By Sara Rimensnyder
Racial profiling by police has sparked protest and debate nationwide. It has also inspired a business plan: A legal insurance company has decided that profiling’s likely victims are a market waiting to be tapped.
Based in Ada, Oklahoma, Pre-Paid Legal Services offers clients telephone access to an attorney 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Subscribers, who pay $10 to $26 per month, also get a membership card to flash at police officers. The card is supposed to jolt the cops into accountability by reminding them that they’re dealing with a citizen who has rights–and an attorney.
Meanwhile, several states are responding to questions about racial profiling with legislation. In July, for instance, the Massachusetts Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill requiring officers searching a car to record the driver’s race and gender so the data can be analyzed for patterns of bias. Cops would also have to take an anti-bias course and hand out complaint cards with a toll-free number to report discrimination.
Burn, Baby, Burn
By Katherine Mangu-Ward
As the May forest fire started by the U.S. Forest Service burned down more than 18,000 acres of forest and 400 homes in New Mexico, members of the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Conservation and Reinvestment Act. The bill, which President Clinton promises to sign if it passes the Senate, allows the government to spend up to $3 billion a year for the next 15 years to buy additional land for parks and conservation programs.
The bill not only assumes a level of competence that the New Mexico debacle undercuts, it ignores a $5 billion maintenance backlog on lands the federal government already owns. Apparently, owning more than 60 percent of Nevada is not enough to, in the words of Al Gore, "ensure that our children and grandchildren will be able to experience the majesty of the untouched forest."
Bureaucratic Slumlords
By Mariel Garza
The federal government, it seems, is not simply a questionable park owner. It’s also a terrible landlord. More than half of its 1,682 buildings are in dire need of repairs, some requiring more than $20 million of work to comply with safety standards. What’s more, the problem isn’t new. According to a General Accounting Office report released in April, the federal government’s property management agency has failed to repair many building problems that were identified almost a decade ago and have undoubtedly gotten worse–and more expensive to fix–over time.
Why? There are more repairs than the agency has money to fund, despite spending an average of $580 million on improvements each year. At the end of 1999, there was still about $4 billion of work left to be done. Plus, the property management agency’s computer files on repair status are a mess.
The feds have a new strategy, though, borrowed from the private sector: They’ll give repair priority to those buildings that would yield the highest rent, thus giving the fund more money to fix additional buildings.
Guns Down Under
By Jacob Sullum
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