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

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  • Your Zoom Interrogation Is About To Start

    Traditional police interrogation tactics that emphasize invading someone’s personal space to increase anxiety, read body language, and prompt confessions have had to undergo changes during the pandemic, some of which offer new advantages. While police say they lose some needed leverage to do their jobs when interviews are conducted through masks, outdoors in public, or via teleconferencing screens, the workarounds encourage taping of all interviews and more transparency when the public can observe how police work.

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  • The long quest to stop a ‘Sugar Daddy' judge

    Arkansas’ judicial oversight agency has the staffing and persistence to hold bad judges accountable in ways that counter a nationwide pattern of weak enforcement and judicial impunity. The Arkansas Judicial Discipline & Disability Commission has a staff that’s almost three times as large as the national per-judge average and it publicly disciplines judges more than twice the national rate. It is one of the few such agencies that will investigate anonymous complaints, frequently a barrier to starting judicial misconduct probes.

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

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

    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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  • Outpatient Competency Restoration

    In Texas’ Travis County, a mental health court is helping divert people out of the criminal justice system and into treatment and outpatient programs. The collaborative process gives individuals the opportunity for rehabilitation, and upon completion, the chance to have their case dismissed. This approach has seen a 42% success rate, showing a decrease in recidivism and increased connection to treatment facilities.

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  • Solutions to restore inmates' mental health and get them to trial

    In Texas, legislators and advocates are working to address mental health concerns for individuals entering or in the criminal justice system. For those already in jail, telepsychiatry is being offered to help rehabilitate inmates. For those just entering the system, a mental health court in Travis County has been developed to connect people with needed mental health services so that they can stand trial and even have their cases dismissed.

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  • Newsrooms Rethink a Crime Reporting Staple: The Mugshot

    Around the United States, news organizations are taking a new approach to the use of mugshots in their crime reporting. While still the norm in many places, newsrooms like the Houston Chronicle have stopped publishing the common “mugshot slideshow,” and some, including Connecticut’s New Haven Independent, have stopped publishing them altogether. The practice, often used to generate page views, depict people at their worst, doing more harm than anything else.

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  • Juvenile justice advocates: Let's ‘Raise the Age' again

    Since 2007, Connecticut has taken major steps in juvenile justice reform – namely, the ages that youth are arrested or charged as adults. By moving 16 and 17 year olds out of the adult system and into the juvenile justice system, the state has seen a 40% decrease in new juvenile court cases, leading to less stigma and large taxpayer savings. With such success, the state now looks to make further reforms in the juvenile justice system.

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  • Free Our Youth

    Philadelphia’s Youth Art & Self-Empowerment Project (YASP) offers support for youth experiencing incarceration. Funded by personal donations and grants, they offer art workshops and classes on how to navigate the justice system, manage funds to bail individuals out, and advocate for criminal justice reform. Their advocacy also helped end the practice of sentencing juveniles to life without parole.

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  • Rewriting the narrative

    At the Motus Theater, formerly incarcerated individuals participate in JustUs – a performative program that gives them the space to share their stories. The Boulder-based program aims to complicate the narrative of those that commit crimes, surfacing the systemic, punitive nature of criminal justice. For those that participate, it provides them a literal platform to share their pain, trauma, and growth.

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