Author Archives: legallysociable

Autism case #1

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Autism is a growing diagnosis in the United States. The Atlantic profiles the man, Donald Triplett, who was the first autism case in the United States diagnosed in the early 1940s.

The main question raised by this article, and one that is important to consider in the coming decades, is what will happen to autistic adults? There are a number of programs today for autistic children and teenagers but care is much more spotty for adults. Additionally, what happens when the parents of autistic children die? Donald has made a life for himself that includes plenty of golf and world travel but he lives in a close-knit Southern community that protects him from outsiders.

I used this article recently in class to illustrate how two journalists used a purposive sample to make their argument. Rather than try to look at autistic adults as a whole, they selected a prominent case to raise questions about autistic adults. While Donald may not be truly representative of this group, his life illustrates how an autistic adult can have a good life.

Good news about Chicago traffic and congestion – but due to new criteria

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A new report from a group named CEOs for Cities claims that Chicagoans spend the least amount of time in rush-hour traffic compared to other major cities:

The report’s ranking of mobility in 51 cities found that Chicago-area residents spend the least time in rush-hour travel. In Chicago and some of the other best-performing cities — including New Orleans, New York, Portland, Ore., and Sacramento, Calif. — commuters typically spend 40 fewer hours a year in peak-hour travel than the average American, the report said.

In metro areas with the worst urban sprawl — including Nashville, Detroit, Indianapolis and Raleigh, N.C. — residents spend as much as 240 hours per year in rush-period travel on average because commuting distances are much longer, said the report, which was produced with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation.

This seems to be contrary to other studies I’ve seen that suggest Chicago is quite congested. One reason this study might have different results is a new criteria in the methodology.

The report’s author criticized other mobility studies that focus on the amount of traffic congestion in a region without factoring in travel distance.

The Urban Mobility Report, issued every two years by the Texas Transportation Institute, is regarded by many experts as the authoritative voice on traffic congestion issues. The report consistently ranks the Chicago region as the second or third most-congested area of the nation. It does not account for travel distance.

I am left wondering whether travel distance an important factor to include…

The Infrastructurist comments on the disparities in the two sets of rankings.

A disconnect between being open to other religions vs. welcoming them

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Robert Putnam and several other researchers discovered that there is a large gap between what Americans say about religious freedom and what they are actually willing to live near:

Three quarters of Americans said they would support a large Buddhist temple in their community, but only 15 percent would explicitly welcome one. Americans, in other words, supported the idea of a temple but weren’t so crazy about the bricks-and-mortar aspect of things.

Recent survey findings in the wake of the Ground Zero controversy reveal similar findings:

Polling last week from Quinnipiac University revealed exactly the same paradox. Seventy percent of Americans support the rights of Muslims to build the mosque, but 63 percent believe it would be inappropriate to actually build it.

It sounds like there is an ideal that Americans hold about freedom of religion: many different groups are welcome. But this ideal is difficult to put into action.

Calculating the costs associated with a murder

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Whenever I see a researcher or lawyer put a dollar figure on a certain act, I’m always curious how they calculate this figure. Here is another example: a sociologist at Iowa State argues the total monetary cost of a single murder is just over $17 million.

Matt DeLisi, an ISU associate professor of sociology and director of the criminal justice program, led a team of five Iowa State graduate students on the study of 654 convicted and incarcerated murderers. Expanding upon earlier monetization estimates, they calculated the costs of five crimes — murder, rape, armed robbery, aggravated assault and burglary — in terms of the victim costs, criminal justice system costs, lost productivity estimates for both the victim and the criminal, and estimates on the public’s resulting willingness to pay to prevent future violence.

The sociologist argues this calculation was undertaken with crime prevention in mind:

“This area of research has really been run with prevention researchers,” he said. “That’s because what they find is that even if a prevention program is very expensive — and most of them are actually shockingly inexpensive — they’re still more cost effective than allowing these careers to unfold.”

Of course, focusing on prevention can be difficult and it may not eliminate all the crimes. But faced with the high costs of dealing with crimes after they are committed, some may take a longer look at preventative measures.

Two strange examples of “rights”

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As I was driving to work the other day, I had a thought about two “rights” that I had recently heard people defend. The first came in a radio discussion about sexist comments made regarding a female sports reporter from Mexico by New York Jets. In the defense of this female reporter, another female reporter said on the air that fans had a “right” to hear comments from players right after the game rather than having to wait for post-game comments in some media area.

The second example comes from the yearly discussions about whether burning leaves is appropriate and the “right” of an individual homeowner. As far as I understand, our community has decided that burning leaves can be done as long as certain guidelines are followed.

Thinking quickly about these two examples, they both strike me as quite American: the right to sports news and the right to remove leaves by burning. But perhaps using the language of “rights” in instances like these makes the conversation about real rights we value in America, typically considered the ones written in the Bill of Rights (and its subsequent amendments), more difficult.

New census findings on growing American income gap

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The United Census Bureau released 2009 income figures recently and the news is not good: the income gap between the richest and poorest is at its widest level since 1968.

The top-earning 20 percent of Americans — those making more than $100,000 each year — received 49.4 percent of all income generated in the U.S., compared with the 3.4 percent earned by those below the poverty line, according to newly released census figures. That ratio of 14.5-to-1 was an increase from 13.6 in 2008 and nearly double a low of 7.69 in 1968.

A different measure, the international Gini index, found U.S. income inequality at its highest level since the Census Bureau began tracking household income in 1967. The U.S. also has the greatest disparity among Western industrialized nations.

At the top, the wealthiest 5 percent of Americans, who earn more than $180,000, added slightly to their annual incomes last year, census data show. Families at the $50,000 median level slipped lower.

Several key things to note:

1. A complete historical perspective is not possible since the Census didn’t collect household income information before 1967. But this most recent data can still be compared to 40+ years.

2. The US has the largest Gini coefficient, a statistic used in a lot of international comparisons of income, of any “Western industrialized nation.”

3. Even with the recent economic troubles, the incomes of the wealthiest (the top 5%) went up while those around the median income (about $50,000), with 50% of American below this income level, went down.

These are statistics that still matter and have important societal consequences without having to get into a discussion about whether it is moral or immoral for people to earn a lot of money.

Discussing the meaning of racist comments online

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The Washington Post discusses the meaning of racist comments in Internet discussions. One conclusion: if people are still making such comments, there is still a long way to go to reducing racism.

The airplane conversations of mental health professionals vs. sociologists

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According to this New York Times article, people who work in mental health professions are much more likely to hear about the personal lives of their seatmates:

Pity the traveling mental health professional. While many travelers find strangers reveal information they might not in other contexts, psychologists, psychiatrists and social workers say they must negotiate a range of interpersonal, ethical and legal issues as they travel.

So while these professionals look for ways to not reveal too much about their jobs so they are not inundated with the personal lives of others, one professional suggests saying that he is a sociologist takes care of the issue:

Niranjan S. Karnik, a psychiatrist and sociologist who teaches at the University of Chicago, said he often told seatmates, “ ‘I’m a sociologist.’ That’s an effective conversation-ender.”

I would like to hear more about this. Is this because the seatmate doesn’t know what a sociologist is or does? Or is it because people perceive it to be a boring or uninteresting profession?

Americans may be generally religious but not necessarily knowledgable

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Americans are considered to be a generally religious people, particularly compared to other Western nations. However, new findings from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life suggest that being religious doesn’t necessarily lead to being knowledgeable about faith traditions:

Forty-five percent of Roman Catholics who participated in the study didn’t know that, according to church teaching, the bread and wine used in Holy Communion is not just a symbol, but becomes the body and blood of Christ.

Respondents to the survey were asked 32 questions with a range of difficulty, including whether they could name the Islamic holy book and the first book of the Bible, or say what century the Mormon religion was founded. On average, participants in the survey answered correctly overall for half of the survey questions.

Atheists and agnostics scored highest, with an average of 21 correct answers, while Jews and Mormons followed with about 20 accurate responses. Protestants overall averaged 16 correct answers, while Catholics followed with a score of about 15.

So there are two interesting findings: people who are Protestants or Catholics can only answer about half of the questions correctly and they are outperformed by atheists, agnostics, Jews, and Mormons.

It is interesting to think why this may be the case. Do Protestants and Catholics emphasize doctrine less? Can people be more of “cultural” Protestants and Catholics as opposed to dedicated followers? Does the minority/smaller group status of the other groups, atheists, agnostics, Jews, and Mormons, mean that people who are in these faiths have to be more serious, intentional, or knowledgeable?

Suicide rates among the Baby Boomers

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Suicide rates have long been of interest to sociologists, beginning with Emile Durkheim’s Suicide. The general argument from sociologists: suicide rates are reflective of broader social forces.

Recent research by two sociologists shows suicide rates among the baby boomers rose around the turn of the millennium. Here are some of the findings:

  • There was a substantial increase in the suicide rate for men (50-59) and women (40-59) between 1999 and 2005.  For men aged 40 to 49, the increase began about a decade earlier, in the late 1980s.
  • Increases in middle-aged suicide rates were typically greater among those who were unmarried.
  • The rise in suicide was particularly dramatic for people without college degrees, with increases near 30 percent.
  • People with college degrees seem to have escaped the trend.

Traditionally, U.S. suicide rates rise in adolescence and again in old age. They stabilize  in maturity and middle age, a time when people are invested in their families and work. For men in particular, suicide rates rise again in old age, when children are grown, illness is more frequent and spouses and contemporaries start to die.

The sociologists speculate that economic pressures played a role in these rising rates.

Based on findings like these, can we expect that the economic troubles of the last few years also led to higher suicide rates?