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The Mexican women who kicked out the cartels

Monica Wise Robles Richard Sprenger Katie Lamborn Charlie Phillips

April 15, 2021 |

The Guardian |

Video |

5-15 Minutes

Response Location: Mexico, Cherán, Michoacan

Ten years after the women of Cherán, an indigenous town in Michoacán, took up arms to lead an uprising against criminal cartels, their town is an "oasis" of low crime in a region otherwise beset with violence. The town declared itself autonomous and women now belong to the community police force that patrols the town and its surroundings. The cartels' illegal logging and extortion of businesses had corrupted local politicians and threatened a way of life. The town's men did nothing about it, so the women led the uprising that established order and kept the crime at bay.

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Fighting the Mafia on Its Own Turf

Rhodri Davies

March 23, 2021 |

The New York Times |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: Italy, Alto Belice Corleonese

La Placido Rizzotto is one of nine farm co-ops in a network of properties that were seized from Sicily's Mafia and reused to create a productive alternative to the area's crime-based economy. Part of the Libera Terra (Freed Land) network, La Placido Rizzotto employs 22 people and its farm, winery, and tourist inn generated nearly $900,000 in sales in 2019. The government has confiscated thousands of properties in its effort to hurt the Mafia economically, but managing the properties remains a challenge that the "social use" movement addresses. Libera Terra's model has been copied by an Argentinian co-op.

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In a Mafia Stronghold, This Cooking School Is Stirring the Pot

Agostino Petroni

February 01, 2021 |

Reasons to be Cheerful |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: Italy, Bianco, Calabria

Italy's first tuition-free cooking school gives unemployed young people in the economically challenged region of Calabria a career path – and a culturally resonant alternative to working for the region's organized crime syndicate, the 'Ndrangheta. The school, Uno Chef per Elena e Pietro, surrounds cooking instruction with an appreciation for food culture and farming. Besides the extortion, kidnappings, and murder that the Calabrian Mafia uses, it also launders money by infiltrating farming and the food business.

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How 60 reporters from 25 media outlets in 18 countries are finishing the work of murdered journalists

Amaris Castillo

January 25, 2021 |

Poynter |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: Mexico

The Cartel Project formed an international team of journalists that produced a five-part series on the murder of Mexican journalist Regina Martinez. The series also explored the subjects that Martinez's killers attempted to silence: particulars about drug trafficking and political corruption. The project was founded on the principle that journalism must be a cross-border collaboration to counter transnational crime syndicates. The series documented the role Mexicans play in the international drug business and in spying on and censoring journalists who seek to reveal these secrets.

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The ex-monk and the Thai sex mafia: helping victims find another way

Edward Girardet

January 04, 2021 |

Global Geneva Magazine |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: Thailand

Wat Arun Rajvaram Community Learning Centre, founded on Buddhist precepts by a former monk, has trained more than 250 Thai young women for work as nurse assistants, jobs aimed at keeping them out of the illicit sex trade, forced labor, and arranged marriages. High school graduates, ages 16 to 19, are selected in groups of 15-20 per year, mostly on scholarships paid by donors. They typically come from rural towns where poor families often sell their daughters to traffickers. Nearly all graduate and are guaranteed jobs at hospitals and health centers in Bangkok or elsewhere in Thailand.

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Homicides dropped after Philly gangs signed a 1974 peace pact. What can we learn from the org that brokered the truce?

Layla A. Jones

December 14, 2020 |

Billy Penn |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

The House of Umoja in West Philadelphia, created in the late 1960s in response to high rates of gang violence, succeeded in helping thousands of young men through a residential treatment program, mediating disputes peacefully, and brokering a gang truce credited with lowering Philadelphia violence in the 1970s. The program was based on Afrocentric customs and family structure (its name means unity in Swahili). The grandson of the founders is now trying to revive the home as part of the city's multiple anti-violence initiatives.

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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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Band of Others: Breaking patterns of violence

Sergio Olmos

April 27, 2020 |

Underscore |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Texas

Specialty dockets are used in some states to provide extensive follow-up and supervision to help juveniles end gang affiliations. The enhanced supervision usually includes a curfew, frequent unannounced home visits, regular courthouse meetings, and in depth mentoring. A federal grant recently made it possible for a Texas docket called Juveniles United Navigating Obstacles Successfully (JUNTOS) to also offer therapy services to at least 36 adolescents over 3 years. Gang re-entry data is scarce and there is a risk of focusing only on youth of color because the gang designation excludes white supremacy groups.

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How They Did It: Investigating a Country with 2,000 Clandestine Graves

Catalina Lobo-Guerrero

December 17, 2019 |

Global Investigative Journalism Network |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: Mexico

A nearly two-year investigation of Mexicans who had gone missing, and presumably murdered, produced a series of stories based on the database of at least 2,000 graves across Mexico. A group of independent reporters and photographers called “¿A dónde van los desaparecidos?” (where do the disappeared go?) supplied victims' families with information that previous government and private efforts had not, and that fueled demands for definitive information on their loved ones' deaths. More than 40,000 people have been reported missing in Mexico since 2006 amid drug-related violence.

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