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

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  • Illinois advocates work to ensure ballot access for jail voters during pandemic

    Many people who are currently incarcerated still retain the right to vote, and as the 2020 election approaches advocates in Illinois are making sure that those who are in Chicago’s Cook County Jail have access to ballots. Under a newly implemented law, Cook County Jail was designated as a polling place, which increased access for pretrial detainees and those serving certain misdemeanor convictions, and ultimately resulted in a higher voter turnout for the March primaries.

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  • Where are they now? The graduates of India's Door Step School

    Back in 1988, Bina Sheth Lashkar, started noticing that students who lived in Slums were dropping out at high rates because they had to work to support their families. So, Bina and her colleague created Door Step School.“If children can’t go to the school, let the school come to them.” What began as a class of 25 students has now evolved to 200 centers in Mumbai and Pune, and a schools-on-wheels project.

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  • A Special Court Keeping Native Americans Out of Jail

    The Penobscot Nation's Healing to Wellness Court is a drug court, diverting people charged with drug offenses from possible fines and jail into therapy. But it has an added cultural element, providing traditional healing approaches alongside mainstream behavioral therapy. The cultural piece recognizes that Native Americans' historical trauma and disconnect from their culture can contribute to the problems that lead to addiction. The court is far less expensive than jail or prison, and its participants have not been jailed for failing treatment in more than two years.

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  • 'I feel human again' — At three hotels, formerly incarcerated New Yorkers get the support they need Audio icon

    When jails and prisons released people early as a pandemic precaution, New York City responded to the threat of increased homelessness by temporarily housing more than 400 people in hotels while providing them with re-entry services aimed at preventing new crimes. Exodus Transitional Community, the city's contractor, provided a combination of emergency shelter and counseling that would be unavailable in standard homeless shelters. No COVID-19 cases have been reported in the hotels, while residents praise the service for giving them the stability and safety they need to restart their lives.

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  • How a Chicago nonprofit cut gun violence by helping young men find work

    Chicago's CRED program (Create Real Economic Destiny) blends effective violence-intervention strategies with economic empowerment, life coaching, therapy, and education to provide the kind of opportunity so often lacking for young men prone to committing or suffering violence. While Chicago's citywide gun violence has increased by half, the neighborhood CRED serves has seen it fall by one-third. Even low-paying jobs are enough to lure the men off the street and out of danger so that they can benefit from the menu of services that rebut the notion that policing alone can solve the problem.

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  • Training police to patrol each other

    In the wake of George Floyd's killing by police in Minneapolis, where several officers failed to prevent one officer's actions, New Orleans police have been besieged by requests from police nationwide to export their method of training officers to intervene to prevent misconduct by fellow officers. New Orleans' reputation for police brutality and corruption has improved, in part because of its "active bystander" training. Complaints are down and public support is up. Now its internal EPIC training course is available free to other departments as ABLE: Active Bystandership for Law Enforcement.

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  • Pro-gun localities accounted for nearly half of Virginia's red flag orders in law's first months

    Strong local opposition to Virginia's new red-flag law and other gun-control measures did not dissuade some local law enforcement agencies from using the law for its intended purpose: to temporarily confiscate the guns of people deemed a threat to themselves or others. In the law's first two months, roughly half of 21 red flag cases filed were in counties and cities that passed resolutions opposing the passage and enforcement of the law. In Virginia Beach, a self-proclaimed Second Amendment Constitutional City, police made multiple uses of the tool, as state legislators had hoped when they enacted it.

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  • The Work Is All Of Us

    What started as an informal support group in Texas for undocumented workers who had been injured while working, has morphed into a mutual aid organization that helps connect immigrants and those who are uninsured with health necessities and resources. The group is unique in the U.S., as it advocates for both disability rights and immigrant rights, while also providing support for disaster relief efforts.

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  • How to Bring Care to Mental Health Emergencies

    Oklahoma mental health and police agencies supply free tablets to police departments, enabling officers summoned to a mental health crisis to connect on the spot with a licensed mental health professional. The telehealth solution has virtually eliminated forced hospitalizations in Claremore, where officers use the tablets on multiple 911 calls daily. The tablet program, also used in Oklahoma City, serves as a temporary fix while state officials debate more permanent ways to limit potentially violent and unhelpful interactions between mentally ill people and police with little training in their care.

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  • Americans are starting to give up their pets because of COVID-19 hardships

    As the coronavirus pandemic takes a toll on the U.S. economy, some people are struggling to afford the cost of care for their pets, so a network of animal services leaders have joined together to transform the role that animal shelters play during the crisis. From providing food pantries and free veterinary care to housing animals whose owners have been hospitalized, the network of leaders are turning shelters into "pet support centers and resource centers" rather than intake centers.

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