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Community peacemakers in Chicago offer a proven alternative to policing

Loretta Graceffo

July 14, 2020 |

Waging Nonviolence |

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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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Baltimore Hits Pause on Gun Violence Command Centers

J. Brian Charles

July 06, 2020 |

The Trace |

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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 |

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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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With Abuse Victims Trapped at Home, Detroit Moves Restraining Order System Online

Jennifer Mascia Katlyn Alo

May 29, 2020 |

The Trace |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Detroit, Michigan

Domestic abuse risks are on the rise, at a time of social isolation, economic disruption, and gun-buying, and so Wayne County, Michigan, court officials responded to the closing of their courthouses by allowing people to seek orders of protection online. A replacement for an onerous, face-to-face process, the new e-filing system processed fewer applications in its first month than before the pandemic crisis, but at least preserved a steady flow of cases that enable victims to block their abusers from possessing guns. Victim advocates hope the new system expands access even after the courthouses reopen.

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How police forces in western Canada are working to speed up ballistic imaging to solve gun crimes quicker

Marsha McLeod

May 27, 2020 |

The Globe and Mail |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: Canada, Edmonton, Alberta

As Canada sees an increase in gun violence, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) are increasing their capacity to do ballistic imaging – an analysis that is able to potentially connect multiple crimes. Across the country, individual police agencies are developing their own way of conducting this analysis or working with the RCMP, which has access to an integrated network of crime information, to expedite the process.

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Arkansas Moms Turn to Food Pantry Boxes to Distribute Safe Gun Storage Tips

Ann Givens

May 26, 2020 |

The Trace |

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Under 800 Words

Response Location: United States, Jonesboro, Arkansas

After a 14-year-old girl in Jonesboro, Ark., accidentally shot and killed a friend, local activists distributed hundreds of fliers promoting safe gun storage strategies that have been proven to save lives. They gained access to a particularly vulnerable population by piggybacking on pandemic-related free-food distribution. Nationwide, children's deaths and injuries from accidental gunshots have increased substantially during the pandemic lockdown, with children idled at home and with gun sales surging.

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Chicago's Gun Violence Interrupters Take on Coronavirus

Lakeidra Chavis

March 17, 2020 |

The Trace |

Text |

Under 800 Words

Response Location: United States, Chicago, Illinois

Street outreach workers who work to reduce gun violence in Chicago are using the relationships they've built to now spread the word about the dangers of the coronavirus. “To the extent that we are the sort of conduits to vulnerable neighborhoods, it makes sense for us to sort of disseminate that information because it’s an important public service,” one outreach worker explains.

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This Tiny Louisiana Police Force Is a National Leader in Taking Guns From Abusers

Ann Givens

February 24, 2020 |

The Trace |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Thibodaux, Louisiana

Despite a strong gun-rights culture in the state, Louisiana law enforcement agencies use aggressive gun-confiscation laws and procedures to disarm domestic abusers as part of a wider array of protections for victims. Thanks to the work of one abuse survivor turned cop in the small south Louisiana parish of Lafourche, new laws and local-federal collaboration have spread statewide, making convicted abusers less likely to have ready access to a gun.

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Case-By-Case, Gun-By-Gun: Denver Investigator Is Removing Firearms From Domestic Abusers

Leigh Paterson

February 23, 2020 |

KUNC |

Radio |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Denver, Colorado

The Denver, Colorado, district attorney’s office assigned an investigator to methodically search for signs that domestic abusers possessed prohibited guns, and then uses that information to take the guns away. Firearm prohibitions are required by federal law or through protective orders issued by courts. But enforcement in many places is spotty to nonexistent. By taking an active rather than passive approach to enforcement, the office has confiscated dozen of guns from people deemed a threat.

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