Table Of Content
The coronavirus-related economic shock amplified this dynamic, disrupting employment and income for lower-earning, less-educated workers far more than for college-educated professionals. Although the country has legal safeguards against unsafe working conditions, workers in essential industries such as meat processing faced a high risk of contracting COVID-19 in practice, with inadequate protective equipment and hazard pay. Poorer children who lacked the resources to adapt to remote learning were also most harmed by pandemic-linked school closures, which threatened to exacerbate educational inequality. In 2018, under pressure from a bipartisan coalition advocating for reforms to curb mass incarceration, Congress passed and the president signed a law that eased federal mandatory-minimum sentencing rules, among other modest changes. A majority of states have also passed laws in recent years to reduce sentences for certain crimes, decriminalize minor drug offenses, and combat recidivism; such gradual steps continued in 2020. Some states have restricted the use of cash bail, which can unfairly penalize defendants with fewer resources and enlarge pretrial jail populations.
Supporting Defenders for Democratic Change
Freedom House is founded on the core conviction that freedom flourishes in democratic nations where governments are accountable to their people. We speak out against threats to democracy and empower individuals to exercise their fundamental rights through a unique combination of analysis, advocacy, and direct support to frontline defenders of freedom, especially those working in closed authoritarian societies. The United States has a deeply rooted rule-of-law tradition, and legal and constitutional protections for due process are widely observed. However, the criminal justice system suffers from a number of chronic weaknesses, many of which are tied to racial discrimination and contribute to disparities in outcomes that disadvantage people of color, particularly Black Americans. Beginning in 2017, however, the Trump administration presented a number of challenges to existing norms of government ethics and probity. Anticorruption watchdogs criticized President Trump for shifting management of his real-estate development empire to his children rather than divesting ownership or establishing a stronger structural barrier between himself and his businesses.
Electoral Process
Raymond Gastil, a Harvard-trained specialist in regional studies from the University of Washington in Seattle, developed the methodology, which assigned political rights and civil liberties ratings to 151 countries and 45 territories and categorized them as Free, Partly Free, or Not Free. The findings appeared each year in Freedom House’s bimonthly journal Freedom at Issue (later titled Freedom Review). Freedom in the World first appeared in book form in 1978 and included short narratives for each country and territory rated in the study, as well as a series of essays by leading scholars on related issues. Freedom in the World continued to be produced by Gastil until 1989, when a larger team of in-house analysts was established. In the mid-1990s, the expansion of the country and territory narratives necessitated the hiring of outside analysts—a group of regional experts from the academic, media, and human rights communities—and the project has continued to grow in size and scope in the years since.
Birkin bag thieves prowl L.A.’s rich neighborhoods, fueling a bizarre black market
Also, a designation of Free does not mean that a country or territory enjoys perfect freedom or lacks serious problems, only that it enjoys comparatively more freedom than those rated Partly Free or Not Free (and some others rated Free). Freedom in the World is an annual global report on political rights and civil liberties, composed of numerical ratings and descriptive texts for each country and a select group of territories. The 2024 edition covers developments in 195 countries and 15 territories from January 1, 2023, through December 31, 2023. The Biden administration has pledged to make support for democracy a key part of US foreign policy, raising hopes for a more proactive American role in reversing the global democratic decline. To fulfill this promise, the president will need to provide clear leadership, articulating his goals to the American public and to allies overseas. He must also make the United States credible in its efforts by implementing the reforms necessary to address considerable democratic deficits at home.
Report Materials
Medical training for ambulance workers — along with the design of the ambulances, including the sirens, the flashing lights and radios for talking with doctors at the hospital — were created by Freedom House. The inflation-adjusted national minimum wage has fallen substantially since the 1960s, with the last nominal increase in 2009, though many states and localities have enacted increases since then. Other obstacles to gainful employment include inadequate public transportation and the high cost of living in economically dynamic cities and regions. The latter problem, which is exacerbated by exclusionary housing policies in many jurisdictions, has also contributed to an overall rise in homelessness in recent years. Conditions in prisons, jails, and pretrial detention centers are often poor at the state and local levels, and in 2020 COVID-19 outbreaks occurred at facilities across the country, producing infections and deaths at much higher rates than in the general population. Many jurisdictions and the federal government took steps to ease crowding by releasing suspects and convicted inmates who were deemed less dangerous.
Research & Ratings Review Process
A country or territory’s Freedom in the World status depends on its aggregate Political Rights score, on a scale of 0–40, and its aggregate Civil Liberties score, on a scale of 0–60. The total Political Rights and Civil Liberties scores are equally weighted in this calculation, leading to the following possible ranges. Also beginning with the 2018 edition, countries require an overall Civil Liberties score of 30 or better—in addition to a score of 7 or better in subcategory A (Electoral Process), and an overall Political Rights score of 20 or better—to qualify as an electoral democracy. Freedom House does not believe that legal guarantees of rights are sufficient for on-the-ground fulfillment of those rights. While both laws and actual practices are factored into scoring decisions, greater emphasis is placed on implementation. Safar had been advocating, without much luck, to provide medical training to ambulance workers when Hallen approached him with the idea of starting a private ambulance service in Pittsburgh’s Hill District — a predominantly African American area composed of various low-income, inner-city neighborhoods.
Some highly repressive governments, including those of Turkmenistan and Nicaragua, simply ignored reality and denied the presence of the pathogen in their territory. At the presidential level and in a number of states and localities, officials in the United States obscured data and actively sowed misinformation about the transmission and treatment of the coronavirus, leading to widespread confusion and the politicization of what should have been a public health matter. Similarly, Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro repeatedly downplayed the harms of COVID-19, promoted unproven treatments, criticized subnational governments’ health measures, and sowed doubt about the utility of masks and vaccines. The year leading up to the assault on the Capitol was fraught with other episodes that threw the country into the global spotlight in a new way. Even before 2020, Trump had presided over an accelerating decline in US freedom scores, driven in part by corruption and conflicts of interest in the administration, resistance to transparency efforts, and harsh and haphazard policies on immigration and asylum that made the country an outlier among its Group of Seven peers.
An anonymous whistleblower from the Central Intelligence Agency who filed the complaint that touched off the impeachment inquiry in 2019 faced extreme pressure from the president and his allies, including attempts to publicize their identity. Although the whistleblower’s identity was never publicly confirmed, the individual was forced into protective surveillance amid threats of violence. Following his February 2020 acquittal in the Senate, President Trump fired or forced the resignation of several officials who offered testimony that harmed his case during the House impeachment process. Observers warned that the situation could deter officials from reporting possible corruption in the future. In October, the president signed an executive order calling for many senior civil servants to be reclassified in a manner that could allow them to be fired for political or other arbitrary reasons, further weakening their ability to report malfeasance; implementation of the order remained unclear at year’s end.
Policies & Plans
We publish detailed research on more than 200 countries and territories, because accurate data and rigorous analysis are essential to shining a light on the erosion of freedom. Democracies and private sector actors should work to support core democratic principles and basic human rights at home and around the world. To reverse the global shift toward authoritarian norms, democracy advocates working for freedom in their home countries will need robust solidarity from like-minded allies abroad.
Pittsburgh honors Black medics with Freedom House EMT Training Academy - EMS1.com
Pittsburgh honors Black medics with Freedom House EMT Training Academy.
Posted: Fri, 02 Feb 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]
It has offices in a number of countries, where it promotes and assists local human rights workers and non-government organizations. The Freedom in the World report is composed of numerical ratings and supporting descriptive texts for 195 countries and 15 territories. External analysts assess 210 countries and territories, using a combination of on-the-ground research, consultations with local contacts, and information from news articles, nongovernmental organizations, governments, and a variety of other sources. Since 2007, we have assisted tens of thousands of activists, victims of human rights abuses, and their families across 150 countries by providing support for urgent needs like relocation, legal representation, trial monitoring, technical equipment, medical and living expenses, and other life-saving services.
By incorporating movement into counseling sessions, clients become more empowered, motivated, and goal-oriented, all while strengthening their bodies and becoming more flexible. Fitness Therapy is usually used to complement a course of treatment (inpatient or outpatient) to make it even more successful. Increasing the connection between a patient’s mind and body helps both with healing as well as in creating new, healthy habits. Commonly known as “day treatment,” a partial hospitalization program (PHP) is an intensive form of outpatient treatment where clients meet during the day and return home in the evening. PHP treatment doesn't require 24-hour care and often serves as an alternative to inpatient hospitalization or a step-down after a residential program.
Similar critiques have been directed at the constitution’s allocation of two Senate seats to each state regardless of population. Defenders of these systems argue that they are fundamental to the United States’ federal structure, in which the states enjoy a substantial degree of autonomy, and claim that they ensure due political attention to parts of the country’s territory that might otherwise be neglected. Some states have adopted strict voter-identification laws whose documentation requirements can disproportionately limit participation by poor, elderly, or racial minority voters; people with disabilities; and university students.
A rare bright spot in a region replete with deeply entrenched authoritarian leaders, Armenia has experienced tentative gains in freedom since mass antigovernment protests erupted in 2018 and citizens voted in a more reform-minded government. But Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s capitulation in the war sparked a violent reaction among some opponents, who stormed the parliament in November and physically attacked the speaker. Such disorder threatens the country’s hard-won progress, and could set off a chain of events that draws Armenia closer to the autocratic tendencies of its neighbors. India, the world’s most populous democracy, dropped from Free to Partly Free status in Freedom in the World 2021. The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and its state-level allies continued to crack down on critics during the year, and their response to COVID-19 included a ham-fisted lockdown that resulted in the dangerous and unplanned displacement of millions of internal migrant workers.
Treatment revolves around helping individuals stop using the substance they are addicted to and learn healthy habits to avoid relapse. During medically assisted detox, a medical professional monitors the patient and administers medication to mitigate withdrawal symptoms. With a 60-bed dormitory, the center provides many young people living on the streets a stable place to rest their heads at night. Even as Americans remain committed to the ideals of democracy, a majority see democracy in the United States as weak and getting weaker, according to a national survey jointly commissioned by Freedom House, the George W. Bush Institute, and the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement.
In Sri Lanka, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa dissolved the parliament in early March, intending to hold elections the following month. The pandemic delayed the vote, however, giving Rajapaksa the opportunity to rule virtually unchecked and consolidate power through various ministerial appointments. After his party swept the August elections, the new parliament approved constitutional amendments that expanded presidential authority, including by allowing Rajapaksa to appoint electoral, police, human rights, and anticorruption commissions.
As part of a condition of the sale, the property is now under a conservation easement with the Los Angeles Conservancy. Moon persevered, though, and eventually rose through the ranks to become chief supervisor of Pittsburgh EMS. Another Freedom House paramedic, Mitchell Brown, went on to become the director of the department of public safety for Columbus, Ohio. The US homicide rate, at 5.0 per 100,000 inhabitants as of 2019, remains low by regional and historical standards, and overall crime rates have declined since the 1990s. However, murder rates reportedly rose by more than 20 percent in the first nine months of 2020, with even higher spikes in a number of large cities. The capital district, Puerto Rico, and four overseas US territories are each represented by an elected delegate in the House who can perform most legislative functions but cannot participate in floor votes.
