Chicago plans to open a community court for young adult offenders that focuses on rehabilitative services and community support, giving them a chance to make reparations to victims and avoid a criminal record that can jeopardize opportunities for the rest of their lives. Part 3 of 3.

Across the country, new criminal justice campaigns are seeking to redefine how criminal records are both accessed and interpreted. Given that current crime histories fail to denote context and stories of culmination, these new products are seeking to both delay the effect criminal convictions have, as well as reshape how criminal records are recorded.

After the fall of an oppressive and isolating regime, Portugal found itself utterly unprepared to deal with the rapid distribution of narcotics in the 1980s, creating a crisis that left 1 in every 10 people struggling with addiction. The country took a radical approach to rectifying opioid use through a huge cultural shift in the way it viewed and treated addicts - prioritizing support services and pioneering programs like needle-exchange and substitution therapy, and eventually decriminalizing hard drugs so that users could more easily get help, and drug rates have since plummeted.

Using advanced data, cameras, and innovative mapping, Chicago is hoping to finally solve crime in the city. Hidden sensors like ShotSpotter and crime forecasting software HunchLab are being used to turn massive amounts of data into usable information for law enforcement officers, but concerns about privacy and surveillance are prevalent.

Reaching out to juvenile offenders with support and services, rather than putting them in jail, reduces recidivism and can save public money. A program called Youth Villages is instrumental in helping youth offenders in Alabama build better futures for themselves, reaching about 50 young people every year. A bill that would have expanded this approach across the state was proposed but failed to pass before the end of the legislative session.

Rapes at college campuses occur at significant rates, and many proposed fixes are not working. Campus self-defense classes could potentially help women, such as at Stanford where Daly Montgomery (a student) created a self-defense class called "Protecting Your Bubble" to teach women how to defend themselves, hear from victims, and learn that it is ok to take action to protect yourself.

A new high school inside the New Orleans jail gives juvenile detainees the opportunity to earn credits toward graduation, not just a GED, and possibly find a different future. It's showing promise, with three people earning diplomas so far and more passing state exams in English and math. But the challenges are many because students are in a violent jail awaiting adjudication that could mean many more years behind bars.

Police departments across eastern Massachusetts frustrated by the rising opioid epidemic decided to make themselves avenues to treatment rather than instruments of punishment. “It was pretty evident that we weren’t arresting our way out of anything.” The idea evolved into a national program called the Police-Assisted Addiction and Recovery Initiative with nearly 400 police departments helping thousands of people access drug treatment services across the country.

Through targeted policing and community outreach, violence prevention program Fica Vivo reduces youth homicide rates in Brazil. The “weed and seed” approach removes top offenders, engages youth at risk of offending in government-funded activities, and builds accountability between law enforcement and the community.

Certain cities in the United States are facing startlingly high rates of homicide and violence that haven't been seen since the height of gang activity in the 1990s. But certain cities, including Los Angeles, have continued to see declines in or stable crime rates, thanks to a community-based policing approach that uses tactics such as working with former drug dealers, hosting neighborhood events, cleaning litter from the streets, and mediating sit-downs between formal gang rivals.

The Kansas City neighborhood of Ivanhoe was once plagued by blight, illegal dumping, drug trade, gun violence, and neglect; neighbors lived in fear or moved away. Inspired by one compassionate and proactive family, the Youngs, the community stepped up, partnering with the local university and a charitable foundation to map out a tangible blueprint for sustainable change. They are working with police and the city council to tackle the blight and revive their neighborhood through affordable housing, park space, and a renewed sense of community.

Alleys in Seattle were once places of illicit, illegal, and unsanitary activity. The International Sustainability Institute in Seattle began organizing music and art events to bring in people, which, in turn, cleaned-up the crime and garbage. As an urban development strategy, adjacent vacant storefronts re-opened for business and beautification could be seen in new gardens.

Four community groups in the Los Angeles area work to address the root causes of what draws young people into gangs with a mix of approaches to help people leave the gang life, including education and job services, counseling, addiction services, and tattoo removal. Some also focus on helping victims since so many gang members start out life as victims themselves and this feeds into a cycle of violence. All of them focus on creating community and belonging, which is why so many young people join gangs in the first place.

Sexual assault, rape, and sexism are social problems that young women face and many feel powerless to create change. Non-profit organizations such as SPARK and WAM have trained teenage girls to be advocates for themselves. Online campaigns and social media have also made teenage girls feel empowered to express themselves and make social change.

In New Delhi, violent sexual assaults against women have sent shock waves of fear to young women in the city. In response, a constable is teaching them how to protect themselves. As many as “180 girls, aged 11 to 17,” are being taught how to “deflect attacks.”

A new training program gets police officers to delve into the complexities of teenage brain development, helping law enforcement to recognize mental health issues, respond to them and, if they can, refer families to other resources in the community. The method focuses less on swift and immediate interventions and more on building relationships and trust that decreases overall volatility, while increasing the chance of keeping youth out of trouble and away from crime in the long term.

New Mexico has been among the eight states with the highest number of per-capita child abuse and neglect deaths for four of the past five years. There’s no simple solution for addressing the complex factors that lead to child abuse, but expanding home visiting programs to better educate parents is where New Mexico is starting.

More women are being incarcerated around the United States and that has spurred more institutions to create prison nurseries, which allow women to be with their newborns. It's not a new idea, but it's finding support among prison advocates as well as budget hawks because research shows nurseries can lower recidivism rates among mothers. The idea of children in prison remains controversial however.

The US incarcerates 8x as many women as it did in 1980, and two-thirds of women in state prisons are there for nonviolent offenses. A program in Tulsa, Women in Recovery, is working with women (and their children) to divert them from prison, combat addiction, and get access to services like education, coaching, housing, and work.