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

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  • Inside the Ambitious Campaign to Drive Homicides in Chicago Below 400

    In Chicago, community organizations, public officials, and private funders have come together behind a campaign called “<399” – with the goal of bringing homicides to under 400. This collaboration has taken on a comprehensive, community-centered approach that includes initiatives like community outreach, individual support, and mentoring. While they’ve received significant funding from the city, they’re hoping to secure long-term financial and political support from all levels of government.

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  • What Gun Violence Prevention Looks Like When It Focuses on the Communities Hurt the Most

    Across the United States, gun violence prevention initiatives are finally turning their attention to the urban communities hit hardest and supporting community-driven approaches. In the past, financial support has gone to linear, legislative approaches to gun control that often favor white communities, but the tides are turning. Funding has shifted to focus on initiatives that provide trauma recovery centers, hospital-based centers, and programs that provide communities hit the hardest with mentorship, job training, and therapy – all initiatives that have proven to help break the cycle of gun violence.

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  • Detroit Bail Project aims to disrupt the process of cash bail and incarceration

    The Bail Project is posting bond for men and women who cannot afford to pay and haven’t been convicted of a crime. Based in Detroit, the nonprofit has locations across the country and uses a revolving fund to bail out individuals, meaning once the bond is recovered, the funding is then available for another person. Its Detroit location has bailed out nearly 200 individuals in an effort to end mass incarceration and prove that holding people – most of whom are people of color or experiencing poverty – does not diminish recidivism.

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  • How Norway turns criminals into good neighbours

    Norway’s Halden Prison is taking a different approach to incarceration: emphasizing rehabilitation over punishment, which has led to a 20% decrease in recidivism in just two years. Over the past two decades, the country has sought rigorous criminal justice reform, which at Halden Prison means job training and certifications, yoga and other recreational activities, reenvisioning the role guards play, and spaces that look more like home than a jail cell.

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  • California: Epicenter of Mass Incarceration Reform

    Following a Supreme Court mandate requiring California to address prison overcrowding, the state has taken numerous initiatives to reduce sentences, relocate inmates, set higher accountability measures for law enforcement, and allocate more funding for re-entry programs. While these measures have been implemented across the state, the city of Stockton has been a leader after electing the nation’s youngest – and Stockton’s first African American – mayor, Michael Tubbs. Since then, the city has adopted reforms such as universal basic income and mentorship programs and has witnessed a 40% drop in homicides.

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  • Teachers go to school on racial bias

    At Cambridge Street Upper School, teachers, many of whom are white, meet regularly to discuss their own implicit biases and how they play out in a school in which 60 percent of students identify as black, Latino, or multiracial. "Cultural proficiency is no longer a separate thing we do once a month. It's at the center of what we do," the principal said.

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  • Cautiously Optimistic

    Small and large cities around the United States have their own ways of deterring gun violence, from heavier police presences, to community engagement efforts, to public health approaches. An ongoing and similar challenge for these cities is pinpointing where the most effective change is coming from. In cities like Chattanooga, Savannah, and Philadelphia, each one has seen some impact from their work, but without ongoing evaluations, proving and thus sustaining the successful programming is challenging.

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  • A 360 Approach

    Across the United States, more and more cities are treating gun violence like a public health issue – seeking to take preventative, rather than reactionary, measures. Programs like Savannah’s Youth Intercept and Philadelphia’s Healing Hurt People, connect victims of violence with intervention services, like counseling, housing security, education services, and substance abuse treatments. The approach, while widely backed by data and research and being deployed in many cities, has run into issues like funding government support.

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  • Hope for the Future

    In Tennessee, reducing gun violence means intercepting it at the earliest level possible. By creating prevention programs for the state’s young population, they’re able to not only decrease rates of violence, but decrease prison populations and thus state costs as well. Programs like Youth ChalleNGe and various Family and Development Centers work with at-risk youth to provide them with the guidance, support, and empowerment they need.

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  • 'Nobody was born bad'

    Chattanooga’s Violence Reduction Initiatives used a focused deterrence strategy to reduce crime. The initiative has led to a decrease in gang-involved homicides and shootings, working with individuals on probation to provide them with the social services they need to stop them from re-entering a life of crime. A core part of this method is to show communities that they’re not forgotten and that they’re cared for, and yet securing funding and consistent support for such programming has been challenging.

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