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

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  • An Oregon city's decades-old alternative to police

    January 28, 2021 |

    Crosscut |

    Podcast |

    Over 15 Minutes

    Response Location: United States, Eugene, Oregon

    Like many cities, Seattle is looking to Eugene, Oregon, for a model to shift resources from police to unarmed crisis responders handling 911 calls about mental health, addiction, family conflict, and other non-criminal problems. Eugene's CAHOOTS program has been doing such work for half a century, and since 1989 sending medic-and-counselor teams on calls. In 2019 it saved $8 million in police costs and $14 million for ambulances and emergency room visits. But, while taking police out of situations where they might cause more problems than they solve, it's only as good as its region's social services.

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  • SC law enforcement agencies are supposed to report info on traffic stops, but most are not

    January 28, 2021 |

    The Greenville News |

    Text |

    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, South Carolina

    After the South Carolina legislature in 2005 began requiring police to enforce a seat-belt law with traffic stops, it imposed on all police departments a duty to track and report traffic-stop data on drivers' race. The law was meant as a way to prevent biased policing, through public disclosure of disparities. But only about one-third of the state's law enforcement agencies have consistently complied with the law, and some never have. Some blame ignorance of how the system should work. But another explanation is the state has done little or nothing to enforce the law.

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  • Queens Prosecutors Long Overlooked Misconduct. Can a New D.A. Do Better?

    January 27, 2021 |

    The New York Times |

    Text |

    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, New York, New York

    On her first day as district attorney of Queens, Melinda Katz created a unit to review potential wrongful convictions that in its first year has exonerated four men and has 80 more cases under review. The Queens DA's office long resisted the national trend toward such "conviction integrity" units, based on its contention that all prosecutors should be open to fixing their mistakes. The office, however, showed little inclination to do so systematically. Katz put the new unit under the control of a former lawyer with the Innocence Project and showed a resolve to take claimed injustices more seriously.

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  • Still Can't Breathe: How NYPD Officers Continue to Use Chokeholds on Civilians

    January 21, 2021 |

    The City |

    Text |

    Over 3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, New York, New York

    New York Police Department banned chokeholds in 1993, to prevent unnecessary injury and death. The practice has been scrutinized especially closely since the 2014 death of Eric Garner. But despite hundreds of complaints alleging the forbidden use of chokeholds, no NYPD officer has been fired for using a chokehold since 2014, nor have any complaints yielded more than some lost vacation time as a penalty. The failure of the policy stems from many causes, including ambiguity in the policy and its enforcement and lack of respect for investigative findings of the Civilian Complaint Review Board.

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  • In Eugene, Oregon, civilian response workers—not police—are dispatched to nonviolent crises

    January 19, 2021 |

    The Christian Century |

    Text |

    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, Eugene, Oregon

    Eugene's well-established CAHOOTS program for replacing police as first responders to certain types of 911 calls has become a model for multiple cities as they seek to replicate its success in an era of questioning the role of police. While it saves its city money and replaces arrests and possible violence with social and health services for people needing housing or mental health care, or suffering from addiction, CAHOOTS is somewhere in the middle of the spectrum of programs responding to these challenges. Communities' differences will dictate what works best for them.

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  • Where surveillance cameras work but the justice system doesn't

    January 19, 2021 |

    Rest of World |

    Text |

    Over 3000 Words

    Response Location: Mexico, Mexico City

    Mexico City's 11-year-old video surveillance system, one of the most advanced in the world, was a massive investment in public safety: about $660 million to date to cover the city with more than 30,000 cameras and other devices. Like so much else in Mexico's law enforcement apparatus, it has done little to control crime but instead has become a tool of corruption and official impunity. While the cameras have helped keep tourists and elites safer, the vast majority of crimes go unreported and only a tiny number of police investigations benefit from the surveillance system.

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  • Albuquerque's vision for non-police first responders comes down to earth

    January 17, 2021 |

    New Mexico In Depth |

    Text |

    Over 3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, Albuquerque, New Mexico

    In response to the 2020 policing protests, Albuquerque was among the first cities to embrace a major change in handling mental-health-crisis calls to 911. But its new Community Safety Department has foundered in its first year, a victim of inadequate planning and resources. The plan to send unarmed first responders on such calls, to reduce the risk of a violent over-reaction by the police, depended on reassigning city workers from other agencies, none of whom were mental health professionals. City councilors have sent the planners back to rethink the latest in a history of failed responses.

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  • Newark cops, with reform, didn't fire a single shot in 2020

    January 10, 2021 |

    NJ Advance Media |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United States, Newark, New Jersey

    In 2020, six years after the Justice Department imposed a series of reforms on the Newark Police Department, Newark police officers have reduced their use of force so much that they didn't fire their guns at all in 2020, nor did the city pay any brutality-lawsuit settlements. Reforms in training, including de-escalation tactics, all backed by supportive leadership and extensive community outreach, turned a "rogue department" of brutality and racism into a more trusted, effective force.

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  • An alternative to arrest? Police turn to diversion for petty crimes

    January 07, 2021 |

    Sentinel Source (The Keene Sentinel) |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United States, New Hampshire

    Prosecutors often make decisions about which criminal charges can be resolved by addressing underlying problems and holding people accountable for petty offenses without incarcerating them. Police-led diversion programs catch cases earlier in the criminal process. Various New Hampshire police departments and in neighboring Brattleboro, Vermont, use the approach in dozens of cases per year, sparing those people the burdens and shame of jail and conviction. The approach has been proven effective in Seattle’s LEAD program as a way to prevent rearrests and to make people's lives more stable.

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  • What did and did not change in Tampa Bay after the 2020 protests

    January 04, 2021 |

    Tampa Bay Times |

    Text |

    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, Tampa, Florida

    In the Tampa Bay area, the 2020 protests for racial justice and against police brutality did not result in reduced funding for area police agencies. But the protests did help prompt numerous other policing reforms in multiple agencies. Four Pinellas County agencies adopted body cameras. Some departments, including the St. Petersburg police, introduced alternatives to police to respond to mental health crises. One agency will train its officers in active bystandership, to make the duty to intervene in police misconduct more of a reality. Tampa restricted its use of no-knock warrants.

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