some of the most contributing members of society."
 

What's Next: "Success if we have made it across the finish line, but we have not lost sight that there is more to come," says Drinks.
 

The Sentencing Project has released a new research brief that reveals a growing trend of lengthy prison sentences of 10 years or more. This trend, which disproportionately affects Black Americans, runs contrary to the goal of reducing the U.S. prison population and tackling its racial disparities. With nearly 2 million people incarcerated at any given time, the U.S. continues to have the highest incarceration rate in the world. 
 

What’s Happening: As of 2019, 56% of the people in U.S. prisons were serving sentences of 10 years or longer, up from 44% in 2000. Black Americans are far more likely to serve lengthy prison terms. The places with high proportions of prison populations serving long sentences are politically, geographically, and otherwise diverse. They include Georgia and Louisiana, as well as Maryland and Washington, D.C. 
 

Why it Matters: Long sentences needlessly inflate the U.S. prison population and don’t make Americans safer. Research shows that most people age out of committing crimes within 10 years and recidivism rates fall significantly after about a decade of incarceration. That means that people serving lengthy prison terms are likely to remain in prison well after they pose a public safety risk. Long sentences also don’t meaningfully deter crime. Instead, they tend to accelerate health problems and damage family bonds. 
 

What’s Next: Cutting incarceration will require state and local action on sentencing reform. This should include measures such as repealing mandatory minimums, instituting maximum prison terms, and reforming public defender systems, the Sentencing Project recommends. 
 

By Juliana Keeping, communications manager
 

The recent rapid growth of Medicare Advantage means now nearly 50% of all Medicare beneficiaries are in the program. The sheer numbers served, paired with the speed of the increase, raise important questions about both quality of care and the price tag for beneficiaries and taxpayers.
 

Why it Matters: “Medicare Advantage is a critical option for Medicare coverage,” said Mark E. Miller, executive vice president of Arnold Ventures’ health care team. ​“We have an obligation to provide transparency and accountability for patient benefits and care and to spend taxpayer dollars and beneficiary premiums responsibly.”
 

What’s Next: Reducing overpayments to Medicare Advantage is critical for improving the fiscal sustainability of the Medicare program and shoring up the Hospital Insurance Trust Fund, which funds nearly half the Medicare Advantage program and is set to be depleted in 2028.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently released a Request for Information (RFI) seeking ideas on ways to improve Medicare Advantage, including ways to ensure the program delivers equitable and high-quality care while supporting affordability and sustainability of the Medicare program. Arnold Ventures responded to the RFI, highlighting opportunities to improve the program and strengthen Medicare’s fiscal sustainability.
 

Read the story >

Criminal Justice

• Courts are asking New Mexico legislators to end traffic and misdemeanor crime fees, the Albuquerque Journal reports.
   
• The California Legislature has passed a bill expanding prison releases for terminally ill people, Bolts reports. It now goes to Gov. Gavin Newsom's desk.
   
• Hundreds of current and former law enforcement officers — including police chiefs and elected sheriffs — were listed as members of Oath Keepers, a right-wing anti-government extremist group, according to a new report by the Anti-Defamation League. 
   
• Extreme risk protection orders — also known as "red flag" laws — are rarely used despite a recent increase in gun violence, the Associated Press has found. 
   

Health Care

• A new playbook on how employers can — and should — be using price transparency data to lower high health care costs has dropped from the National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions.
   
• AV grantee Eric T. Roberts of the University of Pittsburgh published new research that shows people eligible for Medicare and Medicaid enrolled in integrated care plans have greater access to care, use of preventive services, and satisfaction with care than dual-eligible individuals in traditional Medicare.
   
• From Health Affairs, drug manufacturers may have profited from donating to condition-specific charities that help patients pay for expensive prescriptions.

Higher Education 

• The Hechinger Report asks, after the student loan cancellation, what are colleges responsible for when it comes to student debt – especially predatory schools? AV’s Director of Higher Education Kelly McManus has answers.
   
• Inside Higher Ed released “Measuring the Value of Higher Education,” a compilation of articles on the different ways to estimate worth in the field.
   
• The accreditor ACICS, known for rubber-stamping for-profit colleges, will be shutting down in March 2024 after the Biden administration stripped it of its federal powers, reports Higher Ed Dive.
   
• CNBC explains how the Biden administration’s changes to the income driven repayment plan could be a “sleeper hit” for many student borrowers.

Contraceptive Choice and Access

• Improving contraceptive care for marginalized populations requires a patient-centered framework and culturally competent patient-provider relationship, via the journal Contemporary OB/GYN.
   
• The Wall Street Journal’s Daniela Hernandez gives a quick video primer on how over-the-counter birth control works and how it will affect access should it be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Journalism

• We join the journalism community this week in mourning Jeff German, a Las Vegas investigative journalist who was murdered. A free press is essential to safeguarding democracy. Investigative reporters hold the powerful to account, shine a light on systemic failures, uncover corruption & inspire change. Atrocities against journalists are a threat to all.
   
• Poynter profiles reporters at the nonprofit news outlet Mississippi Today who have been covering Jackson's water crisis while living through the consequences themselves. "It’s definitely just added to all the stress in what was already kind of a chaotic time.”

AV’s Director of Higher Education Kelly McManus discusses policy reform with Dan Loney at Wharton Business Daily on SiriusXM radio. On the heels of the Biden debt cancellation announcement, McManus advocates for addressing root issues in the system with long-term solutions such as safe, useful data transparency, greater accountability for colleges and programs, and the incentivization for schools to graduate students, not merely enroll them. “There’s common ground there,” says McManus of the reforms and their reception in Congress.

• Laura Arnold, co-chair and co-founder of Arnold Ventures, will take the main stage at 12:15 p.m. CT Friday, Sept. 23 for an hourlong live interview with Texas Tribune CEO Evan Smith to share her distinct perspective on how philanthropy can maximize opportunity and minimize injustice.
• AV will also host one of four tents on Open Congress, which is open and free to the public, on Saturday Sept. 24 from 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. CT. Stop by for some cold treats, cool AV swag, and conversations on higher education and college completion, bail reform, community safety, and the energy transition, as well as a sit-down with The Marshall Project reporter Keri Blakinger, who will talk about (and sign) her new book "Corrections in Ink" with Soledad O’Brien.

• Queen Elizabeth II, Britain's longest-reigning monarch, has died. See her life in photos. As a crowd gathered at Buckingham Palace to mourn her, a rainbow appeared.
   
• CNN anchor Bernard Shaw, who reported on some of the world's biggest stories – including the student revolt in Tiananmen Square in May 1989, the First Gulf War live from Baghdad in 1991, and the 2000 presidential election — has died. Read about his storied career.
   
• President Biden will mark the 21st anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks with a wreath-laying at the Pentagon.
   
• Word nerds, rejoice. Merriam-Webster added 370 new words to the dictionary including "baller," "side hustle," and the ethereal "dawn chorus," which means "the singing of wild birds that closely precedes and follows sunrise especially in spring and summer."
   
• And something for the number nerds: Countle, a daily math puzzle.

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