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Parole is allowed under a Virginia rule that enables the state to release people over 60 who have served at least ten years. More than a thousand inmates have been eligible under this geriatric provision, but only 40 have been released since 2001. One key question: Where would they go?
One out of four adults in California is a high school dropout. "Class Dismissed" takes an up-close look at the crisis through the lives of four young people from the Central Valley. The stories reveal what’s at stake for their future and ours.
Unyque Jackson started kindergarten in Oakland. Her parents divorced when she was five. And Unyque moved to the San Joaquin Valley where she lived in her father’s house and was raised by her grandmother.
As he tells it, Geronimo Garcia was on the path toward dropping out by the time he started school.
This project was led by Catherine Stifter, a 2013 California Fellow, who takes an up-close look at the high rates of high school dropouts through the lives of four young people from the Central Valley.
Virginia has about 30,000 inmates in state prisons, served by 14 psychiatrists. Segregation, restraining chairs and solitary confinement are other means by which mental health patients in state prisons receive treatment.
The state of Virginia spends an average of $5,300 a year per inmate for medical care in prisons, and that cost has been rising 5-7 percent per year, but taxpayers may not be getting their money’s worth, and people locked up for minor crimes could be paying with their lives.
Virginia houses approximately 30,000 inmates annually in state prisons, making the Department of Corrections the most expensive agency in Richmond, with a billion dollar annual budget. It spends $160 million on healthcare, but critics say that care is inadequate.
Getting coverage for the uninsured is a big part of the federal health-care reform, which goes into effect Jan. 1. Those just getting insured could require a huge amount of care and referrals, which stands to overburden providers until the system stabilizes.
