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Can Floyd protests break cycles of police brutality and racial unrest? History has lessons.

Jessica Mendoza

June 19, 2020 |

The Christian Science Monitor |

Video |

5-15 Minutes

Response Location: United States

Just as the Emmett Till murder helped inspire protests in the civil rights era, which in turn led to the passage of civil rights and voting rights legislation, the protests over policing in 2020 already have sparked reforms and could lead to even more dramatic social changes. Policing and racial inequity often lie at the root of protests, past and present. The question is whether the predominant focus will be on riots and violence or on the underlying grievances that concern public policy.

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Martha Is Eliminating Tipping. What Does That Mean?

Maddy Sweitzer-Lamme

June 18, 2020 |

Philadelphia Magazine |

Text |

Under 800 Words

Response Location: United States, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

The elimination of tipping has allowed one Philadelphia bar to give their employees health insurance and ensure an equal distribution of income amongst all employees. Typically servers in the front of house make much more in tips than those working in the kitchen. The owners of Martha are instituting a 20 percent service fee in lieu of optional tipping, providing a more stable source of income for all employees.

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What's Happened To Hawaii's Police Shootings Review Board?

Blaze Lovell

June 17, 2020 |

Honolulu Civil Beat |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Hawaii

The groundswell for greater accountability in police shootings has barely caused a ripple in Hawaii, where the state’s Law Enforcement Officer Independent Review board has finished only one case in its first three years of existence and has suspended meetings during the pandemic. With one of its two citizen member slots vacant on an otherwise law-enforcement-heavy board, the panel fails a basic tenet of accountability by severely limiting public access to the cases it’s considering and its deliberations, says one critic.

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These Black Students Have Fought Over-Policing In Schools for Years

Zach Schermele

June 17, 2020 |

Teen Vogue |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Minneapolis, Minnesota

The Minneapolis school board’s vote to remove police from public schools arose not only from protests over the police killing of George Floyd, but also from a long-term advocacy project to end the so-called school-to-prison pipeline. Local youth activists for years have piggybacked on a national movement to stop the racially disparate practice of criminalizing student misbehavior. A coalition of groups, nationally and in Minneapolis, marshaled evidence of the racial inequity of such policing and the benefits of reinvesting the money saved on police in restorative justice programs and other services.

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How Sweden's new consent law led to a 75% rise in rape convictions

Catherine Edwards

June 16, 2020 |

The Local |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: Sweden

In the nearly two years since Sweden broadened the definition of rape offenses to include cases in which a victim fails to signal consent, both the reports of alleged rapes and convictions have risen. During that time, 76 convictions were in cases that previously would not have been classified as rape because they lacked evidence of force, threat, or sex with an incapacitated victim. Rapes still go largely unreported to police and there's still no evidence that the new law will achieve the ultimate goal of reducing the incidence of rape.

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How nonprofits are getting people out of metro Detroit jails during COVID-19 pandemic

Angie Jackson

June 16, 2020 |

Detroit Free Press |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Detroit, Michigan

Nonprofit bail funds, which use donated money to pay the bail of low-income people held in jail on pending charges, have won the release of about 55 people in Detroit during the COVID-19 crisis. Beyond the immediate need to free more people from an environment that makes social distancing difficult, the bail funds are part of a larger movement challenging a system that disproportionately affects people of color. The combination of bail payments, bond reductions, and administrative releases have reduced Wayne County's jail population by almost half.

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How Decades Of Bans On Police Chokeholds Have Fallen Short

Monika Evstatieva Tim Mak

June 16, 2020 |

NPR |

Radio |

3-5 Minutes

Response Location: United States

One of the key police reforms sought after the death in Minneapolis of George Floyd, bans on chokeholds and other neck restraints, has failed to curb abuses in some of the nation’s largest police departments because of lax enforcement and easily found loopholes in such policies. Despite existing bans, some as old as 30-40 years, multiple people in those cities have died when neck restraints were used during their arrests with few repercussions. Lack of effective training and disagreements over such tactics’ efficacy are among other reasons experts say the practice persists.

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Two Countries Dismantled Their Police to Start Fresh. It Worked—Up to a Point.

Yaroslav Trofimov

June 13, 2020 |

Wall Street Journal |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: Ukraine

Georgia and Ukraine offer cautionary advice to Americans whose mass protests seek structural changes in policing, even abolishing entire police forces. The same was true in those two countries. But, in both cases, initial successes at replacing corrupt police forces ended up reversed or at least limited by backsliding, as other parts of government and society resisted the changes.

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How Massachusetts v. EPA Forced the U.S. Government to Take On Climate Change

Sam Evans-Brown

June 13, 2020 |

New Hampshire Public Radio |

Radio |

Over 15 Minutes

Response Location: United States, Massachusetts

In order to get the U.S. government to take action on climate change, 30 environmental groups and 12 state governments joined forces to sue the Environmental Protection Agency arguing that it was required to regulate greenhouse gas emissions according to the Clean Air Act. While the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in their favor in the landmark Massachusetts v. EPA case in 2007, the justices’ decision didn’t specify how to reduce that pollution and future lawsuits could challenge the government’s requirement to reign in those emissions.

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The City that Really Did Abolish the Police

Katherine Landergan

June 12, 2020 |

Politico |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Camden, New Jersey

A decade after Camden crime and police relations hit bottom, and five years after President Obama lauded its new police department as a model for reform, the city's successful reboot of its police force offers both encouragement and cautionary notes for a radical makeover of a police department. Excessive force rates and homicides have both dropped. A toothless disciplinary system has been replaced. But, while residents agree conditions have improved, they point to a number of changes still needed after the entire department was replaced.

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