March 21, 2023
Click here for a full size version of the graphic.When you hear that 75 percent of the juveniles in prison come from fatherless homes, an alarm goes off. There is absolutely a tie between the lack of a father in the home and kids who get sent to prison. Here in Indianapolis, Fathers & Families Center offers a few more statistics: With a father in the home, a child is 75 percent less likely to have a teen birth, and 80 percent less likely to spend time in jail. People who think fathers are irrelevant just have their heads in the sand.
March 7, 2023
Daniel Labbe is a former inmate who has some well conceived thoughts about what an improved prison/jail experience could be. The following are his words, but I wouldn't be sharing them if I didn't think there are some ideas that have merit. So, if you ever thought that perhaps we could do better with our prison and jail systems, you probably will be interested in this.
February 21, 2023
When a short-term money crisis hits a family, payday predatory lenders are there for the working poor. These lenders reap huge interest payments that, according to the Federal Trade Commission, can reach up to 390 APR. Meanwhile these companies regularly take working people down the path to bankruptcy.The car broke down and you have to get to work…
February 6, 2023
Last week a 15-year old and 17-year old were arrested for the shooting of a 15-year-old girl on the City's far east side. Also last week a national newspaper reported statistics on juvenile homicide. It's reported that juvenile murderers acting alone rose 30 percent in 2020 from a year earlier, while homicides committed by multiple juveniles increased 66 percent. Said one prosecutor, "it's just kids killing kids."
January 23. 2023
UNITE INDY started in December, 2016, so we have recently passed our 5th anniversary! Yes, five years of disappointments, mistakes and some smashing successes (if we do say so ourselves).
January 6, 2023
I picked up a book at a Vintage fair just before Christmas. It was a slim little volume, written by Bud Robinson, who was born in 1860 into a family of seven children, all living in a tiny, windowless, dirt-floored log cabin in the hills of Tennessee. His father was a mean drunkard who owned a still and sold whiskey like everyone else in those hills.
December 21, 2022
For all those working with reentrants, or related to someone who is incarcerated, I end this year with my take on some of the important lessons I've learned about the pitfalls that sidetrack even the most success-oriented returnees. Here you go...
December 7, 2022
Recently there has been an exodus of folks from a large popular church here. People who were staunchly committed to a certain ideology found that the temperature had changed and some foundational beliefs were now considered to be out-of-date. In response, a group of long-time members picked up and went elsewhere. So, who is right and who is wrong?
November 21, 2022
We've talked until we are blue in the face about the awful consequence of predatory lending, how they are aimed directly at the working poor, or anyone with any income at all. They target those on disability or folks on Social Security--any trickle of money--if its there, they plan to get it...
November 7, 2022
About 25 men and women from all over Indianapolis showed up at the police roll call on Tuesday in a crime hot spot at 30th and Post Road. They weren't picketing or calling to defund the police. IMPD East is one of six districts of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, and those officers serve in what is one of the most dangerous locations in all of Indiana.
