1 = 100? It is according to the Drug Quantity Table, where 1 gram of crack cocaine equals 100 grams of powder cocaine; part of the drug equivalency formulae born out of the 80s overblown media hype and of mandatory minimum sentencing law passed by the Congress in 1986. Although prison sentence for trafficking/possession of 10 gram of crack cocaine is not 100 times that for 1 Kilo of powder cocaine, it can still lead to a jail sentence that is nearly 10 times longer. However, that is not the only problem with the sentence that is partly determined by the Sentencing Guidelines and a so called Base Offense Level (BOL) table. It so happens that trafficking in small amount of cocaine occurs mainly in inner-city neighborhoods and by relatively young African-Americans. And yes, they form the bulk (85%) of prison population that is serving very long jail sentences.

The U.S. Sentencing Commission (USSC), an independent body within Justice dept that is charged with developing prison sentencing guidelines, is trying to address the disparity between the longer jail sentences for crack cocaine offense and those for other illegal drugs such as powder cocaine. The USSC decided to decrease crack cocaine related BOL by two. For eg., a formerly level 16 BOL (with a mandatory prison term of 2 years) is now 14 and thus could lead to zero jail-time. This has been widely commented and welcomed by Federal Public and Community Defenders, NAACP, ACLU and other civic groups.

However, that is not what has riled up the Administration’s Justice Dept., it is the USSC’s proposal to make the changes in BOL retroactive. They object vehemently to many findings from the USCC’s report titled Analysis of the Impact of the Crack Cocaine Amendment If Made Retroactive, especially they argue that it would lead to overburdening of the district courts with the petitions from thousands of inmates who are eligible to reduction in prison sentence and other issues such as overcrowding of half-way houses, increase of workload for the U.S. Martials, and release of violent criminals into localities that could suffer from renewed drug trade and violence associated with that, especially in the light of the FBI statistics showing increasing rates of violent crimes over the last three years.

It is not clear when the USSC is likely to vote on the issue of retroactive reduction of crack cocaine sentences, whenever that happens, it would lead to release of large number of inmates. Therefore we at FortiusOne thought that the public may want to discover the geographic dimension of the possible early release of the crack cocaine inmates…Below is a heat map of crack prisoners who are eligible for release after one year. Explore on GeoCommons data for other time periods along with number of defendants by the type drug offenses and the average/median prison sentences by federal district courts for drug crimes.

Crack offenders eligible for early release within a year

Popularity: 31% [?]

It’s almost 125 years ago that the first workingmen’s holiday was celebrated (Tuesday, September 5, 1882) in New York. Over the next dozen years nearly 27 states recognized this holiday and in 1894, the U.S. Congress enacted it as a Federal holiday.

Among many things, the holiday has come to symbolize the unofficial end of summer, the beginning of government budget battles, serious politicking and ever busy cycle of campaign fund raising

And talking of campaign fund raising, on this Labor day holiday, one may wonder the degree to which Labor Union's have any influence on today’s politics? According to Dept. of Labor the rate of union membership has declined steadily from 20.1% of total workforce in 1988 to just 12% in 2006 (15.4 million). With decreasing membership dues; can the Labor Unions, as special interest group PACs (Political Action Committee) have any sway over what happens on the Capitol? And how do they (318 PACs strong) measure against other special interest group PACs from the Corporate world (1,697 PACs) and Trade groups (1,033 PACs). Zoom in and pan to explore the maps below that show the spatial distribution, as on 2nd Sept, 2007, of political donations to Senators and Congressmen, from both parties, by these three special interest groups. The map data is available on Geocommons for downloads.

Spatial distribution of Labor donations by recipients

The top five recipients from Labor PACs are: Congresswoman Laura Richardson, (CA District 37;~$310k); Speaker Nancy Pelosi, (CA District 8; ~$194K); Congressman Joseph Sestak (PA District 7; ~$151K); Congressman Joseph Donnely (IN District 2; ~$140K); Congressman Steven Kagen (WI District 8; ~$133K)

What is surprising is that Democrats also do well with Trade Groups ($15 mill) and Corporate PACs ($19.3 mill).

Spatial distribution of Trade Groups donations by recipients

The top five recipients from Trade PACs are: House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, (MD District 05; ~$347K); Senator Max Baucus (MT; ~$331K); House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel (NY District 5; ~ $310K); Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, (KY; ~$273K); Senator Norm Coleman (MN; ~$242K)

Compare that to Republicans who have received 11.8 mill from Trade and $18.9 mill from Corporations so far.

Spatial distribution of Corporate donations by recipients

The top five recipients from Corporate PACs are: Senator Max Baucus (MT; ~$636K); Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (KY, ~$631K); House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel (NY District 15; ~$576K); House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (MD District 5; ~$562K); Senator Mark Pryor (AR; ~$459K)

Of the three groups, Labor has given the smallest share of campaign contributions ($13.5 mill); and overwhelmingly, by a ratio of 11 to 1, to Democrats. On the other hand the Corporate and Trade PACs appear to give to both parties in near equal proportions. The Corporate PAC contributions at $38.7 million is the highest, compare that to Trade Group PACs at $27.39 million. If campaign money is one way to measure political influence, Labor has much to worry about. What do you think?

FortiusOne

Popularity: 32% [?]

There have been several interesting blog posts of late on the demographics of Facebook and comparison to the demographics of sites like MySpace and LinkedIn. A few folks have looked at the international growth of Facebook, but I have not to date seen any discussion of the geography of Facebook. We all know it is big, but where is it hottest?

David here at FortiusOne decided to do some investigation and build out a dataset the number of members in the different regional networks on Facebook. When you register on Facebook you can join one regional network for the place you consider home. David tallied up the numbers for all the regional networks and geo-referenced the data set, and the top cities ranked out as such:

1. New York, NY = 273530

2. Chicago, IL = 246759

3. Washington, DC = 210160

4. Boston, MA = 171837

5. Atlanta, GA = 156643

6. Los Angeles, CA = 144718

7. Dallas / Fort Worth, TX = 120602

8. Minneapolis / St. Paul, MN =114404

9. Philadelphia, PA = 112495

10, Detroit, MI = 110704

The fascinating bit of this is how few west coast cities there are on the top ten list - only Los Angeles. The trend is even more striking when mapped out:

The Boston Washington corridor is flaming and Chicago definitely stands out in the midwest. So, why is Facebook not as big on the West Coast? Does the West Coast use other services, are there fewer universities, or are they on to the next new new thing.

Popularity: 32% [?]