The (Munster) Times. May 22, 2018
Authorities must not marginalize rape
Imagine yourself, your daughter, wife, sister or mother being raped and then waiting four years for any potential sign of justice.
A woman who prosecutors believe was raped by three men in a Merrillville apartment in 2014 knows precisely what that’s like.
Any agents of law enforcement who allowed this travesty should be made to account for it.
It’s just one of potentially dozens of cases in the Region - and hundreds statewide - under review because rape testing kits were allowed to languish, untested, in evidence rooms rather than being used to seek justice.
In the recent case, three men, Ajahn D. Batty, 25; Joshua W. Shipp, 23, and David G. Werner, 26, each was charged with two counts of felony rape and criminal confinement in the Sept. 30, 2014, incident.
The men are presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.
But the case was all-but-forgotten because a rape kit - including biological evidence collected in a highly invasive procedure after the victim claimed sexual assault in 2014 - sat untested in a Merrillville Police Department evidence locker.
It was tested only just recently as part of an effort by the Lake County prosecutor to reopen 240 cases in which evidence gathered in local rape cases never was submitted to the state police lab for testing.
We’re glad a dogged pursuit to make right on these past law enforcement wrongs has begun.
Prosecutor Bernard Carter said four deputy prosecutors in his office now are dedicated to working with police to identify and submit for testing the previously untested kits.
The charges against Shipp, Werner and Batty are an early return on potential justice.
To truly fix this problem, however, a systematic injustice must be corrected. Marginalization has no place in a police response to rape allegations.
Women who submit to testing and detail rape allegations deserve the serious attention of law enforcement. They don’t deserve to have crucial evidence chucked into an evidence closet to collect dust.
Victims of rape deserve understanding, respect and the dogged pursuit of truth and justice.
Anything less is a shameful failure. We all should be screaming for justice on the victims’ behalf.
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The (Fort Wayne) Journal Gazette. May 24, 2018
All bets are on
Hoosiers like to boast of Indiana’s cautious approach to ideas and policies other states have long embraced. But when the idea concerns another form of gambling, caution seems to go out the window. That’s why odds are favorable for legalizing sports betting here in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down a federal ban on the practice.
A legislative study on sports betting - quickly added to the interim schedule after the May 14 ruling - will require some of those cautious Hoosier voices. The cost of adding another form of gambling is likely to outweigh any revenue lawmakers might be eager to claim.
“It’s a great opportunity for all the properties in Indiana to offer an amenity that draws new customers to our facilities,” Matt Bell, a former state legislator who is now a lobbyist and president of the Casino Association of Indiana, told the Indianapolis Business Journal. “But there are a lot of questions to consider.”
“Sports wagering is happening already,” said Rep. Dan Forestal, D-Indianapolis. “It’s underground. It’s done by criminals at this point; let’s be real. I want to legitimize it, tax it and make sure the state can regulate it in such a way that it becomes a legitimate business.”
Forestal was co-author of one of two bills that died in the last session. The legislation would have allowed sports betting at Indiana’s 11 riverboat casinos, two racetrack-based casinos and four off-track wagering facilities - taxing it at 9.25 percent - “within 90 days after the federal law prohibiting sports wagering is repealed or amended.”
Indiana isn’t alone in eying the lucrative prospect of sports betting. Five states already have laws in place to authorize it. The estimate of illegal gambling on sports is between $50 billion and $150 billion a year, so it’s not surprising states are eager to regulate and tax it. New Jersey, the petitioner in the Supreme Court case, is expected to allow sports betting within weeks.
But Stateline, an online reporting project of the Pew Charitable Trusts, notes the state payouts might not be so lucrative. A 2017 study conducted for the American Gaming Association estimated about $3.4 billion nationwide in taxes to state and local governments.
That “may sound like big money - but it isn’t,” Lucy Dadayan, a senior policy analyst at the Rockefeller Institute of Government, told Stateline. The revenue amounts to less than 0.3 percent of total state and local revenue.
Dadayan noted gambling revenue deteriorates over time and some revenue from a “new” form of betting is simply shifted from existing gambling proceeds. That’s certainly been the case in Indiana, which has added riverboats, racetracks, off-track betting and land-based casinos since Hoosiers first voted to authorize a state lottery 30 years ago.
Indiana has other costs to worry about, as well. The NCAA, headquartered in Indianapolis, has long been opposed to sports betting. The collegiate sports association was the defendant in the New Jersey case. Gambling on sports can include wagers placed on individual games, on margin of victory or even on individual plays - how many strikeouts a pitcher might throw, for example. The latter form, in particular, raises the risk of player corruption.
But the real risk is to everyday Hoosiers.
“I would have gone crazy with this,” Indianapolis resident Chuck Bovis, a recovering addict and certified gambling counselor, told the Associated Press after the Supreme Court ruling. “I probably would have been suicidal.”
A thorough study of sports betting by the interim legislative committee must include a rigorous debate of the social and cultural costs posed.
Legalizing betting might net some tax dollars, but it also legitimizes and encourages behavior some individuals can’t control. Indiana provides plenty of ways for its residents to gamble - it should exercise caution in adding another.
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The (Bloomington) Herald-Times. May 25, 2018
State must act quickly on opioid crisis study
A recently released Indiana University study exposes the staggering costs of opioid addiction in the state, further illuminating the need for a comprehensive plan to discourage abuse and to develop a range of treatments and assistance for addicts and their families.
The resulting strategies must drill down beyond the community level to neighborhoods, schools, businesses, health care providers and the criminal justice system.
State government has made a good start toward addressing the crisis, but is not moving quickly enough to develop and deliver resources to tackle the enormity of the problem.
Here are some key points of the IU study’s findings, as reported by CNHI Statehouse Reporter Scott Miley in a recent news article:
. Opioid misuse is costing Indiana about $4 billion annually.
. In 2016 alone, potential lost wages due to opioid misuse totaled $752 million.
. In the past 15 years, opioid overdose deaths have cost Indiana $43.5 billion.
. The $4 billion annual cost of the crisis includes $1.75 billion in unemployment and $1.25 billion in lost gross product.
. Costs for neonatal abstinence syndrome births totaled more than $36 million in 2016.
. Funeral costs for victims of opioid overdose deaths rose from $1.2 million at the onset of the crisis in 2003 to $7.1 million in 2016, an increase of nearly 500 percent.
. About 5,000 Hoosier children were in foster care because of parental opioid misuse - 600 percent higher than 2003.
. Each year, drug arrests, court costs and incarceration related to opioid misuse in Indiana costs more than $83 million.
. From 2003 through 2017, 12,300 Hoosiers - roughly the population of Pike County in southern Indiana - died of opioid overdoses.
The IU report points to the statewide distress caused by the opioid crisis, but the report also makes key recommendations for action:
. Local leaders in business, government and other areas should work to dispel stigmas attached to opioid addiction.
. Non-addictive pain relievers must be developed through bio-science research.
. Educational leaders should promote better understanding of opioid dangers, as well as identifying students in need of intervention.
The IU report provides detailed information to promote understanding of the opioid crisis and its impact across the state. And it sets forth a plan to undercut the crisis.
Now, state and local government must act quickly and decisively upon the study’s recommendations. Billions of dollars - and, more importantly, thousands of lives - are at stake.
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South Bend Tribune. May 22, 2018
Public has spoken, Indiana regulatory agency should listen
Last year, the Indiana Department of Environmental Management floated a terrible idea - one that would make accessing public information more difficult for Hoosiers - then sought public input on it.
After the public emphatically rejected the idea, IDEM inexplicably asked for input once again on the same bad proposal.
If at first you don’t succeed …
The misguided idea in question came last year when IDEM announced that it is considering replacing newspaper publication of public notice ads with electronic postings on its website.
IDEM claims that doing so would enable authorities to communicate “more quickly and efficiently” with the public.
That assertion contradicts surveys showing that a strong majority of Hoosiers read public notice advertising in their newspapers, and 85 percent favor government continuing to publish public notices in newspapers.
IDEM said it would consider the public comments it receives in deciding whether to move forward with the plan. Members of the public were invited to submit their comments to the agency through Oct. 6.
The Hoosier State Press Association obtained copies of those email comments, and the results were clear: 551 out of 553 rejected the idea.
Case closed? Not exactly, explains Steve Key, executive director of the HSPA. “In most situations, they would say ’This is not what the public wants’ and they would drop it,” he says. Instead, IDEM wanted a second comment period.
That comment period ended last week. It’s too soon to tell what sort of feedback IDEM will get this time around, or if they’ll listen to it. What’s clear is that this isn’t about efficient and quick communication with the public about a nearby industrial facility seeking permission to emit air pollutants. It’s not even about the $17,000-a-year savings IDEM says would come from eliminating the advertising costs in local newspapers. That’s a small price - yes, one paid to Hoosier newspapers - for transparency.
And transparency is what’s at stake here. IDEM’s proposed change would make it harder for the public to access information they have a right to receive. Key notes that the internet is a valuable tool, particularly when you know what you’re looking for. But he says it’s “illogical” to expect that John and Jane Doe, at the end of a long day filled with work and family responsibilities, will turn to each other and say “Honey, it’s time to start going through government websites to see what might impact us.”
In contrast, public notice ads in newspapers are an independent check on government action. “It’s not depending on the fox to tell you it’s getting close to the henhouse,” Key says.
The public has spoken on this wrongheaded proposal. IDEM should have listened.
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