December 2006 | Green Scene
Choice News
Metropolis 2020 Slams Illinois’ Justice System
Illinois spends $7 billion each year on the criminal justice system but could be saving many millions by investing in alternative programs for those convicted of low-level drug possession.
That conclusion was reached in the “2006 Crime and Justice Index” issued in late October by Chicago Metropolis 2020, a nonprofit civic organization formed by the Commercial Club of Chicago. The state must place a greater emphasis on programs that help drug users get treatment, acquire job skills and help ease their reentry back into society, said Paula Wolff of Metropolis 2020. Otherwise, it’s almost certain that they will wind up back in prison, most likely within a year, she said.
“The revolving door is expensive to taxpayers,” Wolff said. “It diverts money that could go to education and other services needed by those who don’t break the law.”
The revolving-door concept is illustrated by the near-perfect symmetry of this statistic: In 2006, Illinois will imprison nearly 40,000 people and release about 40,000 prisoners, the report states.
The Index compiles statistics reflecting the results of two decades worth of get-tough-on-crime measures, such as the 1994 “three strikes” law mandating life sentences for repeat violent criminals. The number of Chicago-area residents sent to prison for drug crimes has shot up nearly 2,000 percent, from 469 individuals in 1985 to 8,755 last year. People convicted of drug offenses make up 40 percent of all prison admission in Illinois.
It costs Illinois taxpayers an estimated $240 million a year to hold non-violent drug offenders in prison. And in 2004, the number of black males in prison (24,949) in Illinois was higher than the number of black males in public universities and community colleges (20,725).
The report is packed with statistics that can cause despair and paralysis. But inaction is not an option for Metropolis 2020, which has thrown its support behind several state initiatives that have begun to address the incarceration rate and the steep penalties associated with drug possession cases.
“We are not a very patient organization,” Wolff said. “We have a lot of irons in the fire.” Following is an overview of just some of those irons.
Proposed state legislation in Springfield would provide alternative sentencing and drug-abuse treatment and education for suspects charged with low-level, nonviolent drug and prostitution offenses. Wolff said the 2020 group supports HB 4885, The SMART Act (Substance Abuse Management Addressing Recidivism through Treatment), which may be taken up in the General Assembly early next year.
One option, according to Wolff, is to expand the 10-year old Cook County Drug School program that has sent increasing numbers of drug-possession suspects into treatment programs. Cook County State’s Attorney Richard Devine estimates that the program has saved millions of dollars by treating those with addictions instead of warehousing them in prison.
The 2020 group hopes to have input on the revision of judicial sentencing rules being undertaken by The CLEAR Initiative, an independent blue-ribbon commission co-chaired by former Gov. James Thompson and retired Illinois Justice Gino DiVito tasked with overhauling the Illinois Criminal Code.
The complete report is available at chicagometropolis2020.org.
— Jack Bess
Shop in a Local Wonderland
If you’re looking to “gift green” this holiday season, the most sustainable gifts are like the Bluebird of Happiness: right in your own proverbial backyard.
Local First Chicago, a network of locally owned, independent businesses in 17 city neighborhoods, says shop a locally owned, independent neighborhood store instead of trekking out to the mall or hunting online, and you’ll find goods that have traveled a shorter distance to get to you, burning less fossil fuel. Further, your purchase will help sustain your community’s economy, because compared to chain stores, local businesses hire more local staff, engage in greater local spending, and give far more to local charities.
A study conducted in Chicago’s Andersonville neighborhood found that local businesses recirculate 70 percent more money locally than chains, per square foot occupied. An Austin, TX study showed that if consumers redirected just $100 of their holiday shopping from chains to locals, the local economic impact would reach into the tens of millions. At Cornell University, researchers concluded that communities comprised primarily of locally owned, independent businesses tend to enjoy greater social equality and stability and less dependence on welfare.
But you don’t have to shop local just because it’s good for you. “At a unique, local business, you’re much more likely to find a unique, personal gift—something the recipient won’t see anywhere else,” explains Casey Rutledge, owner of Multiple Choices in Lincoln Park and Lincoln Square.
Rutledge is also the co-coordinator of Local First Chicago, This holiday season, Local First Chicago’s “Shopping in a Local Wonderland” campaign will promote the benefits of buying local and help shoppers find locally owned stores. Look for Local First Chicago stickers in business windows, or explore their online marketplace at localfirstchicago.org. You can also check the website for special promotions at local businesses during national “Buy Local Week,” December 3 – 9.
— Ellen Shepard
Chicago’s First Green Business Group
A new organization of Chicago-area businesses has formed to uphold the gold standard for green practices.
Not unlike your average chamber of commerce, the Chicago Sustainable Business Alliance was launched this Fall to encourage and support sustainability principles in products, services, and practices of the members.
The passion for environmentally healthy and socially equitable principles binds together this diverse collection of Chicago businesses representing the financial sector (LaSalle Bank), green building (Forbo Flooring), real estate (Baum Brothers LLC), and consulting (HJ Kessler). Even the governmental sector is represented, namely the Consulate General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Conscious Choice magazine has also joined as a charter member, representing media.
Being an Alliance member means, in part, opportunities to tell the public that your business is committed to sustainable practices, which potential customers may want to know, said Laura Flanigan, Alliance project manager. Business owners can also share best practices with others facing the same challenges and direct each other to useful resources, she said.
Apart from events like networking breakfasts and green happy hours, the Alliance also offers an opportunity for the group to use its influence “to create a critical mass of and enthusiasm to change the foundations of business in Chicago,” Flanigan said. That action might take place within the Alliance—such as challenging each other to set goals for reduced energy use—or on the larger stage of the city or the state, she said. The alliance also offers discount services and joint advertising and purchasing opportunities.
For more information about the Alliance, its members, upcoming events, as well as a profile of the Dutch Consulate and its devotion to sustainability, visit sustainablechicago.biz.
— Jack Bess
The World Is Running Out Of… Itself
More specifically, the human race is consuming natural resources—food, land, clean water—at a rate faster than the planet can supply, according to a report published in October by the Global Footprint Network, an international non-governmental organization, and the WWF, the group formerly called the World Wildlife Fund but now prefers to be known by its initials.
The Living Planet Report 2006 aims to calculate an “ecological footprint” for mankind, and has determined that in 2003, the footprint was 25 percent larger than the planet’s biocapacity. In terms of the ecological “overshoot,” that means it now takes about 15 months for the Earth to regenerate what people use in a single year.
Calculating the over-consumption of natural resources another way, the Network said the human race began “eating the planet” on Oct. 9. And this occasion, dubbed World Ecological Debt Day, has been arriving earlier and earlier in the year since 1987, when the Earth’s capacity to meet human demand maxed out on Dec. 19, according to the Network’s calculations.
“Humanity is living off its ecological credit card,” said Mathis Wackernagel, Network executive director. “While this can be done for a short while, overshoot ultimately leads to liquidation of the planet’s ecological assets, and the depletion of resources, such as the forests, oceans and agricultural land upon which our economy depends.”
And if the human race’s appetite for natural resources isn’t curbed, the Network report warns, by 2050 the planet will need a full two years to regenerate what we use in just one.
The report prescribes a dual approach for easing up on the earth’s resources: reducing the ecological footprint and increasing the planet’s biocapacity. The footprint can be reduced, the report says, by consuming fewer resources per person, increasing the efficiency of our resource use, and managing population size.
Visit footprintnetwork.org to download the full report. See this month’s Don’t Get Mad, Get Active (column at right, bottom) to calculate your own footprint.
— Jack Bess
Green Party Established in Illinois
Rich Whitney, Green Party candidate for Illinois governor, lost his election bid, but his candidacy gave an alternative to voters fed up with the two major political parties.
For a third-party candidate, Whitney made a strong showing on Nov. 7, with morning-after tallies showing him with 10 percent of the vote, compared to incumbent Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich with 49 percent and Republican challenger Judy Baar Topinka with 40 percent.
Among Whitney’s supporters was Rogers Park activist Jane Alexander, who said of the 51-year-old attorney, “He’s strong, he’s articulate and he’s so good. I love his principles.” Attributing Whitney’s appeal to “total dissatisfaction with the major parties,” Alexander contrasted his call to action with what she sees as the Democrats’ inability to challenge the GOP, from the local to the national levels.
“It’s so shoddy what’s happening on the national level,” Alexander said. “The Democrats are snoozing away. Why aren’t they fighting?”
Whitney’s candidacy was taken seriously enough that news of his onetime role as a national official in the Socialist Party was broken by the Daily Herald the weekend before the election. Topinka tried to make the most of out this disclosure by calling a news conference the next day, Nov. 2. According to political maven Rich Miller, who writes The Capitol Fax newsletter, the news conference was called by a GOP “anxious to herd Republican voters back into line.”
It was an election season marked by stories of federal investigators into allegations of wrongdoing in hiring and fundraising in the Blagojevich administration, which gave Whitney ample material to slam the governor. Still, Whitney was largely the Invisible Man as far as media coverage was concerned, with the two major Chicago dailies not inviting him to their endorsement sessions.
Despite his loss, Whitney told The Southern, a downstate paper near his hometown of Carbondale, that the Green Party is now a part of the Illinois political landscape. His campaign is over, he told the paper, “but there is a larger movement going on.”
— Jack Bess
Recycling Program Gets A Facelift
“It’s a great thing when we can clean up the environment and create jobs. Those things should go together,” said Jack Levin, Director of the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO), who in mid-October announced a $8 million commitment to a pilot project to help the greenest city in America finally get a recycling program worth discussing in public. Residents will be given blue carts for their recyclables, which will then be collected in a separate pick-up. The pilot will take place over four years, reaching 80,000 households in seven wards across the city starting in February.
From the pilot project the city hopes to increase citywide recycling and develop recycling logistics and costs which can eventually be applied at a citywide level. Last year with support from a prior DCEO grant of $52,000, a preliminary recycling project was held in the 19th Ward using separate blue carts. With an 80 percent participation rate it was considered a roaring success. “So far we have diverted over 2 million tons of garbage from the landfill. It takes one village to start, and the entire city to follow.” Says Alderman Virginia A. Rugai of the 19th Ward.
The new program will work through single stream recycling, where all recyclables like glass, aluminum, paper, and cardboard are collected in the blue carts, picked-up and separated at the plant. This model has been shown to have economic advantages over the blue bag program. The pilot will start in February in the 19th Ward and expand throughout the spring and summer to six additional wards—1st, 5th, 8th, 37th, 46th, 47th and the Park District. Households with 4 dwelling units or less will be eligible. Additionally, 15 new residential drop-off recycling center locations will be placed throughout the city. For more information, visit bluecartschicago.org.
— Lynn Peemoeller
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