Ten years ago, Glasgow was western Europe’s murder capital. But the Violence Reduction Unit, an offshoot of the police force, invented an offender rehabilitation strategy – borrowed from anti-gang violence initiatives spearheaded in Boston in the 1990s – that combined creative thinking with old-fashioned enforcement.

A decade ago, Utah set itself an ambitious goal—to end chronic homelessness. As of 2015, the state, which has adopted a "housing first" approach, can just about declare victory: The population of chronically homeless people has dropped by 91 percent.

The militarization of police forces in cases such as Ferguson, Missouri’s riots has led the state of Utah to question what can be done to prevent such an overuse of force from happening. Utah expanded upon a law passed by Democratic legislature in Maryland, which Utah’s ACLU reworked with some libertarians, to require the police to provide data about SWAT team usage. Utah’s success demonstrates that demilitarization bills passed with bipartisan support are not impossible.

Huge numbers of students were getting suspension as punishment - until there was a nationwide push to rollback zero-tolerance policies instituted after the deadly Columbine High School shootings that emphasize harsh discipline for even minor misbehavior in favor of support-focused alternatives. The idea: Cultivate communication between teachers and students by gathering in weekly circles to discuss concerns and form one-on-one “harm circles” between students, parents and counselors when conflicts arise.

Infection rates - once kept private by hospitals - are now public record in 32 states, California included. This new transparency - coupled with Medicare now docking payments to hospitals that don’t meet quality measures - is prompting innovation at many hospitals with high infection rates.

In 2014, the Los Angeles Police Department announced that gang-related crime had dropped by nearly half since 2008. The transformation of LA holds lessons for decreasing violent crime through community policing, a focus on gangs, and the use of CompStat.

In the United States 20 percent of prisoners have a mental illness. San Antonio law enforcement and mental health workers pooled their resources and worked together to create a one-stop center for the mentally ill to keep them out of prison.