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

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  • The judge, jury and lawyers are kids. But punishments at N.J. youth court are real.

    The 10-year-old Newark Youth Court has heard some 700 cases in which high school students serve as judge, jury, and lawyers in proceedings that avoid school discipline or criminal charges with creative exercises in personal accountability. Taking aim at fights, disruptive behavior, or more serious offenses involving weapons or drugs. the Youth Court seeks to encourage better life choices. Outcomes may exclude punishment altogether, imposing community service (including Youth Court jury duty) or other alternatives to jail, avoiding criminal records that can ruin someone's future.

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  • Holland Aims to Bring Back Its Starry Nights

    To address the harm - both to human psychology as well as natural ecosystems - of artificial light, The Netherlands calls on its citizens to turn their lights off and feel the effects of a natural darkness. The awareness of negative consequences of artificial light has helped residents reduce light consumption, though turning the lights off is an uphill battle with international corporate powerhouses.

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  • Reusable Bag Share

    When the town of Collingswood started deliberating a bag ban, a leader from Friends of the Farmers’ Market stepped up, creating the Collingswood Bag Share. Community members were worried about the economic impact of fewer sales at the market if consumers did not have bags, and they can now purchase or borrow reusable bags in a sustainable way.

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  • Creative Freedom

    New York-based nonprofit, Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA), runs theater programs for individuals experiencing incarceration as a way of improving mental health and reducing recidivism. While the United States’ criminal justice system has been focused on punitive measures, there’s been a trend toward rehabilitation across the country in recent years. Participants in RTA have shown a rate of recidivism of just 5% – compared to a 60% national average – but funding and sustainability remain a consistent hurdle.

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  • More Seattleites are housing homeless people in their backyards, but it's hard to find the right fit

    In Seattle, the BLOCK project started two years ago to build houses for those experiencing homelessness in backyards. While the project has slow-going - with only 9 matches between families and an unhoused person completed - that's in part because the non-profit is incredibly deliberate about its process in recognition of some controversy the idea has recieved.

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  • Farm-to-school programs revitalize health in nutritionally underserved communities

    Over 40,000 U.S. schools take part in a program called Farm to School, which teaches students healthy eating habits through lessons in school gardens.

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  • Houston, we have a solution: How the city curbed homelessness

    Across the country, governments at every level are working to tackle homelessness. In Houston, connecting permanent housing to services has proven an effective strategy but it has required an increase in affordable housing stock and more strategic organization between non-profits and officials.

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  • Limits could rein in runaway legislative sessions

    As North Carolina wrapped up its second-longest legislative session in its history, the government looked to other states for a possible solution. In states like George and Tennessee, which have sessions 40 and 30 days long, respectively, session limits save money, provide efficiency, eliminate meaningless bills that do not produce laws, and allow a more diverse range of people to serve as lawmakers.

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  • Revolutionary recycling? A new technology turns everyday trash into plastic treasure.

    A company in Israel is setting its sights on reducing plastic waste by converting garbage into pellets that can then be used in manufacturing plastic to create "everyday items like trays and packing crates." Although the approach has been met with some skepticism, the company has already shown promise due to the creation of "a radical technology that transforms garbage into the raw materials for plastics manufacturers and earns them a profit in the end."

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  • Chicago Police Hope To Build Trust With Experiment In Community Policing

    Chicago police have rebuilt some of the trust they lost in one part of the city, where the police department has used private funding to launch a community-policing program. In the department's 25th district, residents get to know their neighborhood officers and can call them directly, something they did 20,000 times in just the first nine months of the pilot project. "Community ambassadors" serve as liaisons between officers and neighbors who are leery of connecting with the police whose department's brutality and misconduct strained relations over many years. The city is working to expand the program.

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