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December 14, 2018

THE CONTEXT

A handcrafted newsletter by   PA Post

It’s Friday, which means I’ll be listening to State of the State during the warmup for my run. If you care about issues foundational to all others, do the same this week. Host Katie Meyer focuses on Pennsylvania’s $125 million push to replace voting machines in all counties. The main point is ensuring paper backups of individual ballots. But the 17 counties that already do this have to make the purchase as well -- and officials there are annoyed, to say the least. 
-Emily Previti, Newsletter Producer/Reporter

Predicting recidivism with an algorithm: Sounds great, but ... 
"We need to treat everyone in this system as a person, not a number"

Corrections officers arrive for a shift at the State Correctional Institution at Camp Hill, Pennsylvania. (Marc Levy/Associated Press)

  • The Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing says the state needs a risk assessment algorithm for judges to use to figure out sentences for criminal convictions. The commission determined that would make sentencing more objective, for one, and potentially cut prison populations. But critics say a formula won’t account for important factors that cannot be quantified.

  • That was in 2010. Since then, various versions of the algorithm have failed to satisfy stakeholders, so nothing is in place. The most recent version is getting  criticism from criminal justice reform advocates and has prompted some lawmakers to suggest scrapping the entire endeavor.

  • Keystone Crossroads’ Aaron Moselle had a front-row seat to the third of five public forums dedicated to the issue. The others are listed here.

Best of the rest
Pittsburgh City Councilman Corey O'Connor is among local officials pushing for aggressive action on gun control. (Kat Procyk/PublicSource)
  • Pittsburgh officials are urging local governments across the country to institute new gun laws after the mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue this fall. In 2015, the city was among those sued by gun rights groups under a Pennsylvania law that ultimately was overturned. But I looked into the issue and found that the aggressive pursuit of litigation had prompted more than 100 cities in the Commonwealth to rescind their firearms ordinances. PIttsburgh City Council hopes a mass enactment of the rules will hamper such efforts, Public Source reports.

  • Two women who were denied cosmetology licenses for their addiction-fueled criminal records are suing the state over its “good moral character” requirement. Their lawyers’ argument hinges on the state constitution’s provision that laws prohibiting people from working have to protect the public. More details are here.

  • People won’t face a tax penalty for not having health insurance next year, and that might be driving a drop in enrollment for individual plans. In Pennsylvania, fewer people are signing up. More than 163,000 have signed up, a drop of more than 20 percent from this time in 2017, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

By Emily Previti
Newsletter Producer/Reporter, PA Post
717-329-7003
papost.org
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