Soros Justice Fellow Eugene Jarecki recently won the top documentary prize at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival for his work The House I Live In. The film offers a range of perspectives on the failed war on drugs, fostering a more informed and honest dialogue about drug use, addiction, race, and incarceration in the United States.
To be clear, the film does not deny that drugs are potentially dangerous. Jarecki acknowledges that untreated drug addiction is a real problem that has damaged countless lives. But the film asks a simple question: Have the drug policies of the past 40 years helped? Jarecki concludes that the war on drugs has done as much or more damage to public safety, public health, and the economy than the combined and cumulative effects of drug use itself.
And now, more than four decades after President Nixon declared a war on drugs, and an estimated $1 trillion later, drugs are reportedly cheaper and easier to get, and the vast American jail and prison populations are clearly unsustainable.
As a New Yorker, born and raised, I was initially skeptical of the arguments presented by the drug reform movement. When I was an elementary school student in Manhattan, I witnessed muggings in broad daylight, and stories about crime and violence were a natural part of life here. Through the 1990s and the turn of the century, I witnessed Times Square transform from a drug and crime haven into Disney World. At the time, it seemed that elected officials’ “tough on drugs, tough on crime” approach played an important role in the city’s growing prosperity.
However, as it turns out, although drug use hasn’t gone down in New York, incarceration has gone up. But only certain types of people are being incarcerated for drug offenses, namely men of color in economically depressed regions of the city. The House I Live In shows how this trend is repeated all across the United States.
And yet, despite increasing evidence that a war on drugs has not worked—and probably could never work without destroying every freedom that we value as Americans—no one in power seems willing to admit that this investment has been an ongoing mistake. Instead, we continue to answer drug use and addiction with punishment and practices that undermine our values as an open society.
NCR Pursuing Hot Self-Service Kiosk Market: Units From 'New' Company Vend DVDs, Take Payments.
ATM & Debit News January 17, 2008 | Lowe, Frederick H.
NCR Corp. introduced two products this week that signal the companys plans to pursue the fast-growing, self-service retail kiosk market, a segment made possible by the ATMs success.
The new products are NCR Xpress Entertainment and ReadyStation. Xpress Entertainment is a self-service kiosk that stores up to 1,000 DVDs and video games, which the machine can sell or rent. ReadyStation, a bill-payment kiosk, runs on NCRs EasyPoint Xpress kiosk platform. NCR introduced both machines at the National Retail Federations Annual Convention & Expo in New York City. see here adp self service
The rollout of Xpress Entertainment and ReadyStation is more than just another sales opportunity for NCR. These products and and others like them in NCRs pipeline mean the Dayton, Ohio-based company is making a strategic turn.
NCR has a big vision. They are trying to dominate self-service and all of its manifestations, says Gil B. Luria, an analyst with Morgan Wedbush Securities in Los Angeles. This includes financial self-service, which is ATMs, and retail self-service, which is kiosks. NCR feels it can replace a lot of manual tasks with kiosks.
The new strategic direction does not mean the company is abandoning its core business of ATM manufacturing, although an NCR executive said at the BAI Retail Delivery Conference & Expo in November the company is deemphasizing the word ATM because it is too limiting.
Future Plans In December, at NCRs analysts day conference, where the companys top executives laid out their plans to Wall Street, NCR said it will expand its deployment of retail self-service kiosks to the travel, hospitality, health care, gaming, entertainment and government sectors.
NCR already is involved in the self-service market. Mel Walter, NCR vice president of business development, says travelers use NCR self-service kiosks to check in at airports. The company also deploys self-service kiosks that enable patients to register for doctors appointments. In addition, more supermarkets are installing NCR self-checkout shopping lanes.
Were not starting without movement, Walter says. Well over 50% of our revenues come from self-service.
What has changed is NCR is focusing on this market after the spin off of its Teradata warehousing business last year.
NCR is going to devote more resources in the future to self-service, Walter tells ATM&Debit News. We expect our retail self service business to grow at a faster rate in the future than Financial Self Service, or our ATM business, because retail self-service is growing from a much smaller base.
It is a smaller base with a big upside, Luria says. The retail aspect of self-service has grown rapidly, and the potential is great if NCR captures the market, he says.
During the companys presentation to Wall Street analysts, NCR said the size of the retail self-service market throughout North and South America was $7.1 billion in sales last year.
The emerging kiosk market for car rentals and airport check-ins adds another $3.8 billion. Those combined figures compare with the Americas ATM market of $4.4 billion in annual sales.
In 2006, NCRs self-service business, which includes parts of Retail Automation and other business lines, reported $2.4 billion in revenue, says Robert Kelly Kramer, a company spokesperson.
That compares with $1.4 billion in revenues for NCRs ATM business during the same year. In 2006, NCR reported total revenue of $6.1 billion.
Self-Service Growth At analysts day, NCR presented slides showing that consumers are demanding to perform tasks with self-service machines.
In 2006, the company said, 66% of travelers and 70% of business travelers used kiosks to check in at the airport. And by 2011, consumers will spend more $1 trillion annually at self-service kiosks, NCR predicts.
Self-service kiosks also appeal to young consumers. Some 71% of 18- to 24- year olds prefer self-service terminals, the company says. here adp self service
Self-service also is emerging as the new business model. NCR claims the companys new business models are 100% self-service.
A Business Built On ATM Success The success of the ATM, which celebrated its 40th anniversary last year, has made the growing market of self-service kiosks possible, Walter says.
There are 1.75 million ATMs worldwide, and the machines processed over 60 billion transactions last year, he adds. Consumers are migrating to self-service because they have become used to using ATMs.
Just as the ATM made consumers comfortable with self-service kiosks, Walter says NCRs spin-off of its Teradata warehousing business in October to shareholders opened the door to NCRs pursuit of the self-service market.
The spin-off of Teradata created the new NCR, he says.
NCR in 2006 shipped an estimated 18,995 ATMs, making it the worlds largest ATM manufacturer, according to the 2008 edition of the ATM&Debit News EFT Data Book.
Lowe, Frederick H.
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