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Reducing harm in Santa Cruz County law enforcement

Stephen Baxter

July 15, 2020 |

Santa Cruz Local |

Podcast |

Over 15 Minutes

Response Location: United States, Santa Cruz, California

The city of Santa Cruz is considering adopting a crisis-intervention strategy used in Eugene, Oregon, after two fatal police shootings of people suffering a mental health crises prompted questions about how an alternative to police-only responses would work. To follow the model pioneered by Eugene's CAHOOTS agency, where unarmed professionals respond first, Santa Cruz authorities would have many safety, budget, training, and other logistical concerns to address. But Santa Cruz seems primed to try the CAHOOTS approach, which rarely requires police involvement when 911 calls are screened properly.

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Community peacemakers in Chicago offer a proven alternative to policing

Loretta Graceffo

July 14, 2020 |

Waging Nonviolence |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Chicago, Illinois

Nonviolence Chicago uses street-outreach workers to mediate disputes and connect residents of violence-prone neighborhoods to needed services. Its work, amounting to tens of thousands of contacts per year with people involved in violence, has contributed to efforts that reduced homicides and nonfatal shootings in the Austin neighborhood by nearly half from 2016 to 2019. By replacing the police with former gang members and others with street credibility, and working with both victims and shooters, Nonviolence Chicago wins the trust of residents.

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This town of 170,000 replaced some cops with medics and mental health workers. It's worked for over 30 years

Scottie Andrew

July 05, 2020 |

CNN |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Eugene, Oregon

The CAHOOTS crisis-response program saves its city money and its people living on the streets a great deal of unwanted police contact – contact that in other places is a common cause of excessive force and arrests that solve nothing. And, while less than 1% of its calls require police backup, the resource-thin agency cautions that it is a partner with police, not an antagonistic replacement, and that its model cannot simply be copied wholesale regardless of where it's used.

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Comprehensive Services Key In Deterring Violence, Crime and Negative Interactions With Police

Alexis Taylor

July 03, 2020 |

Afro News |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Baltimore, Maryland

Two programs targeting two types of problems have been successful with one common element: interventions that provide needed social services rather than rely only on police responses. In Baltimore, shootings and homicides in the Belair-Edison neighborhood are down 20% in the year since the Safe Streets program put violence interrupters on the street to cool disputes before they turn violent. In Dallas, the Rapid Integrated Group Healthcare Team's medical and social-worker responses to mental health crises reduced emergency room admissions 30%, replacing arrests with social and health services.

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How to Defund the Police

Alexis Okeowo

June 26, 2020 |

The New Yorker |

Text |

Over 3000 Words

Response Location: United States, New York, New York

On the front lines of the defund-police movement, groups like Elite Learners and Save Our Streets Bed-Stuy mediate conflicts in ways that have lowered violence without the involvement of police, thus reducing arrests and incarceration at the same time. CMS workers often use the Cure Violence approach of "violence interruption," a form of outreach by community members to offer needed social services while preventing violence. The city, which credits these programs with a 15% decline in shootings in 17 precincts in a three-year span, is expanding the budget for this to nearly $50 million per year.

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San Quentin's Breakthrough Prison Newsroom

Emily Nonko

June 25, 2020 |

Politico |

Text |

Over 3000 Words

Response Location: United States, San Quentin, California

San Quentin Prison's media created by the men incarcerated there have gone beyond rehabilitation of individuals to a broader mission of promoting criminal justice policy reform by reframing the narrative about those who have committed crimes and the system's inequities. Through San Quentin News, the podcast Ear Hustle, and a series of dialogues between incarcerated men and criminal justice officials, their stories have shed new light on prison life and those held in prison, and formed a cadre of journalists who gained experience behind bars and have become prominent advocates on the outside.

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Defund police? Some cities have already started, investing in mental health instead

Lindsay Schnell

June 22, 2020 |

USA Today |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Denver, Colorado

Less than one month into its use of a crisis intervention team to handle mental health calls in place of the police, Denver’s one-year STAR pilot project has been flooded with calls and already has achieved success in cases where police presence could have been a hindrance. Like many cities modeling new programs on the successful, long-running CAHOOTS program in Eugene, Oregon, Denver is making “defund the police” a reality with investments in mental health services. Empathic dialog in place of a police presence can lead to peaceful outcomes for people of color afraid of police.

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Canada's largest school district ended its police program. Now Toronto may be an example for U.S. districts considering the same.

Kalyn Belsha

June 19, 2020 |

Chalkbeat |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: Canada, Toronto, Ontario

Prompted by Black Lives Matter protesters and informed by a controversial survey of high school students on their feelings about having police stationed in their schools, Toronto pulled police from its schools in 2017 and since then has refuted warnings of a spike in misbehavior and crime. While arrest numbers and data on students’ current feelings about safety are unknown, Canada’s largest school system at least proved that it could address unhappiness with a police presence without decreasing safety.

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These Black Students Have Fought Over-Policing In Schools for Years

Zach Schermele

June 17, 2020 |

Teen Vogue |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Minneapolis, Minnesota

The Minneapolis school board’s vote to remove police from public schools arose not only from protests over the police killing of George Floyd, but also from a long-term advocacy project to end the so-called school-to-prison pipeline. Local youth activists for years have piggybacked on a national movement to stop the racially disparate practice of criminalizing student misbehavior. A coalition of groups, nationally and in Minneapolis, marshaled evidence of the racial inequity of such policing and the benefits of reinvesting the money saved on police in restorative justice programs and other services.

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Youth Are Flipping an Abandoned North Carolina Prison into a Sustainable Farm

Christina Cooke

June 15, 2020 |

Civil Eats |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Wagram, North Carolina

A former North Carolina prison has been reclaimed by the nonprofit Growing Change to teach sustainable farming to youth who otherwise might be doomed to their own prison terms without an effective intervention. The 9-year-old program, while small, is meant to serve as a model for reusing many other shuttered prisons as the nation’s incarceration numbers fall. Boasting positive effects on recidivism, the program’s focus is the racially diverse youth of the rural, impoverished eastern part of the state – the same people who disproportionately get imprisoned.

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