Workforce Developments

California to open some unemployment offices on Saturdays

In response to surging demands for unemployment benefits - and following a pointed prod from a state legislator - California's Employment Development Department has announced it will open 25 of its offices around the state on Saturday. Call centers will also be open that day to take calls from filers.

Click here for the list of offices that will be open Saturdays.

California is only the latest state to make changes to the way it processes unemployment applications, in order to keep up with demand. Indiana has been training librarians and community groups, while Tennessee has been holding mass unemployment claim sessions to help filers.

The rapid rise in unemployment that began last year has translated into huge jumps in the number of people filing for benefits in nearly every state. Many states - including California - have experienced breakdowns of computer and telephone filing systems. I recently visited a One-Stop Career Center in the L.A. area, and in the brief time I was in the reception area nearly every other person in line was seeking help filing for unemployment. And the One-Stops don't even handle that. People had gone there because they had nowhere else to turn.

For many Californians calling to file for unemployment or to get updates on their status, they're put on hold for hours, or they get a message saying the phone lines are full and to call back later. Sometimes they get both. EDD says the best way to file for unemployment is online.

EDD is also reports (PDF) it has directed unemployment staff to work overtime, boosted its computer systems and is hiring 400 additional staff. Currently, the state is paying $77 million per day to out-of-work Californians.

If you're having trouble getting through to unemployment, experts suggest contacting your state elected officials. If you're laid off, be sure to keep any paperwork or other information about the layoff, because an increasing number of employers are challenging unemployment claims.

For more help and resources for getting back to work in California, visit the Cal Workforce Association's BackToWork.org site.

Do you know of efforts by other states to improve how unemployment claims are processed?

Government: Coming to a social media site near you

It's official: Obama is our first social media president. Yesterday he answered questions from the public in a virtual town hall meeting.

Coming soon will be government agencies via Flickr, Vimeo, blip.tv, YouTube, and possibly Facebook and MySpace.

The federal General Services Administration (GSA) is in the process of signing agreements with these and other social media sites that will allow federal agencies to use them. Turns out, their standard terms of service agreements (the stuff you don't read before clicking "I Agree") aren't in compliance with federal law. So GSA has been negotiating new terms that are in compliance.

The good news is that Twitter's terms of service are in compliance, and didn't have to be negotiated.

Seventeen federal agencies have signed on so far.

NextGov is reporting that

Most agencies will appoint directors of new media to determine how they can use social networking tools to meet mission goals and comply with President Obama's open government directive, said Sheila Campbell, team leader of Web best practices for the government portal USA.gov and co-chair of the Federal Web Managers Council.

For more on the initiative, read the article at NextGov.com.

Is your workforce board, One-Stop or nonprofit ready to harness the power of web 2.0 and social media? Getting the legal issues out of the way only gets us over one hurdle. Now we have to find the resources to do it, set the right policies, and do some experimenting.

To help you think about this, check out my Six web 2.0 principles for workforce boards and One-Stops.

Or Ed Morrison's paper on re-employment networks and the public workforce system. 

GAO investigation finds DOL's Wage and Hour Division asleep at the wheel

DOL's Wage and Hour Division (WHD) is charged with enforcing labor laws related to wages, overtime, youth employment, family leave and more. A new U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found them to be almost non-responsive to complaints.

Read the full report here, a one-page version here, or a summary here. You can read Labor Secretary Hilda Solis's response here.

To test the the division, the GAO went undercover, pretending to be workers who've been cheated out of wages or witnesses to violations of wage and hour laws. They filed ten fictitious complaints to see how the system worked. To quote from the report:

The undercover tests revealed sluggish response times, a poor complaint intake process, and failed conciliation attempts, among other problems. In one case, a WHD investigator lied about investigative work performed and did not investigate GAO’s fictitious complaint.

GAO reviewed WHD a database and found 20 real cases from 2007 affecting 1,160 workers where complaints were inadequately investigated.

This report follows testimony in June 2008, when the GAO reported on 15 cases where WHD did not adequately investigate complaints or require employers to pay.

A result of underfunding, mismanagement or policy directives? Solis's statement reports that 150 new field investigators are being hired, and an additional 100 to monitor contractors using ARRA funds. Perhaps this signals a change in priority at DOL.

Grants for re-entry programs: Second Chance Act demonstration project solicitation

The Bureau of Justice Assistance of the Department of Justice has released a solicitation for the Second Chance Act Prisoner Reentry Initiative. Eligible applicants are state or local government agencies or federally recognized Indian tribes. The FAQ document provides a nice summary. A few highlights:

• Awards are up to $750,000 for 12 months
• The grant can make up no more than 50% of the overall budget.  25% of the overall budget can be in-kind contributions; the other 25% must be a hard cash match of non-federal dollars (state general fund or foundation money)
• Awarded projects should provide the full range of services, including educational, literacy, vocational, and job placement services; substance abuse treatment; programs that encourage healthy families; mentoring; validated assessment tools; and victim-appropriate services

Applications are due by 8:00 pm, April 20, 2009 via the very difficult-to-use Grants.gov website, which requires pre-registration several weeks in advance.  So get started as soon as possible! The Reentry Policy Council has released a toolkit to assist applicants, which includes a checklist that will help applicants complete their proposals, and a resource guide of useful publications.

Good luck everyone!

Image: Urban Institute

Do you run a pre-apprentice program? Take the Aspen survey

This just in from the Aspen Institute's Workforce Strategies Initiative. If you run a program that prepares workers for construction trades apprenticeships, please take their survey. More info:

Last week, the Aspen Institute's Workforce Strategies Initiative released a census aimed at sector initiatives that people prepare for and connect to jobs in the construction industry.

The purpose of this census is to develop a better understanding of number of existing entry-level construction trades training programs (sometimes referred to as pre-apprentice programs), their size, geographic distribution, range of services, and capacity to serve low-income job seekers. This information is particularly important, given the recent federal investment in public works projects and green jobs.

So, if you provide construction-related training or employment services to job seekers, take about 20 minutes to respond. If you don't provide construction-related training or workforce development services but know programs that do, please ask them to respond. The survey is also accessible through the Aspen-WSI home page to anyone who would like to see a little background information before responding. All surveys must be completed by Friday, April 10th, 2009.

If you're interested in the results of the census – stay tuned! The results of the survey will be analyzed and a short paper highlighting the key findings will be written and shared with policymakers and practioners.

This project was funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. If you have further questions, feel free to contact Allison Gerber. 

To go directly to the survey, click here. I'll post a link to the results and findings when they're available.

Hammering Man vor Messeturm photo by Andrew Kohler

Can you help a reader? Ex-offenders need to practice electronic job applications

Reader Christina recently posted this comment looking for resources to help her nonprofit program serving ex-offenders:

I currently work for a non-profit agency which provides job readiness training to individuals with criminal records. As part of our programming, we are looking to secure a stand alone Kiosk in which clients can practice completing electronic applications (that is not web-based for security purposes). We would also like this device to be able to print out so the Staff person can review the application and provide feedback.

Is anyone aware of something like this that may exist? The issues I keep running into to is 1. no one is willing to sell me a single Kiosk, 2. everything is run off the internet in some fashion, or 3. we would have to create the software.

This Kiosk would exist in our computer lab which currently runs on a server. Ideally, we would like this to also be on the server so the Administrator (Staff person) could access.

Thank you in advance for any assistance you can provide.

Do you know of any resources to help Christina and other programs like hers? Add your thoughts and ideas in the comments below.

A shovel-ready maintenance worker shortage

As older workers retire and younger workers opt out of maintenance jobs, how will we keep schools, factories, hospitals and other facilities running? Some experts say there just won't be enough trained maintenance workers in the U.S. to meet labor demand.

If you're thinking somebody should write a song about the looming maintenance worker shortage and put it on YouTube, I have a video for you: 

The video ends with two great questions:

What if we train them and they leave?
What if you don't and they stay?

As this song asks, How safe does that make you feel?

If you don't see the embedded video, click here to watch it on YouTube.

Six web 2.0 principles for workforce boards and One-Stops

Anyone who's read this blog for a while or has been to one of my workshops knows I've been outspoken in encouraging One-Stop Career Centers and workforce boards to find ways to utilize internet technologies (aka web 2.0) to help you serve customers more effectively, manage programs more efficiently, and raise the profile of the workforce development system nationally.

With stimulus money coming down the pike, you may be starting to think about how you could use RSS feeds, blogs, wikis, podcasts, social networking and other web tools in your programs. To help jump start the conversation, I offer the following

6 principles to guide the use of web 2.0 technology, for workforce boards and One-Stops

1) Customer/client needs should drive the technology, not the other way around. It's easy to get caught up in the next new thing. In the web 2.0 world, that new thing will be old in ten minutes or less. Don't wait for a technology expert who doesn't know workforce development to tell you what you can do. Start talking first about the services you'd like to make available to customers, then explore what internet technology exists to help you do that. If it doesn't exist, let the social venture capitalists know because you've just identified an opportunity for them.

2) Mobile-ize it. Today's cellphones are becoming computers. Or are computers becoming cellphones? Either way, our customers and clients are using their mobile phones more and more to connect, communicate and gather information. Start thinking about how to make your internet-based services available via cell, and what content might go directly to cell and bypass the web entirely.

3) Make mistakes. There are no best practices out there for how to integrate web 2.0 technology into the workforce system, so we're going to have to make it up as we go along. We're going to have to experiment, which means we will make mistakes along the way to finding the most effective technology tools to connect people and jobs. So let's get out there and start making mistakes.

4) Loosen controls on computers in the One-Stops. I understand why those controls exist - to keep job seekers from using computers for non-job search related activities. But I think we've thrown out the baby with the bathwater here. Twitter, Ning, Facebook, MySpace, blogs, wikis and other web 2.0 tools are becoming an integral part of modern job search and networking. By blocking those services, we're preventing people who already have limited computer access and skills from learning and using these tools to improve their career opportunities.

5) Don't eliminate the human touch. This was brought home to me by watching what's happening to the unemployment system, on this blog and at visits to local One-Stop Career Centers. Most states replaced unemployment staff with telephones and computers long ago. When those overloaded systems have failed in recent months, Americans have had nowhere to turn. So they show up at the One-Stop looking for the help they need to get their unemployment benefits. The lesson here is that the human touch is too valuable to eliminate.  Technology should enhance the direct services we provide, not replace them.

6) Engage in a serious national discussion about the intersection of performance requirements, universal services and web 2.0 technology. Today, more people than ever need workforce development services. What we mean by "universal services" is being tested in a way it never has before. But it's happening at the best time that it could - a time when internet technologies make it possible for us to provide help to clients and customers who don't need intensive services, but could use a leg up, and could access it via internet. We should be there - online - to provide that boost.

However, if One-Stops and workforce boards don't get credit toward performance requirements - and therefore funding - to serve people indirectly online, then it won't happen. This will be a missed opportunity both to meet needs and to raise our profile with a constituency that probably never knew we existed. If this discussion isn't taking place already, it should start now.

What do you think? What have I left out? Are you thinking about trying out web 2.0? If so, what principles will guide your agency's use of those tools?

Update March 24: Read Ed Morrison's Re-employment Nets and Web 2.0 paper, which was inspired by this post. 

A map of green jobs in America

Where are the green jobs everybody's talking about? What are those jobs? What companies have them?

A recent report by researchers at Duke University called Manufacturing Climate Solutions (summary here) has set out to answer those questions. The report was sponsored in part by the Environmental Defense Fund, which has put together an impressive website that includes maps of specific companies where green jobs are being created in twelve states. I hope more states are coming soon.

The study started by focusing on five carbon-reducing technologies and taking a close look at jobs in in their value chain and in the supply chain where parts and components are made for those technologies.

Many of those parts are manufactured in the U.S., which means they found lots of green jobs in manufacturing. The first five technologies they studied are LED lighting, high-performance windows, auxiliary power units for long-haul trucks, concentrating solar power, and Super Soil Systems (a new method for treating hog wastes). New industries are being added to the study and released periodically.

The information in this report complements the green jobs framework issued last week by the Department of Labor about how the workforce system should spend funds to develop green jobs and prepare people for them.

Here's a detail from EDF's map of renewable energy (green) and energy efficiency (blue) companies in the Denver, Colorado, area:

To get into the interactive map click here. For more information on the study and the green jobs they found, visit the website or read the report. The report was sponsored by Environmental Defense Fund, the Building and Construction Trades Department (AFL-CIO), Industrial Union Council (AFL-CIO), International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, and United Association of Plumbers and Pipefitters.

The study concludes that the states likely to benefit most from green jobs include Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, North Carolina, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and California.

Looks like those of us in workforce development are going to be learning a lot more about low-carbon technologies and supply chains as we develop new programs and jobs in the green economy era. 

Department of Labor issues draft framework for green jobs

The DOL's Employment and Training Administration (DOLETA) has issued its framework for developing green jobs within the nation's workforce system. The framework lines up their expectations from the policy level down to roles and specific actions at the operational level. As DOLETA describes it

The framework identifies the foundational and operational elements required for serving the needs of the workforce system and its customers. It is designed to promote the development of new and existing green jobs, and hasten widespread employment in green careers across several industry sectors.

It's still marked "draft," so there may be changes. You can download the document here, or read it below.

DOL's Green Job Framework - DocStoc.com

The Workforce Investment Act may finally be reauthorized

Today was the last day of the National Association of Workforce Boards annual conference and the closing remarks were given by Senator Patty Murray and Representatives Buck McKeon, Ruben Hinojosa, and Rosa DeLauro.

Each spoke of the need to invest in our human infrastructure through training and skill development but the most interesting theme I heard was their desire and commitment to get the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) finally reauthorized. In fact, Representative Hinojosa (who chairs the House Subcommittee on Higher Education, Lifelong Learning, and Competitiveness and also sits on the House Committee on Education and Labor) stated that it is his goal to have it done by August.

But maybe the most promising statement of all came from President Obama who today announced in his speech on education that he will urge congress to get WIA reauthorized.

The Worksystems delegation will be on Capitol Hill tomorrow meeting with our legislators and urging them to support this. Please speak with yours as well!

Reposted with permission from the Worksystems blog.

Do you Twitter? The Department of Labor does

So does Labor Secretary Hilda Solis (almost).

I admit, I've been resistant to Twitter. I've made some snarky comments about it in public, even as I set up Workforce Developments to feed to Twitter.

Those days are over. I'm seriously tweeting now. I'm also using Twitter to follow the Department of Labor and other federal agencies. I'm also on Secretary Solis's feed, although it's just said "Coming Soon" since Feb 25.

It might be time for you to check Twitter out for yourself.

Twitter is a combination of micro-blogging (each post can be no more than 140 characters) and social networking. I follow the Tweeple (that's people on Twitter) I'm interested in. Those who are interested in me, follow me.

Of course you can use it for silly things like telling what you ate for breakfast or the music you're listening to.

But you can also use it to connect with other professionals in your field. To share information and to learn from them. That's what I'm using it for.

It's also a jobs and careers tool your clients may want to investigate. Employers are posting jobs on Twitter. Job hunters are using it to search for jobs and to get job search tips. Recruiters are sharing their best advice via Twitter. Careers maven Alison Doyle has a terrific list of who to follow if you're using Twitter for job hunting. 

If you think you want to take Twitter for a spin, here's a guide to getting started. And if you start tweeting for workforce development, let me know so I can follow you.

Are we getting closer to a green jobs definition?

Green jobs are the hot topic of this year's National Association of Workforce Boards conference and the question on everyone's mind is "What is the definition of a green job?" As you can imagine, there are lots of opinions and no agreement yet. However, the Department of Labor is getting closer to a definition and gave us a preview of a framework today (about to be issued).

DOL is looking at 3 categories of occupations:

1. Green Growth Occupations - Existing occupations expected to increase in demand due to the addition of greener processes. Some new skills are expected to be needed.

2. Green Enhanced Occupations - Existing occupations that will experience significant change in work and worker skill requirements.

3. Green New & Emerging Occupations - Unique new work and worker skill requirements. Will result in new occupations.

According to DOL, all of these occupations will exist in 12 industry sectors:

• Research Design & Consulting
• Manufacturing
• Renewable Energy Generation
• Green Construction
• Environmental Protection
• Transportation
• Government & Regulatory Administration
• Energy Efficiency
• Agriculture & Forestry
• Recycling & Waste Reduction
• Energy Trading
• Energy Carbon Capture

So, unfortunately the conference has not given us the magic answer yet but we do seem to be getting closer!

Reposted with permission from the Worksystems blog

If you're having trouble getting through to unemployment...

With unemployment in the U.S. officially hitting a 25-year high of 8.1% last week, state unemployment systems have struggled to keep up with the need. Computer and telephone systems have crashed, and most states simply don't have enough live staffers to process claims.

As a result, people are sitting on the phone for hours, only to be cut off by overloaded phone systems. Computers are crashing while people try to file. Other people are waiting weeks and even months for much-needed benefits checks.

If you're having trouble getting through to unemployment, or aren't getting the benefits you believe you're qualified for, there aren't a lot of options, as the readers commenting on this post have experienced.

In a recent story on NPR's Marketplace Money, Andrew Stettner of the National Employment Law Project recommended that if you're having problems with unemployment, contact your union or your state elected representative or member of Congress. Stettner told the show:

All of those people will have another line into the Department of Labor. And it's not fair or right that someone who complains to a number of places gets their problem resolved faster, but it's just the way it works in reality.

Then again, the story goes on to tell the story of another person for whom this didn't work.

Still, elected officials do need to hear about the problems you're having with the unemployment system. This might create some pressure on them to update aging computer and phone systems and hire more staff.

Of course, all those things cost money. And here's the problem. If a bank wants to update the computer software on all its ATM machines or their phone systems, they simply do it and pass the cost on to consumers through higher fees and interest rates. If a government agency needs to update its computer systems, their only source of revenue is taxes. As long as the tax-cut brigade keeps chipping away at revenues, government can't invest in computer systems or people, and we find ourselves in this situation.

If you're having trouble with your unemployment benefits:

1. Be persistent and be polite. The workers at unemployment are overloaded and stressed. Some of them may be at risk of layoffs too.
2. Document everything from the moment you are laid off, including every piece of paper you get from your employer and from the unemployment agency. Keep notes on every conversation you have with your employer or with unemployment, and be sure to get the names of the people you talk to.
3. Contact your elected officials and let them know what's going on.
4. Don't be afraid to turn to your local social service agencies for help to get you through these tough times.

Social Media and Workforce Boards

Tricia Ryan is blogging from the National Association of Workforce Boards annual conference in Washington DC this week. Here's her first post.

I learned an interesting statistic today: 100 new non-profits are created everyday(!), each advocating for an issue and marketing their mission. For workforce development to stand out in such a crowded environment, it's becoming increasingly important to broaden communication platforms from verbal and written to include virtual. Worksystems recently jumped into the social media pond by launching this blog and starting a Twitter account but we weren't sure how to best utilize these communication tools to promote our mission.

I attended a session this morning discussing this very issue. Social media can be very effective at enhancing the traditional roles of workforce investment boards and workforce development agencies. As an information clearinghouse, we collect lots of data, best practices, policies, and trends. Social networks allow us to cast the data net wider and listening tools like RSS feeds, Google Alerts and Twitter keep our ears to the virtual ground.

We know that workforce development cannot be done in a vacuum so building strategic partnerships and mobilizing stakeholders is critical. Social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn allow us to collaborate with virtual communities. YouTube can be used to put a "face" on workforce development to tell the stories of the people who benefit from the system (I'm buying a flip camera as soon as I get home). Still more tools like blogs and online forums give us the ability to engage people in conversation and hear their opinions.

The options are overwhelming! I'm very interested in hearing from other workforce development professionals who are using social media. Which tools have you found most effective?

Reposted with permission from the Worksystems blog.

Blogging the 2009 NAWB Forum

In the wake of President Obama's public call for Americans to get career training, and with stimulus funds just over the horizon, this year's National Association of Workforce Boards Forum promises to be full of interesting info (and maybe a little good gossip too).

I won't be there, so I'm partnering with Tricia Ryan of Worksystems Inc. in Oregon to bring you blogging coverage of the conference. Tricia will be blogging the conference at the Worksystems blog, and I'll be republishing her posts here on Workforce Developments. Let me introduce Tricia:

Tricia Ryan is the Chief Operating Officer of Worksystems, a nonprofit organization working to build a comprehensive workforce development system that supports individual prosperity and business competitiveness in the City of Portland, Multnomah and Washington counties.  She has 15 years experience in economic development and workforce development in the States of Oregon and Michigan.

You can also follow Tricia and Worksystems at her Twitter feed.

If you're at NAWB and want to share what you're hearing and learning, add your comments below or drop me a line.

Free resume printing nationwide on March 10

FedEx Office (the place I used to know as Kinko's) has just announced it will print up to 25 copies of every customer's resume for free on March 10.

Read the press release here.

Sure, it's a PR gambit, and there are limitations (black and white only, have to place and pick up the order in the store, etc.). But free is free.

Many companies require you to apply for jobs online. This offer won't help you there.

But some experts recommend sending hard copies of your resume through the mail directly to hiring managers (rather than through the HR department) when you can. Because so many people are applying online, a printed resume might make you stand out from the crowd. Also, it can't hurt to have a few hard copies on hand at your next networking meeting.

Get the details on their free resume printing offer here.

Good luck with your job hunt.

The stimulus plan: how workforce dollars will be spent

The federal government must have funds from the stimulus bill (known as the Recovery Act, or by its acronym ARRA) allotted by March 19, 2009. That's 30 days after it was signed into law, and less than two weeks from today.

Agencies that will spend those funds are beginning to set up policies, principles, rules and regulations for how they will invest stimulus money. The U.S. Department of Labor has just released the following Training and Employment Notice (30-08) explaining the ground rules for how state and local workforce agencies should use the funds. The full text of the notice is below, but here are the key principles:

• Transparency and accountability are expected at all levels, including frequent communication with the American public;
• Funds will be expedited, and expenditures will be made concurrently with regular formula funds;
• Emphasis should be on training and on innovative and invigorated service delivery strategies;
• The emphasis should also be on services for hard-to-serve populations and needs-related payments. 

DOL Implementation Strategy for the Stimulus

Other agencies are setting policies and making Recovery Act information available at the state and local level. These include

• Worksystems, Inc. in Portland, Oregon has created a set of principles to guide their use of funds
• U.S. Conference of Mayors recently held a series of workshops offering advice and guidance on how to use the funds for summer youth employment programs - read notes from the workshops here, courtesy of Michele Martin 
• The California Workforce Association has created a wiki full of ARRA-related resources 
• The White House and several states have set up websites to explain and track how they spend stimulus funds 

If you know of other ARRA-related principles, policies and guidelines from other agencies, please send me links.

Mapping the workforce world of sector initiatives

Sector initiatives have been all the rage in workforce development in recent years. I've worked for several myself, so I've seen first-hand what effective programs can do to help people get good jobs.

If you're interested in getting a birds-eye view of sector initiatives, visit the National Network of Sector Partners' new map of sector initiatives across the country. It's searchable by state, industry and type of organization (such as One-Stop, union, or community-based organization).

Here's an image of the map. To get into the interactive tools, click here.

If you know of a sector initiative that isn't on this map but should be, get in touch with NNSP and let them know.

What is a sector initiative? Admittedly, it's a vague term, and different people mean different things when they talk about it. NNSP defines it this way:

Sector initiatives are regional, industry-focused approaches to workforce and economic development. They improve access to good jobs and/or increase job quality in ways that strengthen an industry’s workforce.

For more on sector initiatives:

• Website for the National Network of Sector Partners
• Research on sector initiatives, by the Aspen Institute
• Information about the Sector Skills Academy (applications available soon) 
• Previous coverage of sector initiatives on Workforce Developments
• Federal policy recommendations on sector initiatives, from The Workforce Alliance

State of economy makes it even harder for ex-offenders to find jobs

The economic slowdown and the high numbers of unemployed make it even harder for those with limited experience or barriers to employment to find work. This is particularly true for the formerly incarcerated.

A recent article in the Long Beach Press-Telegram followed the story of a woman paroled after serving time for her nonviolent drug conviction, who is finding it difficult to find work and pay her bills. The article quotes her as saying, "In many ways, it's harder than being incarcerated."

At the same time, the state of the economy is impacting programs that provide services to ex-offenders. NPR recently did a report on juvenile justice programs suffering from budget cuts.  Funding for counseling and group homes have been cut in several states across the South, and instead young offenders are being sent to prison.  And according to another NPR broadcast that is part of a News and Notes series on crime, there is a direct link between desperate economic times and increased crime rates, particularly property crimes.  

Times are hard all around right now so why should anyone care about ex-offenders?  I keep coming back to the numbers.  In California, it costs over $43,000 a year to house one state prisoner, and we have over 170,000 locked up and over 120,000 on parole. 

Given the budget crisis, the lost human capital, the lost tax revenue and the other costs of crime, how can we afford NOT to do something about the situation?