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Courting Justice Ohio is a year long initiative to engage criminal justice stakeholders and residents on the reforms needed and already underway to address the disproportionate impact of fines, fees and bail on the poor. The initiative includes self-organized community discussions across Ohio using the Courting Justice Ohio Discussion Guide, private discussion groups organized by ideastream in Northeast Ohio, and City Club of Cleveland forums.

The foundation for this initiative is a televised forum hosted on December 8, 2016 by Tavis Smiley and the National Center for State Courts, in partnership with ideastream and The City Club of Cleveland, which put judges in direct dialogue with the communities they serve. The focus of the forum was on how various forms of payment required by the courts (e.g. fines, fees, bail) to either punish offenders, support operating court costs or incentivize defendants’ release before trial affect people who cannot pay those costs at a far greater rate than those who can.

The goals of this initiative include:

• raising awareness of the disproportionate impact of fines, fees and bail on the poor
• encouraging statewide, self-organized dialogues on the issue
• collecting responses and reform ideas from discussion participants across the state and identifying key themes in these discussions for policy consideration

The initiative is led by ideastream, in partnership with The City Club of Cleveland and with support from the Cleveland Foundation.

ideastream’s Public Square is a moderated Facebook* group for people who want to delve deeper into what they hear, read or watch on WCPN, WVIZ, or our website, ideastream.org. It's a place where people share a common interest in what’s going on in the world, unpacking it and distilling it and just having real good conversations online, no matter their political or other ideologies.

It’s also a place to revel in other content beyond news that we’re listening to, watching and reading. Is there a podcast you’ve been obsessed with? An article that changed your thinking? A TV show you’ve been binging on, but have no one to talk about it with?

Let’s talk about it here!

*A Facebook account is required to join.

Please e-mail Mike Shafarenko if you have specific questions about the Civic Commons.

On Tuesday, October 24th 2017 ideastream held a forum on the disproportionate impact court fines, fees and bail have on the poor with members of the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association, and a panel of guests. 

This forum was part of ideastream's ongoing Courting Justice Ohio initiative, and took place at the offices of the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association, in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. 

Our panelists were:

Judge K.J. Montgomery
Shaker Heights Municipal Court

Mike Brickner
Senior Policy Director, ACLU Ohio

Chris Quinn
Editor and President, Advance Ohio

Jimmy Gates
Faith Community Organizer, Lutheran Metropolitan Ministries 

Our moderator was Maxie C. Jackson III, Station Manager of 90.3 WCPN ideastream

Find more Courting Justice Ohio discussions and join the conversation at courtingjusticeohio.org

“I’m a Cleveland teacher (my students are majority African American) and I feel that many of our kids get little exposure to anything outside of their neighborhood. I feel like this leads them to fear/feel uncomfortable in any other environment thereby leading them to live their adult lives in the same neighborhood they grew up in. This can limit opportunities.”

“Segregation lowers the quality of life for everyone. It perpetuates stereotypes because our children are growing up in homogeneous bubbles.”

“Discrimination. Disparity. Unhappiness. Violence.”

 “Integrated neighborhoods sounds good, and more options are need to help people live in better neighborhoods, but let’s also look at the costs to the neighborhoods as they do become integrated.”

“History is being neglected or erased.”

In the run-up to ideastream’s special series about neighborhood segregation called Divided by Design, we asked community members to weigh in through the Listening Project about their beliefs and attitudes about segregation in greater Cleveland. Many of the over 200 respondents spoke eloquently about why neighborhood segregation matters to them and how they think their community compares to others around it. 

The majority of those surveyed felt it was important to have diverse, integrated neighborhoods (60% strongly agreed; 28% agreed; 9% were neutral). Here’s a map of the responses, based on location, about the impacts of segregation (some of which are excerpted at the top of this article).

When asked whose role it was to work toward greater integration in greater Cleveland, the top two responses were individual citizens and city governments. Some people got more specific with write-in responses, saying it was the responsibility of homeowners associations, block clubs, large local institutions, realtors, school districts, community development corporations, and banks. 

The survey also drilled down into questions about the respondents’ own neighborhoods. Responses were split equally, with about a third saying their neighborhood had received less investment than others, a third saying it had received equal investment to others, and a third saying their community received more investment than others. It was more of a bell curve response when it came to the question of whether a respondent’s neighborhood had improved, stayed the same, or declined over the past decade. Here are responses to this question based on location (blue = greatly improved, yellow = stayed the same, red = greatly declined).

When it comes to beliefs about why neighborhoods in greater Cleveland are segregated now, the majority of survey takers (55%) said it was a combination of the following: basic economics, comfort and personal choice, and decades of discriminatory policies that have limited where minorities could live and provided more opportunities for whites to choose where they live. One respondent noted that “perceptions drive segregation,” citing that the “narrative of blacks lowering property values continues to prevail in Cleveland.”

You can find all of the reporting from the Divided by Design series here. Join the discussion on social media by following the hashtag #dividedbydesign.

What does it mean to be an American?

What holds us together in turbulent times?

In our fractured society, the ideals, values and ethos that bind us as Americans enable us to overcome the challenges we face in our communities, our nation and our world.

On Thursday, April 5, 2018 over 100 high school students and community members gathered at the Idea Center to join a nationwide conversation, exploring the underlying diversity that drives our ever-developing culture in our quest to develop an American Creed.  These students and community members were joined by American Creed cast members Terrence Davenport and Tegan Griffith to discuss what it means to be an American in 2018.

To view the documentary American Creed in its entirety, click here.

Terrence Davenport was raised in the economically struggling Arkansas Delta. He did well in school, attending the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, where he studied web design and started a web development business. He moved back to his hometown of Dumas (pop. 2,500) in 2010 to help his family after his mother was diagnosed with cancer and his grandmother was evicted from the sharecropper’s shack she had lived in most of her life. Davenport stayed in Dumas and became a social entrepreneur, coaching low-income people and connecting them to work. “There’s ingenuity, determination and grit in our community,” Davenport says, “and if we can get even a small toehold on the economic ladder, we have a fighting chance.”

Sergeant Tegan Griffith, from the rural town of Wittenberg, Wisconsin, joined the Marine Corps at 21 in search of economic and educational opportunity, and a meaningful, patriotic life. Her service offered Griffith a valuable new perspective on what values are worth defending – those embedded in her vision of the American creed. After serving in Iraq, she returned to Wisconsin’s capital, where she works tirelessly to help fellow vets build a support network to advocate for themselves and others. As a resident of Madison, she regularly encounters loud and passionate protesters, understanding that defending their right to free speech is “part of the fabric of my uniform.” Now a leader of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, Griffith continues to fight for freedom and community.

This community conversation was produced in partnership:

American Creed

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David M. Kennedy come together from remarkably different backgrounds, life experiences and points of view to explore the idea of a unifying American creed. Their spirited inquiry frames the stories of a range of citizen-activists striving to realize their own visions of America’s promise across deep divides. 

American Creed launched as a nationally televised PBS Special, and as a feature documentary on PBS.org, on February 27, 2018. The date marked the beginning of a robust public engagement campaign including community conversations, classroom activities and local storytelling in cities and towns across the country—all designed to foster a bold national conversation about American ideals and identity.

In April, ideastream will be looking at how the effects of the opioid epidemic are rippling through our communities. In collaboration with Oregon Public Broadcasting and WXXI in Rochester, ideastream will examine how the crisis affects more than just those addicted to these powerful drugs. We welcome your input in advance of this special series.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) announced a grant of $260,160 to WVIZ/PBS ideastream for the American Graduate: Getting to Work initiative to help advance education and career readiness locally. Of the 19 PBS stations receiving grants, Ohio was awarded a statewide collaborative grant. WVIZ/PBS ideastream will partner with WOSU in Columbus and CET in Cincinnati to assess workforce challenges and opportunities, and produce content focused on the essential skills needed for students and workers to succeed in the job markets of today and tomorrow.

The three stations will coordinate and collaborate to share resources, content, events, distribution networks and services for a deep impact statewide effort to address workforce development through broadcast and digital media.

“We are honored to be a part of this important initiative,” said Linda Williams, Senior Director Community Engagement and Education at ideastream. “Together with our partners, ideastream will continue to strive to help increase successes of students in our communities. We are especially proud to be selected as the Ohio collaborative manager, overseeing activities across the state.”

The new grants represent the next phase of public media’s successful American Graduate initiative, which was launched in 2011 to address the nation’s dropout rate. During the past six years, public media stations across the country forged community connections and innovative partnerships to help improve student outcomes – substantially contributing to an increase in the national high school graduation rate to an all-time high of 84 percent.

“The American Graduate initiative attracted local business and community leader support and engagement by focusing on keeping young people on the path to success in school and life,” said Pat Harrison, CPB President and CEO. “All Americans want our young people to be prepared to fill jobs that currently are unfilled because of a skills gap.”

ideastream will partner with WOSU in Columbus and CET in Cincinnati to assess workforce challenges and opportunities, and produce content focused on the essential skills needed for students and workers to succeed in the job markets of today and tomorrow.

The three stations will coordinate and collaborate to share resources, content, events, distribution networks and services for a deep impact statewide effort to address workforce development through broadcast and digital media.

In advance of the start of summer reading, PBS released a list of 100 favorite novels, including everything from the classics to the Harry Potter series. It made us wonder: What are people reading this summer? ideastream surveyed area libraries and library systems to find out what people checked out and requested in June. Use the interactive map to find out what books are hot where you live. 

We analyzed the data from area libraries, and the finding may surprise you. Check out the in-depth story. 

Here is a list of the most popular books based on how frequently that they have been checked out at libraries across northeast Ohio this June. The larger the size of the word, the more frequently the book has been checked out. The less frequently checked out but still popular books are in smaller text. To enlarge the smaller text, simply hover over it with your mouse pointer.

This is one of four videos in the Be Well Heart Health series. To see them all, consider subscribing to ideastream's YouTube channel. 

Ever since I got my first job in an office, I’ve had this nagging voice in the back of my head telling me to get up and move more. But do I listen to it? Most of the time, I hate to admit, I don’t. And it’s not like I didn’t know that all this sitting around wasn’t good for me. But recently I learned just how bad it really is.

-To see how I enlisted a personal trainer help me and two colleagues learn some unintimidating ways to get moving, watch the video above. -

When I started doing research for this series on heart health, I learned that a sedentary lifestyle is actually one of the biggest risk factors for heart disease. And according to the World Health Organization, heart disease is the biggest killer in the world. More people die of heart disease every year worldwide than from any other cause.

The other side of the coin is also true: People who exercise more have a lower risk of heart disease. According to a 2016 review in the World Journal of Cardiology, “Three-quarters of deaths due to cardiovascular diseases could be prevented with adequate changes in lifestyle, including increased daily physical activity.”

I spoke with Dr. Deborah Kwon, a cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic, who told me that exercising more doesn’t have to involve wearing workout clothes or going to the gym. Instead, she said the key is to make lifestyle changes that add up to more physical activity throughout the day.

Major medical groups and organizations have documented the enormous impact there would be on the healthcare system if people just started exercising more, according to Dr. Jonathan Meyer. Or started exercising at all. That’s because the greatest gains in health outcomes are seen when sedentary people take that first step to becoming moderately active, and people can see health benefits even if they wait until midlife to exercise more, Dr. Meyer said. 

But what does it mean to be ‘moderately active’?

The American Heart Association says that to keep our hearts healthy, adults should get a minimum of 150 minutes a week of moderate exercise, like walking or easy biking. That breaks down to 30 minutes/ 5 days a week. If you choose more vigorous forms of exercise, like running or speed walking, you can meet the minimum recommendation in 75 minutes a week, or 25 minutes/ 3 days a week.

Source: American Heart Association

Experts say both moderate and vigorous activities can provide great benefits. A recent study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine showed that taking regular walks at anything faster than a slow pace could reduce your risk of dying from any cause, including heart disease, by 20 percent or more.

For people who want to become less sedentary, Dr. Kwon suggests getting up and walking around every couple of hours at work, and engaging in more active leisure pastimes instead of sedentary ones.

“Spending thirty minutes at the gym but being sedentary the rest of the day is not as good as being constantly on the move,” she said.

And if you don’t think you have time to move more during a busy workday?

Kwon’s response: “Get a desk cycle!”

-Dr. Kwon was kind enough to lend me her desk cycle for my project; to see it in action, click the video above.-

While the greatest reductions in mortality occur when sedentary people become moderately active, when it comes to exercise, more actually is better. Another study published in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that people with higher exercise capacity had a reduced risk of dying from any cause, despite having other risk factors. In other words, a person’s fitness level was a more important predictor of death than established risk factors such as smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or diabetes.

Relative Risks of Death from Any Cause Among Subjects with Various Risk Factors. MET refers to ‘metabolic equivalents’, which is a measure of peak exercise capacity. The darker bars represent higher exercise capacity. Source: NEJM.

The bottom line is that exercise is preventative medicine. The old adage that says, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” seems to apply when it comes to exercise.