Naughty or Nice?

Are there more deserving boys and girls this year than in the past?

BY CHARLES KENNY | DECEMBER 19, 2011

Since it is the season of goodwill to all, holiday cheer, and all that, it's worth asking how much of these particular values are actually around nowadays. We could certainly do with more goodwill, of course -- particularly from brutal rulers in places such as Bahrain and Syria. And a bit more cheer on European bond markets might do the global economy a favor. But overall, levels of holiday spirit appear to be high worldwide -- and climbing.

A recent Council on Foreign Relations report gathered data on global opinion related to human rights that suggest widespread tolerance and good-feeling toward one's neighbors. For example, a 2008 WorldPublicOpinion.org survey of 24 countries found that, in every country, the great majority of respondents thought it was important to treat people of different religions equally. Even in the lowest-scoring country, Egypt, 74 percent agreed that religious equality was very or somewhat important. Of course, polling evidence is never that straightforward: The survey reported 67 percent of Egyptians also agreed there are some religions that people should not be allowed to practice, and recent clashes suggest tolerance of other faiths has some way to go in the country. But across the globe, the basic principle of religious tolerance appears to be widely acknowledged.

The same holds true when it comes to women's empowerment and racial equality. An average of 86 percent of respondents across 21 developed and developing countries in the WorldPublicOpinion.org poll suggested that it was important for women to have full equality of rights with men, and the same poll suggested equality of treatment for different races and ethnicities was important to an average of 91 percent of respondents across countries. India ranked lowest in both categories, but six out of ten people in the country still said equality of treatment for different races and for men and women was important.

At the Center for Global Development, my colleague Jonathan Karver and I are looking at how such attitudes have changed over time. Data from the World Values Survey, which covers countries with a combined population of nearly four billion people, suggests that between the second wave of the survey (conducted between 1988 and 1993) and the fourth wave (from 2004 to 2005), there are signs of growing global tolerance. The proportion of people worldwide who say they wouldn't want to have a neighbor of a different religion dropped from 67 percent to 48 percent -- and the proportion fell in 21 out of 23 countries surveyed. While the overall proportion of respondents who said they did not want people of a different race or immigrants as neighbors did rise slightly -- to 22 percent and 23 percent, respectively -- the majority of countries surveyed still saw a decline. And overall, the results suggest that, by 2005, the majority of the world was happy with neighbors of whatever race, creed, or nationality.

While acts of bigotry are still an everyday occurrence, the forces of intolerance are on the wrong side of history. Two-thirds of Americans think the United States should admit immigrants fleeing poverty, for example. Changing attitudes help to explain why the effects of discrimination against groups like India's Dalits -- "untouchables" -- appear to be on the wane. More Dalits are working in nontraditional jobs like tailoring and driving (their more traditional employment was in occupations like bonded agricultural labor, tanning, and dealing with night-soil), and many more Dalit girls are going to school.

What's more, the ultimate expression of ill-will -- trying to kill someone --  is also on the decline almost everywhere. The last decade has seen fewer war deaths than any in the last hundred years. Violent crime also appears to be increasingly rare worldwide. In 2002, about 332,000 homicides from around the globe were reported to the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime. By 2008, that had dropped to 289,000. Between those years, the homicide rate fell in 68 reporting countries and increased in only 26. Compared to 1995, the homicide rate has fallen in three quarters of reporting countries. The U.N. data becomes patchier after 2008, but if the United States is anything to go by, it could be that the trend has continued more recently  -- 2010 saw 13 percent fewer violent crimes in the United States than did 2006.

ADEK BERRY/AFP/Getty Images

 SUBJECTS:
 

Charles Kenny is a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, a Schwartz fellow at the New America Foundation, and author, most recently, of Getting Better: Why Global Development Is Succeeding and How We Can Improve the World Even More. "The Optimist," his column for Foreign Policy, runs weekly.

MAHNMUNABIBI

11:10 AM ET

December 20, 2011

Poor should be given rights..!!

Defending poor peoples' access to the courts is a high priority for the ACLU. In 1996 a conservative Congress led by Newt Gringrich slashed funding for the Legal Services Corporation and dramatically restricted the types of cases LSC attorneys could handle. Under Congress' new rules, LSC lawyers could no longer represent poor people in class actions and they could not participate in any lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the newly passed welfare reform laws.

These restrictions, which deprive poor people of effective counsel, were challenged in court, and ultimately, the Supreme Court overturned the ban on challenging welfare reform laws, leaving for another day the final resolution of challenges to the other restrictions. The ACLU continues to lobby against the existing restrictions.

ACLU is also fighting for poor peoples' right to effective counsel in criminal cases. Poor criminal defendants are entitled to effective legal counsel under the 6th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution, but in most states, the public defender agencies responsible for representing indigent criminal defendants are understaffed and underfunded.

Nationally recognized standards recommend that annual caseloads for attorneys not exceed 150 felonies, or 400 misdemeanors, or 200 juvenile cases. But in Pittsburgh, PA, for example, attorneys were being asked to handle between 600 and 1,100 cases per year. The ACLU brought a suit against Allegheny County, PA in 1996 and two years later, an historic settlement was reached requiring the public defender's office to double in size. The ACLU brought a similar class action suit against the Connecticut public defender system which resulted in a favorable settlement in 1999.

Welfare laws and practices have often violated the rights of the poor, especially poor women and their children. The federal welfare reform law passed in 1996 is no exception. Under the law, states can deny welfare to any child born into a family already receiving welfare.

The ACLU is challenging these child exclusion laws in New Jersey and several other states as unconstitutional because they discriminate against children arbitrarily, based only on the circumstances of their birth, and they unconstitutionally coerce women's reproductive decisions. The ACLU, working in coalition with other women's and child welfare organizations, is also lobbying Congress to undo other serious flaws in the nation's welfare laws that undermine the privacy and dignity of low-income families.

The promise of equal educational opportunity is a cornerstone of our democracy, but millions of poor and minority children in the US are receiving an inadequate education. The ACLU has brought several "educational equity" lawsuits charging states with violating their own state constitutional requirements that every child receive a "thorough and efficient" or a "minimum foundation of" public education.

In a suit against Louisiana, for example, we presented evidence that there were schools in which roofs leaked into classrooms, plumbing did not work, and fire code violations were pervasive. Some classrooms used science textbooks from the 1970s, and half the teachers were not certified to teach. Educational equity cases have also been brought in Connecticut, Alabama and Maryland.

Poor people face a myriad of problems in many areas of their lives. The Hyde Amendment, passed by Congress in 1976, excludes abortion from the comprehensive health care services provided to low-income people through Medicaid. Poor people with HIV are routinely denied access to homeless shelters. And the Supreme Court has ruled that a public housing tenant, who has committed no wrongdoing, can be evicted because a family member "engaged in drug related activities" off the premises. The ACLU is working to change these policies through litigation, lobbying, and public education.

ACLU is also fighting for poor peoples' right to effective counsel in criminal cases. Poor criminal defendants are entitled to effective legal counsel under the 6th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution, but in most states, the public defender agencies responsible for representing indigent criminal defendants are understaffed and underfunded.

Nationally recognized standards recommend that annual caseloads for attorneys not exceed 150 felonies, or 400 misdemeanors, or 200 juvenile cases. But in Pittsburgh, PA, for example, attorneys were being asked to handle between 600 and 1,100 cases per year. The ACLU brought a suit against Allegheny County, PA in 1996 and two years later, an historic settlement was reached requiring the public defender's office to double in size. The ACLU brought a similar class action suit against the Connecticut public defender system which resulted in a favorable settlement in 1999.

Welfare laws and practices have often violated the rights of the poor, especially poor women and their children. The federal welfare reform law passed in 1996 is no exception. Under the law, states can deny welfare to any child born into a family already receiving welfare.

The ACLU is challenging these child exclusion laws in New Jersey and several other states as unconstitutional because they discriminate against children arbitrarily, based only on the circumstances of their birth, and they unconstitutionally coerce women's reproductive decisions. The ACLU, working in coalition with other women's and child welfare organizations, is also lobbying Congress to undo other serious flaws in the nation's welfare laws that undermine the privacy and dignity of low-income families.

The promise of equal educational opportunity is a cornerstone of our democracy, but millions of poor and minority children in the US are receiving an inadequate education. The ACLU has brought several "educational equity" lawsuits charging states with violating their own state constitutional requirements that every child receive a "thorough and efficient" or a "minimum foundation of" public education.

In a suit against Louisiana, for example, we presented evidence that there were schools in which roofs leaked into classrooms, plumbing did not work, and fire code violations were pervasive. Some classrooms used science textbooks from the 1970s, and half the teachers were not certified to teach. Educational equity cases have also been brought in Connecticut, Alabama and Maryland.

Poor people face a myriad of problems in many areas of their lives. The Hyde Amendment, passed by Congress in 1976, excludes abortion from the comprehensive health care services provided to low-income people through Medicaid. Poor people with HIV are routinely denied access to homeless shelters. And the Supreme Court has ruled that a public housing tenant, who has committed no wrongdoing, can be evicted because a family member "engaged in drug related activities" off the premises. The ACLU is working to change these policies through litigation, lobbying, and public education.

ACLU is also fighting for poor peoples' right to effective counsel in criminal cases. Poor criminal defendants are entitled to effective legal counsel under the 6th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution, but in most states, the public defender agencies responsible for representing indigent criminal defendants are understaffed and underfunded.

Nationally recognized standards recommend that annual caseloads for attorneys not exceed 150 felonies, or 400 misdemeanors, or 200 juvenile cases. But in Pittsburgh, PA, for example, attorneys were being asked to handle between 600 and 1,100 cases per year. The ACLU brought a suit against Allegheny County, PA in 1996 and two years later, an historic settlement was reached requiring the public defender's office to double in size. The ACLU brought a similar class action suit against the Connecticut public defender system which resulted in a favorable settlement in 1999.

Welfare laws and practices have often violated the rights of the poor, especially poor women and their children. The federal welfare reform law passed in 1996 is no exception. Under the law, states can deny welfare to any child born into a family already receiving welfare.

The ACLU is challenging these child exclusion laws in New Jersey and several other states as unconstitutional because they discriminate against children arbitrarily, based only on the circumstances of their birth, and they unconstitutionally coerce women's reproductive decisions. The ACLU, working in coalition with other women's and child welfare organizations, is also lobbying Congress to undo other serious flaws in the nation's welfare laws that undermine the privacy and dignity of low-income families.

The promise of equal educational opportunity is a cornerstone of our democracy, but millions of poor and minority children in the US are receiving an inadequate education. The ACLU has brought several "educational equity" lawsuits charging states with violating their own state constitutional requirements that every child receive a "thorough and efficient" or a "minimum foundation of" public education.

In a suit against Louisiana, for example, we presented evidence that there were schools in which roofs leaked into classrooms, plumbing did not work, and fire code violations were pervasive. Some classrooms used science textbooks from the 1970s, and half the teachers were not certified to teach. Educational equity cases have also been brought in Connecticut, Alabama and Maryland.

Poor people face a myriad of problems in many areas of their lives. The Hyde Amendment, passed by Congress in 1976, excludes abortion from the comprehensive health care services provided to low-income people through Medicaid. Poor people with HIV are routinely denied access to homeless shelters. And the Supreme Court has ruled that a public housing tenant, who has committed no wrongdoing, can be evicted because a family member "engaged in drug related activities" off the premises. The ACLU is working to change these policies through litigation, lobbying, and public education.

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