The Solutions Story Tracker® is a curated database of rigorous reporting on responses to social problems. We collect and tag every story, providing you with the ability to find coverage of effective or promising ideas and approaches— by issue, location, journalist, and success factor (strategic insights that emerge as patterns).
https://6abc.com/solving-gun-violence-green-spaces-in-urban-areas-philadelphia-homicides-mental-health/11297380?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Tamala Edwards
WPVI-TV
6 December 2021
Broadcast TV Talk Show / 5-15 Minutes
Philadelphia's LandCare program has cleaned and greened 12,000 vacant lots, removing trash and other signs of blight. A study showed that the program led to a large drop in violent crime in the cleaned-up areas. A U Penn researcher who led that study and a community leader whose Philly Peace Parks in west and north Philadelphia have developed a more welcoming, healthy environment talk about the emotional impact such programs have on residents when they see that their neighbors care about the neighborhood. Says organizer Pili X, "It does something to the heart and soul of people."
https://www.kouvendamedia.com/the-toll-could-greater-investment-in-greening-help-reduce-gun-violence?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Emily Previti
Stephanie Marudas
Kouvenda Media
2 December 2021
Text / 1500-3000 Words
The city lot where Sanctuary Farm now grows vegetables that it distributes free to the community once was strewn with trash and drug paraphernalia, hardly a hospitable place for the neighborhood kids who played in it. Now it's a lush garden and safe hangout for kids who help with the gardening, do art projects, or just play. It's similar to a broader Philadelphia program that "cleaned and greened" thousands of lots and made a measurable decline in violence. Sanctuary's impact on crime isn't known for sure, but some neighbors say the farm is a positive influence.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/02/us/school-shooting-drills-oxford-high.html?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Dana Goldstein
The New York Times
2 December 2021
Text / 800-1500 Words
Students at Oxford High School in Michigan, the scene of a mass shooting on Nov. 30, credit their active-shooter training with saving lives. But experts on school safety say some of the lessons taught in the training given to the OHS students, from a program called ALICE (alert, lockdown, inform, counter, evacuate), could endanger more people than they protect. The evidence that this and similar training is effective is quite thin, and critics fear it detracts from higher priorities: preventing, not just surviving, such shootings, and focusing on much more common forms of gun violence.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2021/11/30/new-mexico-drug-court?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Ted Alcorn
The Washington Post Magazine
30 November 2021
Text / Over 3000 Words
Since 2018, Judge Jason Lidyard of Rio Arriba County, N.M., has forged a new model for a drug court. Instead of demanding abstinence from drugs as the price to stay out of jail, Lidyard uses respect and personal relationships to seek a redefinition of success: making substance abuse less deadly and less socially crippling. Violating the court's requirements to get treatment results in more help, not jail. The less punitive approach seemed to reduce overdoses until a new fentanyl surge complicated the picture. Almost all of the people who've gone through the court have avoided new felony arrests.
https://slate.com/technology/2021/11/fire-industrial-complex-wildfire-policy-suppression.html?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Aaron Labaree
Slate
30 November 2021
Text / 1500-3000 Words
The U.S. Forest Service and the state of California's Cal Fire pour billions of dollars into waging all-out war on massive wildfires. Huge camps for firefighters, heavy equipment, and elaborate airborne resources make up the arsenal thrown at a problem that is growing thanks in part to climate change. But the efforts are largely wasteful and ineffective because of the scope of the problem and the lack of focus on aspects of the problem that can be controlled better, such as fires at the "wildland-urban interface" where human habitation meets the forest.
https://thecurrentga.org/2021/11/30/it-seemed-like-our-lives-didnt-matter?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Margaret Coker
The Current (Georgia)
30 November 2021
Text / Over 3000 Words
The murder of Ahmaud Arbery sparked nationwide rage, but the people most affected by local racism felt it most keenly. A Better Glynn formed to seek reforms in Glynn County law enforcement after years of status-quo racism and resistance to change. The group worked with an existing group of Black pastors and other leaders. They succeeded in winning the firing of the police chief and replacement by the county's first Black chief; the district attorney's reelection defeat; and the beginnings of police reforms.
https://www.beaconjournal.com/restricted/?return=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.beaconjournal.com%2Fstory%2Fnews%2F2021%2F11%2F29%2Fnew-summit-court-program-helps-parents-child-custody-cases%2F8585321002&utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Stephanie Warsmith
Akron Beacon Journal
29 November 2021
Text / 1500-3000 Words
Summit County, Ohio's juvenile court's Multidisciplinary Team Representation assigns a parent advocate and social worker to child-custody cases to help parents reunite with their children much more quickly than the system typically processes cases. The program has just begun in the county, helping a handful of families reunite, but a study in New York City showed the same approach reunited families 43% more often than if just an attorney were helping the family. Parents whose troubles lead to the temporary loss of their children need supports that help them get on firmer ground.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/11/28/marijuana/an-utter-failure-law-meant-clear-old-convictions-including-marijuana-possession-helps-few?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Dan Adams
The Boston Globe
28 November 2021
Text / 800-1500 Words
In 2018, Massachusetts legislators passed a law allowing people with certain lower-level criminal records to seal the records or expunge convictions altogether. The law was meant to remove the burden that a criminal record imposes on people seeking jobs or renting apartments, particularly when the conduct is no longer illegal, such as marijuana possession. Thousands have managed to get their records sealed. But relatively few have sought or won expungement, thanks to an overly restrictive and complicated process that hasn't been explained well to those who could benefit.
https://www.twincities.com/2021/11/28/st-paul-police-jiu-jitsu-training-reducing-injuries-excessive-force-settlements?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Mara H. Gottfried
Twin Cities Pioneer Press
28 November 2021
Text / 1500-3000 Words
When St. Paul police studied controversial cases in which officers used physical force, they found troubling examples that were products of the training given to officers. So they began training new and veteran officers to use tactics inspired by the Brazilian martial art jiu-jitsu, which prizes teamwork by two officers to use leverage to restrain resistant people rather than using brute force, weapons, or chemicals. In the six years after the training began, St. Paul officers used force far less often, injured far fewer people, and cost the city much less money in settlements payments.
https://hechingerreport.org/prisons-are-training-inmates-for-the-next-generation-of-high-tech-jobs?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Danielle Dreilinger
The Hechinger Report
26 November 2021
Text / Over 3000 Words
Idaho's nine prisons have more than 30 postsecondary educational programs geared to helping incarcerated people get hired in career-track, technical jobs after their release from prison. The prisons focus on jobs in demand and woo potential employers with tours of their well-equipped classrooms. They also focus on education that produces certifications that carry more weight in industry. Studies show those credentials produce better odds against people returning to prison. Such programs nationwide have suffered from inadequate funding, but more federal money is in the pipeline.
https://www.inquirer.com/news/columnists/inq2/gun-violence-trauma-kids-kalahari-resorts-waterpark-poconos-20211122.html?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Helen Ubiñas
The Philadelphia Inquirer (Philadelphia Media Network)
22 November 2021
Multi-Media / 1500-3000 Words
The group Moms Bonded By Grief went beyond the support-group work it has done for years for survivors of gun violence homicide victims to take 50 children and their mothers and grandmothers to a Poconos Mountains water park and resort. The long-weekend respite from Philadelphia's relentless gun violence included group therapy for children and adults, enabling them to talk about topics that often get buried or ignored. The excursion, funded by donations, is planned to be repeated next summer.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/20/climate/roundabouts-climate-emissions-driving.html?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Cara Buckley
The New York Times
20 November 2021
Text / 1500-3000 Words
America's capital of the traffic roundabout is Carmel, Indiana, a city of 102,000 people and 140 roundabouts. The city boasts exceptionally low rates of traffic deaths and injury crashes. Studies of roundabout use elsewhere show benefits as well in pedestrian and bicycle safety, and in cutting environmentally harmful emissions because traditional intersections cause much longer idling times. Not all drivers like them, but Carmel long ago overcame initial qualms when the longtime mayor put into practice the traffic idea he admired when he was a university student in England.
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