Artwork stating 'Education Destroys Barriers', 'We Demand Treatment', and 'I Need A Chance'

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  • The Doorway is open in NH, and hundreds are walking in

    Thanks to a federal grant, New Hampshire has implemented a “hub-and-spoke program” that connects those facing addiction problems with resources to help them. Acting as a single access point, the organization takes walk-ins and phone calls and offers screenings, assessments and referrals.

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  • Jury of their peers: Youth court aims to keep students out of criminal justice system

    In Newark Youth Court, the common mistakes and misbehavior of childhood lead to a trial in which all of the participants are high school students, and the outcomes center on second chances and atoning for wrongdoing through community service and decision-making classes. The court, which hears about 100 cases per year, serves as an alternative to pushing allegations of minor fights, vandalism, and truancy into the justice system, where punishment falls most heavily on youth of color and can wreck lives without solving the discipline problems.

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  • How Norway designed a more humane prison

    Halden Prison in Norway has re-designed itself so that the look and feel of prison life isn’t an added punishment to restricted freedom. Designers took into consideration the role campus design plays in promoting or disrupting guard-inmate relations and created a campus that promotes community rather than violence and isolation. Also included was landscaping, more natural light, and the use of softer materials, like glass and wood, instead of metal and brick.

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  • LeBron James Opened a School That Was Considered an Experiment. It's Showing Promise.

    One year after LeBron James' I Promise School opened its doors, its students, picked for being some of the worst performing in Akron, Ohio, have shown significant improvement on district assessments. I Promise is funded like other public schools, but also benefits from an additional $600,000 from the James' foundation for more teaching staff, after-school programs, and a family resource center with G.E.D. preparation and career counseling. Teachers say these add-ons have been the key to the school's early success.

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  • By Forgiving Warrants and Fines, Communities Give People a Fresh Start

    Stand With Dignity, a grassroots, community organizing group in New Orleans, has coordinated warrant clinics for those driving with suspended licenses. These clinics have forgiven $2 million worth of traffic fines and reinstated licenses for hundreds of individuals, in the hopes of breaking the cycle of unpaid fines, which is often a driver of unemployment and poverty.

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  • Facing opioid and foster-care crisis, Spokane's Rising Strong seeks to keep families together

    Keeping families together eases the burden on the foster care system and reduces issues such as homelessness and substance abuse in the long term. Former foster children in Spokane, Washington, end up relying heavily upon other social welfare institutions throughout their lives. To break this cycle, Rising Strong, a program funded largely by a philanthropic contribution, focuses on rebuilding families while addressing behavior issues through an intensive, live-in program.

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  • The connection between eviction and suicide

    When suicide rates began to show a steady incline in Oregon, researchers found that this strongly correlated with a population that had been evicted from their homes. In Washington County, the supervisor of the county’s public health program who is also the county’s epidemiologist, began aggregating data that allowed her to develop a list of risk factors that were distributed to crises intervenors as well as make alterations to eviction notices.

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  • In effort to prevent overdose deaths, state plans to put ‘NaloxBoxes' in public buildings

    As states continue to tackle a nationwide opioid crisis, one tactic that is being tried is making treatments of overdoses more accessible. By installing boxes containing the overdose reversal drug naloxone in public places, the state of Maine hopes to not only save lives, but also decrease stigma and increase communication.

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  • SEPTA quietly decriminalizes jumping turnstiles, lowers fines

    Pennsylvania’s Transit Authority, SEPTA, has decriminalized fare evasion, with those who are caught facing a $25 fine. This is down from the prior $300 tickets that were issued in the past. The move toward decriminalization is part of a larger shift in the region for the criminal justice system to be less punitive and more rehabilitative, focusing more on addressing root causes of behavior.

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  • Mass. prisons start offering medication to treat addiction

    Newly passed legislation in Massachusetts is allowing prisons to take a step towards managing inmates health care by letting a third party company administer medication that helps treat opioid addiction. This step towards bridging the gap between punishment and help, also focuses on reducing racial inequalities and rates of addiction-caused deaths.

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