Story Search Results

Advanced Search

There are so many ways to search the solutions journalism stories in this database. Explore our searchable fields:

Search Results

You searched for: -

There are 1244 results for your search. View and Refine Your Search Terms

Safe Streets celebrates a year with no homicides in a South Baltimore area they serve, with hope for rest of the city

Jessica Anderson Phillip Jackson

June 26, 2021 |

The Baltimore Sun |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Baltimore, Maryland

South Baltimore's Cherry Hill neighborhood enjoyed its third homicide-free year since the violence intervention program Safe Streets began operation. While a formal evaluation of the program's nine neighborhood sites is yet to be completed, community members credit it with lowering violence by putting "violence interrupters" on the scene of conflict or in hospitals to counsel gunshot victims against retaliation. Safe Streets mediated more than 400 disputes in Cherry Hill in the past year, most of them involving people armed with guns and likely to commit violence. Violence citywide has remained high.

Read More
Go to Original Story
Millions of People With Felonies Can Now Vote. Most Don't Know It.

Nicole Lewis Andrew Rodriguez Calderón

June 23, 2021 |

The Marshall Project |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Nevada

Thirteen states restored the right to vote to millions of formerly incarcerated people in the years leading up to the 2020 elections. An analysis of four of them—Nevada, Kentucky, Iowa, and New Jersey—shows the new rights were rarely exercised, ranging from 4% to 23% of newly eligible voters actually registering. None of the four states required prison, parole, or elections officials to notify eligible voters. Those and other information gaps and barriers teach instructive lessons as the 2022 elections approach.

Read More
Go to Original Story
‘It liberated me': The fight for Calgary's supervised drug-use site

Hamdi Issawi

June 22, 2021 |

The Sprawl |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: Canada, Calgary, Alberta

In less than three and a half years, Safeworks, the only supervised drug-use site in Calgary, saved thousands of people from opioid-overdose deaths and helped users for whom abstinence-based treatment didn't work. The government of Alberta deemed the site a scene of "chaos" and ordered it closed once two new sites open. Safeworks supporters oppose the disruption in harm-reduction work that move would bring, considering how critical personal relationships built on trust are to this kind of service.

Read More
Go to Original Story
How Does Treating Gun Violence As A Public Health Crisis Work? One Bronx Program Offers A Potential Flagship Model

Elizabeth Kim

June 21, 2021 |

Gothamist |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, New York, New York

Stand Up to Violence is the only street-outreach gun-violence-prevention program in New York that centers its work in hospitals. Street outreach is a policing alternative that uses former gang members and formerly incarcerated people to intervene before arguments turn deadly. Hospital-based intervention work puts counselors and mediators at gunshot victims' bedside to start the intervention, and offers of services, at the earliest stage. In a four-year span, the areas covered by Stand Up, based at Jacobi Medical Center, saw many fewer shootings and instances where victims got shot again.

Read More
Go to Original Story
Clearing a Path from Prison to the Bar Exam

Allen Arthur

June 21, 2021 |

Reasons to be Cheerful |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, New York, New York

The Formerly Incarcerated Law Students Advocacy Association at City University of New York's law school mentors people whose criminal records serve as a barrier to pursuing a law career. FILSAA is part of a movement to nurture law-practice dreams and make them a reality by knocking down those barriers, including restrictive use of states' "character and fitness" requirements to become licensed to practice. Before that step, mentors can help people prepare for the LSAT and succeed in law school. Advocates say that lawyers with lived experience can serve clients better by earning their trust more readily.

Read More
Go to Original Story
College-in-prison programs have many benefits, but barriers to access abound

Tamar Sarai Davis

June 21, 2021 |

Prism |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Middletown, Connecticut

College-in-prison programs like Wesleyan University's Center for Prison Education have a track record for improving incarcerated students' lives, lowering crime, and making prisons safer. But a number of factors compromise the number and effectiveness of such programs. Many fewer programs exist since incarcerated students were denied Pell Grants beginning in the 1990s. A 2015 program aimed at making financial aid more accessible poses a number of logistical hurdles. Prisons themselves can be inhospitable environments for attending classes and independent studies.

Read More
Go to Original Story
The Everglades Experiment: Florida's First 'Incentivized' Prison Redefines Punishment

Ryan M. Moser

June 21, 2021 |

The Crime Report |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Miami, Florida

Two years into an experiment in "incentivized prison" management, Florida's Everglades Correctional Institution is considered the state's safest prison. An incarcerated journalist reporting from inside writes that by rewarding good behavior instead of only punishing bad behavior, the prison has expanded the classes it offers incarcerated men who can participate if they have a trouble-free record for four years. Separating men from the general population based on their desire to work toward their own rehabilitation and success once they leave prison has reduced stress and violence in the prison.

Read More
Go to Original Story
A cure for violence

David Scharfenberg

June 18, 2021 |

The Boston Globe |

Text |

Over 3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Boston, Massachusetts

In the Boston area, the Roca organization intervenes before young men commit violence. Its "relentless outreach" approach is based on cognitive behavioral therapy, an approach that helps people recognize and change their destructive behavior and learn new skills to cope with conflict and stress – essential to keeping impulsive young men, many the victims of violent trauma, from committing violence. Researchers see evidence that the program, which has spread throughout the metro area and to Baltimore, makes people less likely to get arrested and more likely to get a job.

Read More
Go to Original Story
‘Safety First' Drug Education Program Acknowledges the Failings of ‘Just Say No'

Roshan Abraham

June 17, 2021 |

Next City |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, San Francisco, California

Studies show that abstinence-based prevention drug programs like D.A.R.E don't work. To provide another option, the Drug Policy Alliance, a non-profit, developed its own curriculum called “Safety First.” The 15-lesson curriculum was piloted in five schools under the San Francisco Unified School District.

Read More
Go to Original Story
Penn class helps the formerly incarcerated launch their own businesses

Christina Griffith

June 16, 2021 |

The Philadelphia Citizen |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

The University of Pennsylvania's Restorative Entrepreneurship Program helps formerly incarcerated entrepreneurs plan a business launch with the help of teams of students from the schools of law, business, and social work serving as advisors. Success in business can help formerly incarcerated people avoid return trips to prison. Similar, longer-running programs in other states have helped their clients beat the recidivism odds. Clients of the Penn program received useful advice, but no startup capital, as they seek to start their own businesses.

Read More
Go to Original Story