Support for Offshore Drilling Rebounds While Support for Nuclear Power Plummets

According to polls conducted by The Pew Research Center, public support for offshore drilling has been steadily increasing. Last month, 57% of respondents favored allowing more gas and oil drilling, which is up 13 points since last June. However, support for offshore drilling has not yet reached levels seen before the April 2010 spill in the Gulf of Mexico, after which support was as low as 44%. It is speculated that the rebound in support for drilling might be due to recent increases in gas prices.



While public support or offshore drilling has been increasing, support for increased nuclear power has been declining. According to poll results from The Pew Research Center, 39% were in favor of increased nuclear power use last month, which is down from 47% in favor last October. This decline in support could be correlated with the ongoing nuclear emergency in Japan.


References:

Pew Center on the States, Opposition to Nuclear Power Rises Amid Japanese Crisis, Support for Offshore Oil and Gas Drilling Rebounds (Washington, DC: The Pew Charitable Trusts, March 2011).


Posted by Brittany

The State of Recidivism

See full report

Earlier this month the Pew Center on the States released State of Recidivism: The Revolving Door of America’s Prisons, a comprehensive report on trends in state recidivism rates. A recidivism rate refers to the proportion of individuals released from prison that are rearrested, reconvicted, or returned to prison within a specified time period. Offenses which result in a return to prison fall into one of two categories: 1) committing a new crime and subsequently receiving a new conviction or 2) violating a technical condition of supervision, such as failing to report to one’s parole or probation officer. Overall, more than four in ten offenders are returned to prison within three years of being released. Thirty-three states reported data for both 1999 and 2004; 17 states reported a decrease in recidivism rates over the five-year period and 15 states reported an increase. Rates in Oregon fell more than rates in any other state, reporting a 31.9 percent decrease. Overall, general recidivism rates showed little variation over the five years, with 45.4 percent for individuals released in 1999 and 43.3 percent for those released in 2004. The report vocalizes a need for improving supervision, citing that although crime rates continue to decline, the rates of reincarceration for committing a new crime increased by 11.9 percent over the five-year period. This increase is somewhat balanced out by the 17.7 percent drop in the rate of offenders reincarcerated for technical violations.

Pew Center on the States and those involved in publishing this report caution readers not to compare recidivism rates across states. There are many variables between different states that might affect recidivism rates differently; rates cannot be used as an accurate way of comparing the success of states’ respective corrections agencies. Pew worked with two opinion research firms, Public Opinion Strategies and Benson Strategy Group, to measure public opinion about recidivism.

Voters were most concerned with public safety and protection, advocating that a better job needs to be done in making sure that persons who are released are less likely to commit crimes. Voters showed strong support for reducing the length of incarceration for nonviolent prisoners who participate in programs that may help to reduce recidivism, such as substance abuse treatment programs. Voters also supported shorter sentences for nonviolent inmates who demonstrate good behavior and are at minimal risk of reoffending.

See full report 1,200 registered voters were interviewed by phone on March 7-14, 2010. Results have a margin of error of ±2.83%.

References:

Pew Center on the States, State of Recidivism: The Revolving Door of America’s Prisons (Washington, DC: The Pew Charitable Trusts, April 2011).

Posted by JVSF

2011 Research Paper Competition winners announced

ICPSR is pleased to announce the winners of our 2011 Research Paper Competitions.

Tommaso Pavone won the first-place award in the Undergraduate Competition with his paper "Do More Parties Make for Happier Voters?" which can be viewed at: http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/files/ICPSR/prize/pavone.pdf . Pavone, a student at the University of Michigan, conducted a cross-national analysis of public opinion data from 36 democracies to study whether more political parties correlates to higher voter satisfaction.

The second-place undergraduate winner was Erin McMichael of California State University - Northridge, whose paper is titled "External versus Internal Motivators as Predictors for LGBTQ-Directed Bullying Behavior in Adolescents," which is available here: http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/files/ICPSR/prize/mcmichael.pdf .

Sayon Deb of Boston University won first place in the Master's Competition with his paper "The Long Term Effects of Colonial Land Tenure: Micro Evidence from India" which can be accessed here: http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/files/ICPSR/prize/deb.pdf . The paper uses household survey data from India to examine the impact of historic land tenure institutions on economic and social outcomes for households today.

Douglas Rice of Pennsylvania State University won second place in the Master's Competition for his paper "The Impact of Supreme Court Activity on the Judicial Agenda: Calling to Action or Settling the Law." The paper is available through ICPSR: http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/files/ICPSR/prize/rice.pdf .

The winner of the Resource Center for Minority Data Paper Competition was Whitney Boyer of Washington University in St. Louis for the paper titled "Educational Outcomes for Latino Immigrants in Los Angeles County: The Importance of Gender, Immigrant Generation, and Mother's Educational Level," which is viewable at this url: http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/files/ICPSR/prize/Boyer.pdf. The RCMD archive can be accessed here: http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/RCMD/ .

The first-place winners received $1,000; the second-place prize is $750. All the papers used data from the ICPSR or RCMD archive.

ICPSR is holding three competitions this year:

•The ICPSR Research Paper Competition, for analyses on any topic using data from the ICPSR General Archive or Thematic Collections.
•The IFSS Research Paper Competition, for analyses on any topic using data from the Integrated Fertility Survey Series.
•The RCMD Research Paper Competition, for analyses on issues relating to minorities in the United States, including immigrants, using data from the Resource Center for Minority Data.

All competitions are open to undergraduate and master's students, and recent graduates. Deadline for submissions is January 31, 2012.

Full details on the 2012 Research Paper Competition can be seen here: http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/content/ICPSR/prize/index.html .

Most Support Gay Marriage

For the first time ever, a majority of Americans appear to favor legal recognition of gay marriage. Four credible polls in the last several months have shown a majority of Americans in favor of gay marriage, suggesting a remarkably rapid shift on the issue over the past several years. As recently as the last presidential election, opponents of gay marriage outnumbered supporters by about 15%. For the past twenty years, support for gay marriage has gained approximately 2% a year (with a corresponding decline in opposition) but that change has accelerated to about 4% a year in the last two years.

Honest Answers about Sex

Surveys usually require respondents to give honest answers to strangers. Sometimes these questions are deeply personal. In few places is the task of garnering honest responses more difficult than surveys asking young people about their sexual behavior. In an attempt to resolve this challenge the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently employed an interesting method in order to survey people ages 15 to 44 about their sexual behavior.

The study used a computer based survey in which personal information was collected and aggregated by a computer, thus preventing any interviewer from learning information about any specific interviewee. This technique yielded a 75% response rate, higher than the response rate for most surveys using face-to-face interviews. The drawback, however, is that there was still a 25% non-response rate. This figure is big enough such that the data could be severely skewed if the individuals who failed to respond differ notably from those who answered. he bottom line, however, is that this technique appears more reliable than collecting data from methods employing face-to-face interviews.


Apart from its methodology, the new survey is also notable for its results. For, contrary to conventional wisdom, young people are having substantially less sex than those a few years ago. In the recent survey, 29% of men and 27% of women aged 15 to 24 never had sexual contact (including oral and anal as well as vaginal sex). In 2002, just 23% of older teens and young adults never had sex.

NCAA Student-Athlete Experiences Data Archive Webinar available for viewing

A recording of the webinar presented by archive manager Robbin Gonzalez and research associate Chris Greene is now available (WMV, 82.6 MB) for viewing.

The webinar introduces the NCAA Student-Athlete Experiences Data Archive. It covers the purpose and goals of this NCAA-funded project, the data collections currently available, and how to access them. It also previews upcoming data releases.

The URL for the webinar is http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/files/ICPSR/help/webinars/ncaa.wmv

Economic Diversity at America's Wealthiest Colleges

The Chronicle of Higher Education has charted the number and percentage of students receiving Pell Grants -- a federal grant program to help low income students afford college -- at the fifty wealthiest universities in the United States. The data are from the 2008-2009 academic year. With over 30% of its students receiving Pell Grants, The University of California-Los Angeles has the most low-income students of any of America's top universities. With less than six percent of the student body on Pell Grants, Washington University in St. Louis has the smallest percentage of low-income students. Since Pell Grants go to roughly the lowest 50% of income earning families, poorer students are significantly underrepresented at all of the nation's elite universities.

Harvard, who finished poorly in the study with the second lowest percentage of Pell Grant recipients, has disputed the methodology as an appropriate measure of economic diversity.

New Census Data Show Both Racial and Geographic Distribution Changes in U.S.

According to a recent article in The Economist, data from last year's decennial census show changes in America's racial distribution over the last decade. According to the data, minorities accounted for 92% of the population growth over the last decade. Currently, minority races and ethnicities actually form the majority in California, Texas, Hawaii, New Mexico and Washington D.C. The data also indicate a change in the American population's geographic distribution. While populations in the South and the West both grew by 14%, the north-east and the Midwest grew by only 3 and 4% respectively. While some argue that this population growth in traditionally Republican states and their resulting increase in seats in the House of Representatives may lead to greater Republican power, others argue that the growth of minority populations and other traditionally Democratic voters may counteract this. The chart from the article (left) shows the percent change in population for each racial/ethnic group both for all ages and for those under 18 years old. As the chart indicates, the Asian and Hispanic populations saw the biggest increases while both the black and white populations saw smaller increases for all ages and decreases for those under 18 years old.

Posted by Brittany

Improve Your Budget I.Q.

With a government shutdown looking more and more likely, one might begin to wonder what could be taking Republicans and Democrats so long to reach a consensus on the federal budget. However, making budget cuts isn't ever politically easy - especially when the American public seems to believe the government spends much more than it actually does on unpopular programs. According to a recent CNN poll, while Americans surveyed correctly estimated the amount the government spends on more politically popular programs like Social Security, they tended to overestimate the amount spent on less popular spending programs. For example, as the table below shows, Americans estimated that 10% of the federal budget is spent on foreign aid, while in reality, it makes up less than 1% of it. This presents a problem to politicians, as there is little public support for cutting programs like Social Security, but cutting unpopular programs like foreign aid and public broadcasting would make much less of a dent in the deficit than the American public believes.

Want to see how much you would reduce the deficit if you made budget cuts? The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget has created an online simulator in whcih you can choose among budget choices to try to try to "stabilize the U.S. debt":

Posted by Brittany

ICPSR Summer Program Offers Discount

15% DISCOUNT for returning Summer Program Participants! In order to facilitate your return to the Summer Program, we are offering a special discount of 15% off the standard course fees. This discount applies to any course in the Program, whether the 4-week sessions or the 3- to 5-day short courses. The discount will be automatically applied to your account when you sign up for any course in the 2011 Program.