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 1196 results for your search. View and Refine Your Search Terms

Illegal Out-of-State Gun Trafficking is Fueling Baltimore's Homicide Epidemic

Ron Cassie

December 01, 2020 |

Baltimore Magazine |

Text |

Over 3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Baltimore, Maryland

When Baltimore police shifted tactics starting in 2007, away from aggressive street stops aimed at arresting gun carriers toward regulating the supply of street guns at their sources, the city's murder rate plunged. Backed by studies on effective gun regulations, the focus on tracing crime guns to their sources, firearms traffickers and corrupt gun retailers, often in states with lax laws on gun sales, seemed to have significant positive effects. That strategy was largely abandoned and an emphasis on street enforcement resumed. Baltimore's homicides went back up.

Read More
Go to Original Story
An oft-tried plan to curb violent crime in Baltimore resurfaces. City leaders say better leadership will bring better results.

Tim Prudente

December 01, 2020 |

The Baltimore Sun |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Baltimore, Maryland

In the 1990s and again in 2014, when Baltimore used a strategy called focused deterrence to reduce street violence, it showed initial promise but then failed. Those failures can be tied to how the program was managed, and to changes in leadership, not to the approach itself. The strategy offers help to people at risk of shooting others or being shot, but threatens them with prosecution if they reject the help and commit violence. The revived Group Violence Reduction Strategy has worked well in many cities, including New Orleans, where Baltimore's current police chief came from.

Read More
Go to Original Story
How To Feed The World Without Destroying It

Debbie Weingarten

December 01, 2020 |

The Huffington Post |

Text |

Over 3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Virginia

The coronavirus pandemic has exposed the fragility of the U.S. food supply chain, yet for indigenous led-operations there has been little interruption thanks to practices that rely on shorter supply chains that "work with local ecosystems, not against them." In Virginia, one farmer is using the lessons from this traditional knowledge to create a small-scale farming collective.

Read More
Go to Original Story
How the Criminal Justice System Fails People With Mental Illness

Jordan Smith

November 26, 2020 |

The Intercept |

Text |

Over 3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Tyler, Texas

Crisis-intervention and de-escalation trainings for police were meant to reform the criminal justice system's handling of people suffering from mental illness. But a lack of rigorous standards in the training and use of these approaches means that they routinely fail as a means of diverting people from arrest and incarceration toward treatment. That failure, combined with a lack of adequate mental-health-care resources, maintains jails' and prisons' role as the nation's de facto mental health care hospitals, even though they lack the will and the means to help people heal.

Read More
Go to Original Story
In Rwanda, Learning Whether a ‘Smart Park' Can Help Both Wildlife and Tourism

Amy Yee

November 24, 2020 |

Atlas Obscura |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: Rwanda

Rwanda’s Akagera National Park, once a conservation failure, has been revitalized with fences, patrols, and new technology to become a successful wildlife park. The government partnered with conservation group African Parks to manage the national park, which has led to an increase tourists, patrols, and even lions and black rhinos. Akagera also became the world first “Smart Park” after it installed a telecommunications network called LoRaWAN to securely track, monitor, and communicate between rangers, vehicles, equipment, and animals.

Read More
Go to Original Story
Stopped: Profiling the Police Town Hall

Nick Haines

November 19, 2020 |

KCPT |

Broadcast TV News |

Over 15 Minutes

Response Location: United States, Kansas City, Missouri

Missouri requires police to record the race of drivers from every traffic stop, a response meant to expose and ultimately reduce racial profiling in law enforcement. But, 20 years after that law took effect, Black drivers are 95% more likely to be stopped by police than white drivers, the biggest gap since the state started collecting the data. The policy was rendered meaningless because the data are collected inconsistently, high rates of noncompliance with the policy go unpunished, and individual officers' records go uncounted. As a result, there's no accountability for racist traffic enforcement.

Read More
Go to Original Story
Patients Struggle to Find Prescription Opioids After NY Tax Drives Out Suppliers

Anastassia Gliadkovskaya

November 17, 2020 |

Kaiser Health News |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, New York

To "punish major drugmakers for their role in the opioid epidemic and generate funding for treatment programs," the state of New York implemented a new an excise tax on opioids. Since going into effect, though, the tax has failed to bring in the expected revenue and many opioid manufacturers and wholesalers have stopped selling their drugs to the state which has negatively impacted those who have been prescribed opioids for ailments such as pain management.

Read More
Go to Original Story
How SU survived a COVID-19 fall semester

Jakob Todd

November 17, 2020 |

The Flyer |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Salisbury, Maryland

When Salisbury University faced the likelihood of having to enact a campus-wide lockdown due to the rapidly increasing prevalence of COVID-19 cases, the school took steps to revise protocols and mandate further regulations in order to keep operations running. From hybrid classrooms to "mandating negative tests on file every 30 days for university members to retain access to campus facilities," the university has recently been touted as a model for successfully staying open amid the pandemic.

Read More
Go to Original Story
MMSD more than triples weekly food distribution from spring with more sites, bus delivery

Scott Girard

November 16, 2020 |

The Cap Times |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Madison, Wisconsin

The Madison Metropolitan School District created a food delivery program so students could access meals during the pandemic when teaching became virtual. When they noticed only 15,000 meals were being delivered, a low number, they created changes to their meal distribution program. The district collaborated with Badger buses to deliver the school lunches, then at specific stops school officials would distribute the meals to students. After the changes, 50,000 meals were delivered.

Read More
Go to Original Story
Where the COVID-19 Pandemic Might Finally Ignite Change in the Bail Bonds System

Renata Sago

November 16, 2020 |

70 Million |

Podcast |

Over 15 Minutes

Response Location: United States, Miami, Florida

The spread of COVID-19 in jails prompted many releases from custody and a surge in donations to bail funds that pay for people's release. But those fixes have done little to address the underlying challenges of detaining millions of people before trial, either because they cannot afford cash bail or because risk-assessment tools deem them a threat to public safety or unlikely to return to court. In two South Florida jails, the struggles over containing the virus, providing due process to criminal defendants, and ensuring public safety have brought the debate into sharper focus.

Read More
Go to Original Story