Criminal Justice Map
Monday Map: Your Tax Dollars Go To Prison
Published August 10, 2009 @ 04:18PM PT
The chart below shows (approximately) the percentage of your tax dollars in each state that go to corrections. It's not exactly a map, but there's a map after the jump, I promise.
These numbers are hideous. Oregon spends more than 10% of its general fund on corrections. Vermont, Michigan, Oregon, Connecticut and Delaware spend more on corrections than on higher education. See your state below. And after the jump, the true data-heads can get a taste of the split between state and local spending on corrections.
Via the super-influential Pew Center on the States Report "One in 100."
Monday Map: The Distribution of Drug Use
Published August 03, 2009 @ 04:46PM PT
Here's your Monday map - a look at the use of illegal substances other than marijuana across the United States.
The map comes via the great map blog The Map Scroll, using data from the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services. Map Scroll went on to post maps by specific drugs here, and makes some interesting observations:
...Another thing that challenges my prejudices is that there doesn't seem to be any correlation between the wealth or human development of states and their level of drug use. Some high-development states, like New Jersey and Pennsylvania, have low levels of drug use; and some, like Massachusetts and Colorado, have high levels of drug use. And some low-development states, like Arkansas and Tennessee, have high levels of drug use, while others, like South Carolina and Alabama, have low levels of drug use. There do seem to be some regional trends - especially the high rates of drug use in the non-Mormon West - but a lot of variation within regions as well. All in all it just looks pretty random.
Monday Map: American Drug Trafficking Corridors
Published July 06, 2009 @ 04:38PM PT
Despite our strict prohibition and overflowing prisons, the United States is the world's biggest consumer of illegal narcotics. All of those drugs somehow make it from the producer to the consumer, and today's map - from the DOJ's National Drug Intelligence Center - shows the most common routes traveled by drug traffickers to distribute marijuana, heroin, cocaine, meth and other drugs. Click here to see the map in more detail and click here for brand new analysis of high-density trafficking areas.
Americans spend more than $60 billion a year on illegal narcotics and another $20 billion trying to stop them. The map above is a simplified, abstract glance at drug routes, but it demonstrates the wide penetration of illegal drugs into our country and the hopelessness of efforts to prevent this flood. On a more granular level, these supply routes turn into a spider web that bring every type of drug into almost every town in the country.
Considering the sheer scale of drug supply operations in the U.S. leads us to some tricky questions, however. I often advocate on this blog for the legalization of marijuana, and - eventually - of all drugs. If we do that, what will the thousands of people in these intricate networks do for income? Will they resort to other, more dangerous, underground economies like human trafficking and guns? Will they reenter the mainstream economy? Will we create a new class of unemployed, untrained citizens?
Monday Map: Missing Opportunities in South Central L.A.
Published June 01, 2009 @ 03:46AM PT
The Crips and Bloods are still at war in South Los Angeles, and this map - from PBS Independent Lens - goes a long way toward explaining the causes of that war. People in disadvantaged neighborhoods join gangs because other opportunities simply aren't available.
Click here to check out the interactive map, where you'll find that south Los Angeles dwarfs the rest of the city is such undesirable statistics as unemployment (14 percent), available jobs (0.5 jobs per worker), health services, school dropout rate and the number of parolees living on each block. When poverty is concentrated in this way and opportunities are few and far between, gangs thrive.
