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The old-school organizers who got it done on Zoom

Nick Bowlin

August 06, 2020 |

High Country News |

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Under 800 Words

Response Location: United States, California

The Industrial Areas Foundation, the country’s oldest community organizing group, adapted to coronavirus restrictions by using technology to win relief for immigrants without legal documentation in California. Organizing a diverse coalition over zoom had many challenges, but they successfully won the expansion of the California Earned Income Tax Credit to include people who file taxes using an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, or ITIN, rather than a Social Security number. This applies to about one-tenth of California’s workforce who mainly work in hard-hit service and agriculture industries.

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The world has shown it's possible to avert Covid-caused election meltdowns. But the U.S. is unique.

Ryan Heath

August 06, 2020 |

Politico |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States

Several countries successfully held elections during the Covid-19 pandemic and can offer insights for how the U.S. can hold a safe presidential election. These include providing more funding for additional polling places and poll workers, expanding ways for people to vote so that it is easier, requiring protective equipment and social distancing at the polls, allowing officials to process mail-in ballots before election day, and informing the public about any changes to contradict misinformation campaigns. It could be harder in the U.S. due to its size and the complexity of electoral laws across the states.

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In San Diego, ‘Smart' Streetlights Spark Surveillance Reform

Sarah Holder

August 06, 2020 |

Bloomberg CityLab |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, San Diego, California

A smart-streetlight program has helped businesses and residents by collecting a wealth of data to make parking easier, monitor air quality, and inform drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists of traffic patterns. But its use by the police to collect evidence of suspected crimes has prompted a privacy backlash. Police officials say the videos have been used only in serious crimes and have both incriminated and exonerated suspects. Critics say mission creep has led to improper surveillance of protests and racially disparate enforcement in minor crimes. City legislators are considering ways to regulate the practice.

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ASU study: 'Team Kids' may improve perception of police through cop-kid activities

Anthony Wallace

August 06, 2020 |

Cronkite News - Arizona PBS |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Compton, California

About 170,000 schoolchildren in four states have participated in the Team Kids Challenge, which promotes healthier relations between youth and police by pairing them in charity work to solicit and distribute donations. Based on research showing Black and Latinx youth distrust police much more than white children do, the program was found in a new study to significantly improve kids' perceptions of police. The study did not measure how long this effect lasts or why it fails, when it does. A researcher also cautions that real trust in police must be earned through good policing.

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Full-Circle Support

Katherine Rapin

August 06, 2020 |

The Philadelphia Citizen |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

The Philadelphia Black Giving Circle supports Black-led and Black-serving nonprofits, offering funding that was raised through the Black community. The giving circle has helped to build personal relationships with people of color, strengthen the community, and increase donation amounts to nonprofits tackling issues in the community. The initiative is an effort to model a more equitable form of philanthropy.

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Searching with the Mothers of Mexico's Disappeared

Ana Karina Zatarain

August 05, 2020 |

The New Yorker |

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Over 3000 Words

Response Location: Mexico, Culiacan, Sinaloa

Las Rastreadoras de El Fuerte is a group of about 200 members, mostly mothers whose children are among the more than 73,000 people who have disappeared and presumably were murdered in Mexico's long drug war. Las Rastreadoras search the countryside for the unmarked graves of the missing, hoping to find their own children, often finding others'. In six years, they have found 198 bodies, 120 of whom were identified. What began spontaneously as one woman's search, then a group effort, has become a way to heal from the pain of what a psychologist calls "ambiguous loss" as well as an act of political activism.

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Program offers alternative for youth who commit misdemeanors

Anthony Wallace

August 05, 2020 |

Cronkite News - Arizona PBS |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Seattle, Washington

Choose 180 channels Seattle-area young people into an alternative to court and jail when they commit relatively minor offenses. This "offramp" from the traditional justice system, serving a disproportionately Black and brown clientele, helped 400 clients in 2019, 87% of whom did not commit new offenses. Research shows such diversion programs have a better track record for preventing future crimes. A Choose 180 "sentence" comes in the form of a workshop introducing young people to mentors and giving them a chance at the stability and frame of mind they need to seek more lasting change in their lives.

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Surveillance Planes Watch Over Baltimore, But Catch Few Criminals

J. Cavanaugh Simpson

August 05, 2020 |

Baltimore Magazine |

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Over 3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Baltimore, Maryland

In the first half of a six-month experiment, Baltimore's "wide-area surveillance" using video cameras flying above city streets to aid in crime investigations has led to only one arrest. The city's police commissioner doubts the city will agree to pay for the surveillance once private funding for the pilot project runs out, but he says he'll know more after the six-month experiment. The experiment is aimed at Baltimore's high rates of gun violence. Besides its effectiveness, critics worry about its privacy implications and that it targets mostly Black neighborhoods.

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How Hawaii's New Voting System Could Help Disabled Voters

Blaze Lovell

August 03, 2020 |

Honolulu Civil Beat |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Hawaii

Voters with disabilities in Hawaii have more options for voting than in most other states. Electronic ballots in particular, which can be paired with assistive technology, allow voters more freedom and independence. Any voter with a disability can request a ballot be emailed to them as an HTML file. Voters must sign a privacy waiver and ballots have to be printed and signed. Hawaii is one of the few states that allows voters to scan their signed ballots and return them by email, as well as by mail or dropped in an official ballot box. More voter outreach is needed to make people aware of this option.

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19th Amendment: The six-week 'brawl' that won women the vote

Elaine Weiss

August 03, 2020 |

The Christian Science Monitor |

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Over 3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Tennessee

Three generations of activists marched, protested, lobbied, and campaigned for more than seven decades to win the right to vote for American women. In 1920, national and local activists worked to convince Tennessee legislators to support the 19th amendment and become the 36th and final state needed to ratify it. Local suffragists were the most visible forces, lobbying their representatives to support the amendment, while national activists built alliances, identified legislators known to take bribes, and exerted political pressure at all levels of government, including among presidential candidates.

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