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Fentanyl overdoses dropped in 4 states. These solutions are helping

Arezow Doost

February 18, 2022 |

KXAN-TV |

Broadcast TV News |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, New Jersey

During the pandemic,New Jersey launched an initiative making the lifesaving overdose drug naloxone available at pharmacies without a prescription. Alongside strategies such as prioritizing access to harm reduction centers and making overdose data publicly available, the approach helped the state record a 7 percent decrease in overdose deaths as the majority of the country saw concerning spikes.

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Black students fought to defund school police in LA and hire mental health counselors instead

Aaricka Washington

February 01, 2022 |

Capital B (National) |

Multi-Media |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Los Angeles, California

After a period of backpack searches and police pepper-spraying students, Students Deserve, a youth-led activist group, pushed for the Los Angeles Unified School District to withdraw all funding for school police and divert it to mental health support for Black students. The school board approved a plan to cut one third of the school police budget, roughly around $25 million, and instead use it to fund “221 psychiatric social workers, counselors, “climate coaches,” and restorative justice advisers to schools with the highest number of Black students.”

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Pima County programs help keep drug users out of jail, save taxpayers money

Caitlin Schmidt

January 29, 2022 |

Arizona Daily Star |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Tucson, Arizona

Tucson’s Drug Treatment Alternative to Prison program, or DTAP, offers intensive treatment and recovery services to certain people convicted of nonviolent offenses as an alternative to serving a sentence behind bars. Participants also receive support and counseling around job and life skills, transportation, and other critical needs, and at least 119 people have successfully completed the program since 2011.

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Santa Fe's once-vaunted diversion program for people with addictions has dwindled to nearly nothing

Ted Alcorn

December 22, 2021 |

Santa Fe Reporter |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Santa Fe, New Mexico

One of the nation's first programs using police officers to get people into drug treatment instead of jail succeeded at first, and inspired other programs throughout New Mexico. But the original Santa Fe program now serves as a lesson in what can all but kill such a program, thanks to a leadership vacuum and mistakes that undercut the cultural change needed within a police department. Like the first program of its kind, in Seattle, Santa Fe's LEAD (Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion) program takes aim at people whose drug abuse deeply entangles them in the justice system when what they need is treatment.

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Oakland's success shows how Philly-wide restorative justice could work

Jessica Blatt Press

December 16, 2021 |

The Philadelphia Citizen |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Oakland, California

Modeled on a long-running and successful program in Oakland, Philadelphia schools' Relationships First program uses restorative justice to reform school discipline. The program follows a three-step approach to changing culture. At its core, teachers and students deepen their relationships so that when they use group dialogue to address the harm that people have caused, the chances for healing are greater. Violence has dropped when it was used in one Philadelphia neighborhood in cases of serious offenses. In Oakland, expulsions, suspensions, and racial disparities are all way down.

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'A clear winner': How education in prison can help people after release

Paul Cuno-Booth

December 13, 2021 |

Granite State News Collaborative |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, New Hampshire

Correctional education opportunities provide a number of benefits: Skills, self-esteem, job opportunities, and lower chances of going back to prison. Educational opportunities for people serving prison time decrease the possibility of recidivism by 30 percent.

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This NGO's Strategy Helps Ex-convicts Avoid Repeating Crime

Ekpali Saint

December 13, 2021 |

Prime Progress |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: Nigeria, Benue

In the nine years since its founding, Dream Again Prison and Youth Initiative has helped more than 2,000 incarcerated Nigerians prepare for success in work and life after they leave prison. Using mental health support, vocational training, and financial aid after graduates leave prison, the program works in six prisons in an effort to combat the country's rising recidivism rate. Much of the focus is on helping would-be entrepreneurs start their own businesses rather than rely on existing businesses that may not want to give the formerly incarcerated a second chance.

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To clean up East Baltimore, this mentor shores up buildings – and youths

Dwight A. Weingarten

December 13, 2021 |

The Christian Science Monitor |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Baltimore, Maryland

A community organization focuses on the wellbeing of young people in order to prevent violence. Members are mentored and taught martial arts by founder, Munir Bahar. Young residents also help clean up their neighborhood, hold food drives, and lead anti-violence marches.

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‘Something major': Wake DA partners with nonprofits to clear people's arrest warrants

Aaron Sánchez-Guerra

December 11, 2021 |

The News & Observer |

Text |

Under 800 Words

Response Location: United States, Raleigh, North Carolina

The Wake County district attorney worked with criminal-justice reform groups to hold a "warrant clinic" where people could apply to void arrest warrants that could land them in jail, with all of the financial and social costs that come with that. About 45 of 160 applicants were approved in the process, which comes with multiple conditions limiting eligibility to people facing relatively minor charges who missed court dates or had similar reasons for getting named in a warrant. The organizers hope to continue the practice, which also saves the county money.

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The Judge Who Keeps People Out of Jail

Ted Alcorn

November 30, 2021 |

The Washington Post Magazine |

Text |

Over 3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Rio Arriba, New Mexico

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.

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