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Adam Serwer

Adam Serwer is a writing fellow at The American Prospect and a graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He also blogs at Jack and Jill Politics and has written for The Village Voice, The Washington Post, The Root, and the Daily News.

Recent Articles

Fallout

Adam SerwerAug 19, 2011
HPV is the STD of a new generation . Primary hype . Immigration restrictionist Russell Pearce wants you to pay for his recall campaign. Rick Perry's political savvy . "Bank of America. We'll help you out ."

Dept of "Goofy And Wrong"

Adam SerwerAug 19, 2011
Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, fresh off yesterday's remarks that Barack Obama wants "to create dependency because it worked so well for him,” because he's black, offers some thoughts on Afghanistan: The best way to get us out of Afghanistan is to grow our economy, change the regulations, have a vibrant, growing America where people are afraid to come against us,” Coburn said. Yesterday Coburn said Obama's ideas were "goofy and wrong." Completely unlike the idea that deregulation would get us out of Afghanistan. Almost seems like a missed opportunity to promote other Republican cure-all's like lowering taxes or bombing Iran. Those would get us out of Afghanistan too right?

The Politics Of Obama's Deportation Shift

Adam SerwerAug 19, 2011
The political impact of the Obama administration's decision to commit to discretion in deportation procedures may not be immediately obvious. No, most Latinos in the U.S. are not undocumented. However, most Latinos do have some kind of social connection to someone who is undocumented. According to a June 2011 poll by Latino Decisions, more than half of Latino voters know an undocumented person, and a quarter know someone who has been deported. A majority of these voters (53%) said they know someone who is undocumented, while one-fourth (25%) said they know a person or family who is facing deportation or has been deported. The implications of this are obvious--the administration's aggressive, uncompromising approach to deportations must have had quite an impact on the perceptions of Latino voters towards the administration, because most have at least some direct, personal understanding of the dilemmas undocumented immigrants face. By the same token, the decision to forestall the...

Voting And Recidivism

Adam SerwerAug 19, 2011
Mansfield Frazier (via Sara Mayeux ) reports that recidivism rates in Florida are lower for offenders who get back their right to vote post-incarceration. According to a recent report by The Florida Parole Commission, “the overall three-year recidivism rate based on all released inmates” was 33..1, while the recidivism rate for released prisoners who were given their civil rights back and were allowed to vote stood at 11 percent. These findings were not generated by a progressive organization such as The Sentencing Project, the ACLU, or the NAACP, but by a state governmental body utilizing exacting scientific methodologies. The inescapable conclusion has to be that allowing formerly incarcerated persons to more fully participate in society will result in a reduction of crime and recidivism. Well I wouldn't go that far. The study suggests that the formerly incarcerated who are reinfranchised are less likely to recidivate. Correlation is not causation. Under the Florida process, those...

Smoke Weed, Lose Your Kids

Adam SerwerAug 19, 2011
Today's drug war outrage comes from New York City, where possession of, or even admitted use of marijuana by parents results in child protective services taking your children away from you: Lauren Shapiro, director of the Brooklyn Family Defense Project, which defends most parents facing neglect charges in Family Court in Brooklyn, said more than 90 percent of the cases alleging drug use that her lawyers handle involve marijuana, as opposed to other drugs. “There is not the same use of crack cocaine as there used to be, so they are filing these cases instead,” Ms. Shapiro said. Marijuana is the most common illicit drug in New York City: 730,000 people, or 12 percent of people age 12 and older, use the drug at least once annually, according to city health data. Over all, the rate of marijuana use among whites is twice as high as among blacks and Hispanics in the city, the data show, but defense lawyers said these cases were rarely if ever filed against white parents. Keep in mind that...

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