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Community peacemakers in Chicago offer a proven alternative to policing

Loretta Graceffo

July 14, 2020 |

Waging Nonviolence |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Chicago, Illinois

Nonviolence Chicago uses street-outreach workers to mediate disputes and connect residents of violence-prone neighborhoods to needed services. Its work, amounting to tens of thousands of contacts per year with people involved in violence, has contributed to efforts that reduced homicides and nonfatal shootings in the Austin neighborhood by nearly half from 2016 to 2019. By replacing the police with former gang members and others with street credibility, and working with both victims and shooters, Nonviolence Chicago wins the trust of residents.

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A grassroots policing alternative in Hartford spreads its wings

Isabella Zou

July 08, 2020 |

The Connecticut Mirror |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Hartford, Connecticut

Members of a community group in North Hartford, CT, are a positive presence on the streets of the dangerous neighborhood they once grew up in. Men Standing Up Against Violence aim to deter violence, provide support, mediate conflicts, and mentor the youth. The presence of the group was initially unwelcomed by local police officers, but they have proven to be an effective and vital addition to the neighborhood, winning over both the community and the local police department. The group's success is attributed to the trust they've built with locals who often have a deep mistrust and fear of the police.

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They envisioned a world without police. Inside Seattle's CHOP zone, protesters struggled to make it real

Elle Reeve Samantha Guff

July 06, 2020 |

CNN |

Broadcast TV News |

3-5 Minutes

Response Location: United States, Seattle, Washington

The police-free zone that emerged during Seattle's protests in June 2020 was meant to demonstrate how safety could be provided by the community itself. But the six-square-block area, called the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) and then Capitol Hill Organized Protest (CHOP), devolved into chaos and deadly violence thanks in part to the inability of organizers and their security team to keep armed people from committing violence. When fistfights turned into multiple shootings, and an ambulance crew could not reach a shooting victim, who died, police finally moved in and cleared the area.

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Baltimore Hits Pause on Gun Violence Command Centers

J. Brian Charles

July 06, 2020 |

The Trace |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Baltimore, Maryland

A strategy to improve the intelligence that steers policing and violence-intervention efforts has worked in Chicago and shown promising early signs in Baltimore. But plans to expand Strategic Decision Support Centers in Baltimore ran into political opposition, based on sentiment in favor of diverting police resources to other strategies. Chicago’s SDSC program is credited with a much greater reduction in shootings than in untargeted areas of the city. Baltimore likewise has seen homicides decline where SDSCs help police and violence interrupters decide where and on whom to focus their interventions.

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Comprehensive Services Key In Deterring Violence, Crime and Negative Interactions With Police

Alexis Taylor

July 03, 2020 |

Afro News |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Baltimore, Maryland

Two programs targeting two types of problems have been successful with one common element: interventions that provide needed social services rather than rely only on police responses. In Baltimore, shootings and homicides in the Belair-Edison neighborhood are down 20% in the year since the Safe Streets program put violence interrupters on the street to cool disputes before they turn violent. In Dallas, the Rapid Integrated Group Healthcare Team's medical and social-worker responses to mental health crises reduced emergency room admissions 30%, replacing arrests with social and health services.

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How to Defund the Police

Alexis Okeowo

June 26, 2020 |

The New Yorker |

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Over 3000 Words

Response Location: United States, New York, New York

On the front lines of the defund-police movement, groups like Elite Learners and Save Our Streets Bed-Stuy mediate conflicts in ways that have lowered violence without the involvement of police, thus reducing arrests and incarceration at the same time. CMS workers often use the Cure Violence approach of "violence interruption," a form of outreach by community members to offer needed social services while preventing violence. The city, which credits these programs with a 15% decline in shootings in 17 precincts in a three-year span, is expanding the budget for this to nearly $50 million per year.

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How tech is tackling wildlife trafficking

Richard Kenny

June 23, 2020 |

BBC |

Radio |

Over 15 Minutes

Response Location: Cambodia

Three examples of new science behind successful efforts to prevent or punish the poaching of protected wildlife starts with PAWS: Protection Assistant for Wildlife Security, an artificial intelligence tool that helped officials in Cambodia predict where poachers would set snares. In an undisclosed location in East Africa, another form of AI powers a miniature trail camera that can detect human activity and alert rangers to rush in for arrests. And Kenya prosecuted four cases of pangolin trafficking by using a new method of lifting fingerprints from the poached animals' precious scales.

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How Violence Interrupters Brokered An End To Anti-Black Attacks In A Latino Neighborhood

Pascal Sabino

June 16, 2020 |

Block Club Chicago |

Text |

Under 800 Words

Response Location: United States, Chicago, Illinois

When protests against police violence turned into looting and anti-Black violence in some Latinx neighborhoods, violence interrupters from groups such as UCAN, EnLace, and Chicago CRED brokered a peace agreement that almost immediately ended that violence. The outreach workers’ years-long relationships and training in dispute mediation gave them credibility to address historic racial tensions among gangs in Lawndale and Little Village. The violence could have escalated, but three days of negotiation – and a sense of common cause against racism in policing – united the neighborhoods.

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Youth Are Flipping an Abandoned North Carolina Prison into a Sustainable Farm

Christina Cooke

June 15, 2020 |

Civil Eats |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Wagram, North Carolina

A former North Carolina prison has been reclaimed by the nonprofit Growing Change to teach sustainable farming to youth who otherwise might be doomed to their own prison terms without an effective intervention. The 9-year-old program, while small, is meant to serve as a model for reusing many other shuttered prisons as the nation’s incarceration numbers fall. Boasting positive effects on recidivism, the program’s focus is the racially diverse youth of the rural, impoverished eastern part of the state – the same people who disproportionately get imprisoned.

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American Indian patrol in Minneapolis credited with saving buildings during protests

Jean Hopfensperger

June 11, 2020 |

Minnesota Star Tribune |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Volunteer street patrols organized by the American Indian Movement, the national civil rights group, saved the heart of the Twin Cities’ native American community from damage during the looting and arson that broke out during protests over police brutality in Minneapolis. AIM street patrols that had been created in 1968 were revived for the June 2020 unrest. Local businesses praised the effort for protecting their buildings, often by standing guard overnight armed with walkie-talkies and sometimes with guns.

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