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In Denver, This Program Helps Reroute 911 Calls To Police Alternatives

Scott Simon

September 12, 2020 |

NPR |

Radio |

3-5 Minutes

Response Location: United States, Denver, Colorado

In its first three months of existence, Denver's STAR program sent medics and counselors to respond to more than 600 calls to 911 in place of the police and without ever having to call the police as backup in a violent confrontation. The calls dealt mainly with complaints about unhoused people who callers complained were trespassing. Instead of the police approach, which often is to see such people as a threat, the STAR team sees them as people needing help. Such calls diverted from police end up connecting people with necessary social services and avoid possible violence or unnecessary incarceration.

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Homelessness on wheels: Boise Police, social workers launch new initiative for those living in vehicles in downtown Boise

Margaret Carmel

September 08, 2020 |

BoiseDev |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Boise, Idaho

An emergency shelter, a housing nonprofit, the City of Boise, and the Boise Police Department came together to coordinate efforts and give assistance to the growing number of residents experiencing homelessness and living in RVs and cars around the city. The “Street Outreach Support” program involves knocking on the vehicle doors and offering temporary housing and medical attention to those who need it. While there are a smattering of reasons that people are living in their vehicles, the city is searching for a more permanent solution to getting people access to affordable housing.

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Call police for a woman who is changing clothes in an alley? A new program in Denver sends mental health professionals instead.

Elise Schmelzer

September 06, 2020 |

The Denver Post |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Denver, Colorado

To avoid unnecessary arrests and reduce police-public friction, Denver's STAR program (Support Team Assistance Response) sends a mental health professional and a paramedic to some mental-health-related 911 calls instead of sending police. In the first three months of the pilot program, the STAR team – covering only certain areas of the city during weekdays – handled 350 calls without needing police backup. STAR builds on a 4-year-old program pairing Denver police with mental health professionals. That program handled 2,223 calls in 2019 and is expanding.

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Community courts and the homeless: Do these programs make a difference?

Donny Morrison Gina Scalpone Zack Demars

September 05, 2020 |

The Register-Guard |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Oregon

As an alternative to traditional courts, community courts provide resources to those experiencing homelessness. Fines and jail time are often the punishment in traditional courts for those charged with trespassing or loitering, but community courts provide services that help people find housing, jobs, health care, and even offer mobile showers, food stamp assistance, and mental health care. While the long-term data are lacking and don't offer a clear picture of recidivism rates, community courts do provide a better quality of life for those living on the streets.

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In CAHOOTS in Oregon

Taylor Perse

September 04, 2020 |

Voices of Monterey Bay |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Eugene, Oregon

Oregon's CAHOOTS program has succeeded in replacing police on many mental-health crisis calls over its 30-year history because it is integrated in a larger system of services, including law enforcement. CAHOOTS' crisis workers, who cover the cities of Eugene and Springfield with three vans taking dozens of calls for help a day, come to their jobs with expertise as EMTs, nurses, or social workers. Then they spend 500 hours of training in crisis management and de-escalation, learning to offer help without forcing it, and without the threat of arrest except in the few cases when police backup is needed.

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Where Calling the Police Isn't the Only Option

Sarah Holder Kara Harris

September 03, 2020 |

Bloomberg CityLab |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States

As the "defund-the-police" campaign sparks interest in alternatives to police-only responses to crises involving mental illness or similar problems, cities as disparate as Eugene, Oregon, and Stockholm serve as exemplars of ways to handle thousands of calls per year without involving the police. Like Eugene's CAHOOTS program, Stockholm's Psykiatrisk Akut Mobilitet (PAM) sends mental health and medical professionals to help people suffering mental crises. Now Oakland, Portland, Denver, New York, and other cities are exploring how to customize such programs to their own communities' needs.

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How Angela Merkel's great migrant gamble paid off

Philip Oltermann

August 30, 2020 |

The Guardian |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: Germany

Five years after Germany sparked controversy with a welcoming message to the flood of refugees applying for asylum, more than half of those 1.7 million refugees have work and pay taxes, their youth show strong signs of belonging to their German communities, and more than 10,000 have mastered the language enough to enroll in German universities. Refuting anti-immigrant skeptics meant overcoming, or enduring, enormous social and economic challenges. Despite many bumps, the policy now appears to have avoided the nightmare scenarios foreseen by critics, such as inviting even more refugees.

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Ex-gang members draw on their past to stop Fort Worth shootings before they happen

Nichole Manna

August 28, 2020 |

Fort Worth Star-Telegram |

Multi-Media |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Fort Worth, Texas

Inspired by a news story about a successful violence-intervention program in Richmond, California, and alarmed by a surge in gun violence in 2019, city officials in Fort Worth created VIP FW to deploy formerly incarcerated men and former gang members as mentors and mediators. In the program's startup phase, its mediations interrupted 18 potential shootings. Led by a man who pleaded for solutions at city council meetings, VIP FW intervenes in the lives of young men deemed at risk of committing violence who aren't reached by other community programs or by police enforcement.

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Deradicalizing Militants the High-Tech Way

Tereza Engelová

August 26, 2020 |

HlídacíPes.org |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: Czech Republic

Czech Technical University's online learning platform, HERMES, combats terrorism based on proven methods of deradicalization of former jihadists and preventing recruitment of new people to terrorism. Interactive exercises and other tools teach prison and court officials to separate radical jihadists from other prisoners. As thousands of people imprisoned on terrorism charges finish serving their sentences and are released from prisons, the programs also target community-based spread of radical thought, including with job opportunities for former prisoners.

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Can Prosecutors Be Taught to Avoid Jail Sentences?

Tina Rosenberg

August 25, 2020 |

The New York Times |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Columbus, Ohio

A nonprofit consulting firm, Prosecutor Impact, advances the cause of reducing incarceration and related reforms by helping reform-minded elected district attorneys confront one of the greatest obstacles to change: their own staff's opposition. In Columbus, a two-week curriculum educated front-line prosecutors about local services that can serve as problem-solving alternatives to punishment. It also taught them about poverty's challenges and engaged them in dialogue with prisoners, to make them more open to alternative approaches, which a local defense lawyer says was successful.

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