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

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  • Cities deploy dedicated teams to combat racial disparities exposed by Covid

    Several cities across the U.S. have organized Racial Equity Rapid Response (RERR) teams to address and combat "the racial disparities exposed and exacerbated by Covid-19." Although each city's version of this team looks slightly different, some commonalities exist such as enacting the teams at the municipal level and relying on community connectivity to drive impact.

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  • The cycle of punitive justice starts in schools. Eric Butler is showing kids and teachers how to break it.

    Hundreds of schools nationwide use restorative justice to respond to student disciplinary problems differently. In place of police, arrests, and suspensions, restorative practices emphasize conflict mediation through dialogue, asking how to hold people accountable without necessarily punishing them. Such programs have helped reduce suspensions and referrals to criminal or juvenile courts markedly, and reduced racial disparities. This story follows one man, a formerly incarcerated murder victim's brother, as he takes on the difficult task of introducing restorative practices to punishment-minded schools.

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  • 'I'm not invisible': Kentucky millennials with felony records head to the polls for first time

    More than 170,000 people with felony records in Kentucky won the right to vote in the 2020 election under an order by the governor. Although not as concrete as legislation, the governor's order at least temporarily rescinds the state's permanent voting ban for most people with felony convictions. The order pertains to people with non-violent offenses. Unlike some states' re-enfranchisement policies, Kentucky's does not require payment of outstanding fines or restitution. The policy is seen as a particular benefit to people of color and millennials.

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  • There's Still Hope

    There's Still Hope provides temporary housing for members of the LGBTQ community - focusing especially on transgender women. Participants in the outreach program are given housing, a grocery stipend, transportation passes, and skills training that will help obtain employment. They are also expected to do their part by avoiding sex work and substance abuse and are connected with services that help them towards those goals.

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  • How Cook County Jail Became the Country's First Jail-Based Polling Place

    As the first jail to serve as a polling place for the people incarcerated there, the Cook County Jail saw the highest number of votes cast in a primary election in decades during the spring primary. On two weekends of early voting for the fall general election, more than 2,000 people cast their ballots, nearly 40% of the jail's population. In jail, in-person voting has several advantages over mail-in voting, which in the past was the only option, as at all other jails. Because most people held there have not been found guilty, they are eligible to vote. Illinois also allows same-day registration.

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  • Philly police rebuffed offers from crisis response center to work together, director says

    Since early 2019, a mental-health crisis response center, the West Philadelphia Consortium, has worked to get the police to call in the consortium's mobile crisis team to de-escalate crises and get people into treatment. In more than 1,200 cases in 2019, police made only six arrests and no one died. After police shot and killed Walter Wallace, Jr., during a mental-health crisis, the consortium revealed that it had worked with Wallace but wasn't called for help when police were summoned to his home. The consortium seeks to formalize its relationship with the police department to prevent more violence.

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  • Decades of Data Suggest Racial Profiling is Getting Worse, Not Better

    In 2000, Missouri passed one of the nation's first and most comprehensive laws aimed at ending racial profiling by police in traffic stops. But racial disparities have grown worse since then, with Black drivers far more likely than white drivers to be stopped and searched. The law relies on data collection to air the problem, which in turn was supposed to spur more reforms. But the state's lackluster efforts to enforce the law and lack of follow through on other reforms has turned the annual data gathering into "little more than exercises in futility."

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  • We can't vote in San Quentin prison. So we held a mock election

    Two men incarcerated at San Quentin prison tell how the men incarcerated there held a mock presidential election, despite a pandemic-related lockdown and prison officials' failure to distribute ballots that had been sent to the prison. Using handwritten ballots, the "voters," denied their actual voting rights by the state, managed to cast 176 mock votes (heavily favoring Joe Biden) by distributing the ballots during limited time outside their cells. Voting gave the men the opportunity to express their views, not just by checking a box but by adding comments on their ballots.

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  • For those with disabilities, shift to remote work has opened doors

    The coronavirus pandemic has resulted in many businesses moving their operations to remote-based work, which has consequently expanded access and eliminated barriers for those with disabilities. Although working from home isn't a silver bullet to solving workplace barriers for people with accessibility needs, it has created an "unprecedented level of accessibility in their employment."

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  • Promoting health — and trust

    Promotoras de salud is a term that describe lay Latina community members who have been trained to provide health education to community members, and it's a concept that has helped eliminate barriers and improve health outcomes in Montana. Now, as the coronavirus pandemic spreads throughout the state, these part-time community health workers are helping their communities navigate the barriers to navigating the complex health care system.

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