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Annual Privatization Report
Annual Privatization Report by the Reason Foundation ("free minds and free markets") includes federal, state and local update, surface transportation, air transportation, education, emerging issues such as State Lottery privatization update, water & wastewater, telecommunications, land use and environment, and of course...prisons,
http://www.reason.org/apr2008/

Blacks See Growing Values Gap Between Poor and Middle Class; Optimism about Black Progress Declines
Pew Research Center. 91 pages. November 13, 2007. African Americans see a widening gulf between the values of middle class and poor blacks, and nearly four-in-ten say that because of the diversity within their community, blacks can no longer be thought of as a single race. The new nationwide Pew Research Center survey also finds blacks less upbeat about the state of black progress now than at any time since 1983. Looking backward, just one-in-five blacks say things are better for blacks now than they were five years ago. Looking ahead, fewer than half of all blacks (44%) say they think life for blacks will get better in the future, down from the 57% who said so in a 1986 survey. Blacks have much less confidence than whites in the fairness of the criminal justice system. Also, blacks say that anti-black discrimination is commonplace in everyday life; whites disagree.

A 53% majority of African Americans say that blacks who don't get ahead are mainly responsible for their situation, while just three-in-ten say discrimination is mainly to blame. As recently as the mid-1990s, black opinion on this question tilted in the opposite direction, with a majority of African Americans saying then that discrimination is the main reason for a lack of black progress.
http://pewsocialtrends.org/assets/pdf/Race.pdf

By the Numbers: The Public Costs of Teen Childbearing
Documents the public costs of teen childbearing at both the national and state level. Teen childbearing in the United States costs taxpayers (federal, state, and local) at least $9.1 billion, according to a new report by Saul Hoffman, Ph.D. and published by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. Most of the costs of teen childbearing are associated with negative consequences for the children of teen mothers, including increased costs for health care, foster care, and incarceration. The study includes state by state fact sheets on cost of teen childbearing.
http://www.teenpregnancy.org/costs/default.asp

The Combat Veteran in Minnesota Criminal Court: A Proposal to Mitigate Sentences and Encourage Treatment of the Most Troubled of Our Returning Heroes
January 11, 2008. By Brockton D. Hunter, Legislative Chair, Minnesota Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. See also the accompanying Sentencing Mitigation Bill for Veterans, Minn. HF3670 (2008).
http://realcostofprisons.org/materials/vets_sentencing.pdf

The Economic Costs of the War in Iraq: An Appraisal 3 Years After the Beginning of the Conflict.
By Linda Bilmes and Joseph E. Stiglitz. January 2006. A cost-benefit analysis of the war.
http://www2.gsb.columbia.edu/faculty/jstiglitz/cost_of_war_in_iraq.pdf

Follow The Money Flow Chart
"Federal hurricane relief has traveled a convoluted path from Congress to the Gulf Coast. More than 70 federal agencies have handled a portion of the approximately $87 billion that has been doled out."
http://nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/pdfs/0811katcash.pdf

Katrina Anniversary Report
Co-released by the Women's Funding Network and the Ms. Foundation for Women. "Women have become a critical force rebuilding the Gulf Coast after being disproportionately affected by Katrina. This report reveals that, while the lens of race and class were applied to the natural disaster early on, the gender dimensions of poverty and recovery on the Gulf Coast have largely been overlooked. The report includes amazing stories of women survivors, outlines post-disaster challenges they face, and the actions they've taken as leaders in the rebuilding process in partnership with women's organizations and women's foundations."
http://www.wfnet.org/documents/publications/katrina_report_082706.pdf

The Katrina Files
An archive of reports on the hurricane and the aftermath, is now available at C3 Online, the website of the UCLA-based Center for Communications and Community. The archive includes links to print, video and audio content in the following categories: Coverage Critiques, Community and Independent Media, Community Activism Research, Journalism and Research Archives
http://uclaccc.ucla.edu

Mixed Signals
A counter-recruitment comic book by artist Sabrina Jones. It is being emblazoned on paper bags, to be distributed to delis and bodegas in New York by a mysterious cadre of activist artists known as "Friends of William Blake." Check it out in this week's "Time Out NY", on the William Blake website, or at the comic book's web page:
http://www.brethren.org/oepa/CRMixedSignals.html

National Journal Special Report: After Katrina
http://nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2006/0811nj3.htm

New Orleans by the Numbers
By Peter Wagner and Susan Edwards. This article is from the March/April 2006 issue of Dollars & Sense magazine. The city of New Orleans and the state of Louisiana were in trouble long before Hurricane Katrina flooded the city and long before the Federal Emergency Management Agency decided that the director's dinner engagements were more important than the plight of hurricane victims running out of food in the Superdome.
http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2006/0306wagneredwards.html

Opportunity Agenda Katrina Anniversary Toolkit
August 29th marks the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. This toolkit contains a set of tools designed to highlight the vastly unequal opportunity revealed by Katrina and advance solutions that can expand opportunity in the Gulf Coast region and beyond.
http://www.opportunityagenda.org/si...819/k.58FA/Katrina_1_Year_Later.htm

Responding to the Needs of Justice-Involved Combat Veterans With Service-Related Trauma and Mental Health Conditions
A Consensus Report of the CMHS National GAINS Center Forum. August 2008
http://realcostofprisons.org/materials/CVT_IssueBrief-GAINS.pdf

The State of Black America
The annual Urban League Report addresses the issues central to Black America in the current year. The publication is a barometer of the conditions, experiences and opinions of Black America. It examines black progress in education, homeownership, entrepreneurship, health and other areas. The publication forecasts certain social and political trends and proposes solutions to the community's and America's most pressing challenges. March 2006.
http://www.nul.org/thestateofblackamerica.html

A System in Crisis
Overburdened long before Katrina, the public mental health network here is finding it impossible to meet need. By Claudia Feldman. "For every million people who move here," Burruss says, "between 7 (percent) and 10 percent have a major mental disorder. And if you add those with substance-abuse problems, those percentages are even higher. Also consider that a third of the population of Harris County is uninsured. And factor in recent cuts in Medicaid and Medicare."
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/chronicle/4128667.html