Seattle Cut Its Police Budget. Now the Public Will Decide How To Spend the Money.

Manjeet Kaur

January 28, 2021 |

The Appeal |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Seattle, Washington

Since 2017, Seattle residents have had a direct say in how some city money is spent on neighborhood projects. It's a form of "participatory budgeting" that has been spreading from Brazil through many U.S. cities. After the 2020 racial justice protests, King County Equity Now, Decriminalize Seattle, and other groups spent several months calling for a budget that takes money from policing and invests in "true public health and safety" projects. After eight weeks of hearings, the city agreed to put $30 million – $12 million cut from police – into a citizen-controlled safety budget.

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Queens Prosecutors Long Overlooked Misconduct. Can a New D.A. Do Better?

Troy Closson

January 27, 2021 |

The New York Times |

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Response Location: United States, New York, New York

On her first day as district attorney of Queens, Melinda Katz created a unit to review potential wrongful convictions that in its first year has exonerated four men and has 80 more cases under review. The Queens DA's office long resisted the national trend toward such "conviction integrity" units, based on its contention that all prosecutors should be open to fixing their mistakes. The office, however, showed little inclination to do so systematically. Katz put the new unit under the control of a former lawyer with the Innocence Project and showed a resolve to take claimed injustices more seriously.

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Still Can't Breathe: How NYPD Officers Continue to Use Chokeholds on Civilians

Yoav Gonen Topher Sanders

January 21, 2021 |

The City |

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Over 3000 Words

Response Location: United States, New York, New York

New York Police Department banned chokeholds in 1993, to prevent unnecessary injury and death. The practice has been scrutinized especially closely since the 2014 death of Eric Garner. But despite hundreds of complaints alleging the forbidden use of chokeholds, no NYPD officer has been fired for using a chokehold since 2014, nor have any complaints yielded more than some lost vacation time as a penalty. The failure of the policy stems from many causes, including ambiguity in the policy and its enforcement and lack of respect for investigative findings of the Civilian Complaint Review Board.

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Where surveillance cameras work but the justice system doesn't

Madeleine Wattenbarger

January 19, 2021 |

Rest of World |

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Over 3000 Words

Response Location: Mexico, Mexico City

Mexico City's 11-year-old video surveillance system, one of the most advanced in the world, was a massive investment in public safety: about $660 million to date to cover the city with more than 30,000 cameras and other devices. Like so much else in Mexico's law enforcement apparatus, it has done little to control crime but instead has become a tool of corruption and official impunity. While the cameras have helped keep tourists and elites safer, the vast majority of crimes go unreported and only a tiny number of police investigations benefit from the surveillance system.

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In Eugene, Oregon, civilian response workers—not police—are dispatched to nonviolent crises

Caitlin Yoshiko Kandil

January 19, 2021 |

The Christian Century |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Eugene, Oregon

Eugene's well-established CAHOOTS program for replacing police as first responders to certain types of 911 calls has become a model for multiple cities as they seek to replicate its success in an era of questioning the role of police. While it saves its city money and replaces arrests and possible violence with social and health services for people needing housing or mental health care, or suffering from addiction, CAHOOTS is somewhere in the middle of the spectrum of programs responding to these challenges. Communities' differences will dictate what works best for them.

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Albuquerque's vision for non-police first responders comes down to earth

Ted Alcorn

January 17, 2021 |

New Mexico In Depth |

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Over 3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Albuquerque, New Mexico

In response to the 2020 policing protests, Albuquerque was among the first cities to embrace a major change in handling mental-health-crisis calls to 911. But its new Community Safety Department has foundered in its first year, a victim of inadequate planning and resources. The plan to send unarmed first responders on such calls, to reduce the risk of a violent over-reaction by the police, depended on reassigning city workers from other agencies, none of whom were mental health professionals. City councilors have sent the planners back to rethink the latest in a history of failed responses.

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Newark cops, with reform, didn't fire a single shot in 2020

Tom Moran

January 10, 2021 |

NJ Advance Media |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Newark, New Jersey

In 2020, six years after the Justice Department imposed a series of reforms on the Newark Police Department, Newark police officers have reduced their use of force so much that they didn't fire their guns at all in 2020, nor did the city pay any brutality-lawsuit settlements. Reforms in training, including de-escalation tactics, all backed by supportive leadership and extensive community outreach, turned a "rogue department" of brutality and racism into a more trusted, effective force.

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An alternative to arrest? Police turn to diversion for petty crimes

Paul Cuno-Booth

January 07, 2021 |

Sentinel Source (The Keene Sentinel) |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, New Hampshire

Prosecutors often make decisions about which criminal charges can be resolved by addressing underlying problems and holding people accountable for petty offenses without incarcerating them. Police-led diversion programs catch cases earlier in the criminal process. Various New Hampshire police departments and in neighboring Brattleboro, Vermont, use the approach in dozens of cases per year, sparing those people the burdens and shame of jail and conviction. The approach has been proven effective in Seattle’s LEAD program as a way to prevent rearrests and to make people's lives more stable.

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What did and did not change in Tampa Bay after the 2020 protests

Kathryn Varn Tony Marrero Jack Evans

January 04, 2021 |

Tampa Bay Times |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Tampa, Florida

In the Tampa Bay area, the 2020 protests for racial justice and against police brutality did not result in reduced funding for area police agencies. But the protests did help prompt numerous other policing reforms in multiple agencies. Four Pinellas County agencies adopted body cameras. Some departments, including the St. Petersburg police, introduced alternatives to police to respond to mental health crises. One agency will train its officers in active bystandership, to make the duty to intervene in police misconduct more of a reality. Tampa restricted its use of no-knock warrants.

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Five Days Without Cops: Could Brooklyn Policing Experiment be a ‘Model for the Future'?

Yoav Gonen Eileen Grench

January 03, 2021 |

The City |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, New York, New York

For 50 hours over five days, police and community members collaborated on the Brownsville Safety Alliance pilot project, which kept police officers away from a longtime crime hotspot so that community members could provide for police-free public safety. During the experiment, no one in the neighborhood called 911 to report a serious crime. Criminologists caution that the test does not prove that police can step away permanently. But residents say that after longstanding friction over policing, they and the police struck a new tone of cooperation in community-led crime prevention that they hope can continue.

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