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

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  • Why Portugal decriminalised all drugs

    October 19, 2020 |

    BBC |

    Radio |

    5-15 Minutes

    Response Location: Portugal

    When Portugal became the first country to decriminalize personal possession and use of small amounts of drugs, choosing to shift to treating drug abuse as a health rather than a criminal matter, the feared downside of turning the country into a drug-users' paradise did not materialize. Instead, HIV cases and crime dropped. Law enforcement resources could focus on major trafficking, while the health and social problems associated with the country's serious heroin problem could be addressed in a way that could begin to solve the problem. Up till then, arrests and prison had failed to have such effects.

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  • Second Largest Police Force to Stop Criminalising Drug Users

    October 16, 2020 |

    Vice |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United Kingdom

    Four UK police forces have adopted drug-decriminalization policies over the past five years, diverting hundreds of cases toward treatment and harm-reduction counseling, and away from criminal convictions, fines, and incarceration. The policies, which apply even in cases involving heroin and cocaine, have been found to reduce drug offenses and conserve police resources for more serious crime. Based on those programs, West Midlands, the second-largest police force in England and Wales, is launching a one-year pilot project aimed at diverting 1,500 people's cases away from the criminal process.

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  • This police officer has made it her mission to end domestic violence

    October 14, 2020 |

    NBC News |

    Broadcast TV News |

    3-5 Minutes

    Response Location: United States, Thibodaux, Louisiana

    In southern Louisiana's Lafourche Parish, sheriff's deputy Valerie Martinez Jordan used her history as a domestic violence victim to create a countywide program to legally seize the guns of people convicted of domestic violence or whose gun rights are suspended under a protective order. The program, since expanded statewide by legislation she inspired, took more than 200 guns out of circulation in her parish alone since last year and is credited with preventing any domestic homicides by people disarmed through her program's efforts.

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  • Kalamazoo police look to violence intervention program and community partnerships to halt shootings

    October 13, 2020 |

    Second Wave Michigan |

    Text |

    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, Kalamazoo, Michigan

    In their Group Violence Intervention program, Kalamazoo police use "custom notifications" to intervene before street violence erupts. Working in tandem with community groups, the police tell likely shooters that more violence will get them arrested and imprisoned, but stopping now will be rewarded with job help and other services. Progress is slow. It gets measured one by one as young men get jobs and stay out of trouble. The pandemic disrupted the program, followed by a surge in violence. Community members praise the approach as an alternative to overly aggressive policing, but want more services programs.

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  • Grieving Murdered Children During A Pandemic

    October 12, 2020 |

    WUNC |

    Radio |

    3-5 Minutes

    Response Location: United States, Durham, North Carolina

    The nationwide surge in gun violence during the pandemic has forced support groups for grieving survivors to persevere in their work using different tools and strategies in a process that depends on intimate forms of counseling. In Durham, one "grief circle" associated with the Religious Coalition for a Nonviolent Durham still hosts anti-violence vigils after each killing. Its support group for parents and grandparents of victims, led by fellow survivors for maximum effect, shifted to Zoom and telephone calls. Among the beneficiaries of the support: the organizers themselves, whose work gives them purpose.

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  • How a Chicago nonprofit cut gun violence by helping young men find work

    October 08, 2020 |

    The Philadelphia Citizen |

    Text |

    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, Chicago, Illinois

    Chicago's CRED program (Create Real Economic Destiny) blends effective violence-intervention strategies with economic empowerment, life coaching, therapy, and education to provide the kind of opportunity so often lacking for young men prone to committing or suffering violence. While Chicago's citywide gun violence has increased by half, the neighborhood CRED serves has seen it fall by one-third. Even low-paying jobs are enough to lure the men off the street and out of danger so that they can benefit from the menu of services that rebut the notion that policing alone can solve the problem.

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  • Pro-gun localities accounted for nearly half of Virginia's red flag orders in law's first months

    October 06, 2020 |

    Virginia Mercury |

    Text |

    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, Virginia

    Strong local opposition to Virginia's new red-flag law and other gun-control measures did not dissuade some local law enforcement agencies from using the law for its intended purpose: to temporarily confiscate the guns of people deemed a threat to themselves or others. In the law's first two months, roughly half of 21 red flag cases filed were in counties and cities that passed resolutions opposing the passage and enforcement of the law. In Virginia Beach, a self-proclaimed Second Amendment Constitutional City, police made multiple uses of the tool, as state legislators had hoped when they enacted it.

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  • What legislators can learn from a Boston public housing development

    October 02, 2020 |

    The Boston Globe |

    Text |

    Under 800 Words

    Response Location: United States, Boston, Massachusetts

    Over the four decades that a major Boston public housing development was run by a tenant management corporation (TMC), residents' safety and relations with police improved in ways that serve as lessons today as gun violence in neighborhoods with high poverty rates has prompted debates over reimagining public safety. As the first of many TMCs in the nation, the one at the Mildred C. Hailey Apartments lowered crime by changing the dynamic between residents and police, through greater community control. The TMC, with its own police department, was disbanded in 2012. Crime since has gone up there.

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  • In Rio, Mapping Gunshots Can Backfire

    September 29, 2020 |

    Bloomberg CityLab |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: Brazil, Rio de Janeiro

    Crime-tracking mobile apps give millions of Brazilians crowdsourced data on urban violence, alerting people to dangerous places and filling gaps in government data on shootings, robberies, and other risks. But apps such as Fogo Cruzado (“Crossfire”) and Onde Tem Tiroteio (“Where There's a Shooting”) offer statistically crude glimpses of crime, distorted by media and racial biases that one expert blames for myths about the risks people actually face.

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  • Here Comes the Neighborhood

    September 29, 2020 |

    Self Evident |

    Podcast |

    Over 15 Minutes

    Response Location: United States, New York, New York

    In New York's and San Francisco's Chinatowns, groups responding to anti-Asian hate crimes and harassment illustrate the tension between community-led public safety efforts that either rely on the police for assistance or actively avoid entanglement with the police because of a lack of community trust. The groups actively patrol streets and get to know residents and mediate disputes, maintaining a visible presence as a deterrent. There's no evidence they have reduced anti-Asian bias incidents, but residents of the two neighborhoods, mainly business owners, said both types of groups make them feel safer.

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