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Baltimore Hits Pause on Gun Violence Command Centers

J. Brian Charles

July 06, 2020 |

The Trace |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Baltimore, Maryland

A strategy to improve the intelligence that steers policing and violence-intervention efforts has worked in Chicago and shown promising early signs in Baltimore. But plans to expand Strategic Decision Support Centers in Baltimore ran into political opposition, based on sentiment in favor of diverting police resources to other strategies. Chicago’s SDSC program is credited with a much greater reduction in shootings than in untargeted areas of the city. Baltimore likewise has seen homicides decline where SDSCs help police and violence interrupters decide where and on whom to focus their interventions.

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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 |

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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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Police reformers push for de-escalation training, but the jury is out on its effectiveness

Erin Schumaker

July 02, 2020 |

ABC News (American Broadcasting Company) |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States

Teaching police de-escalation tactics to avoid the use of force in a crisis is a popular suggestion in the police-reform debate, but a number of structural deficits make success a great unknown. Before police departments embrace the concept, they must first realize there has been no rigorous testing of any particular training regimen for effectiveness, nor do any national standards on use of force exist. Police training and the definition of de-escalation tactics are both highly fractured, lacking common definitions based on proven effectiveness.

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Trauma-informed practices necessary for police, experts say

Jordyn Haime

July 01, 2020 |

Concord Monitor |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Manchester, New Hampshire

The Adverse Childhood Experience Response Team sends family and crisis services advocates with police officers on home visits to offer families trauma-informed services after police have responded to an earlier emergency at the home. More than 1,200 children have been referred to services, an offer of help most families accept. Although the pandemic shutdown interrupted house calls, the model has spread to other New Hampshire communities. The ultimate effectiveness of the intervention may not be known for years, and only if researchers can follow up to learn if it may have prevented future incidents.

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Their Unlikely Alliance Began at Whataburger. Can They Reform a Texas Jail?

Maurice Chammah

July 01, 2020 |

The Marshall Project |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Tyler, Texas

Dalila Reynoso's local activism blossomed into a full-blown watchdog role when COVID-19 began to spread through the Smith County, Texas, jail. The marriage of criminal justice reform and pandemic safety, vested in one woman, mirrors much larger court watch and jail watch projects in larger cities. For her part, Reynoso became a conduit for complaints about jail conditions. Thanks to her diplomatic skills, and a receptive sheriff's openness to criticism and change, the pair's efforts lowered virus cases from 52 to three within three weeks and lowered the jail population by more than 150 people.

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Northern Ireland's police transformation may hold lessons for the US

Laura A. Weinstein Donald Beaudette

June 26, 2020 |

The Conversation |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: Ireland

With lessons for American police-reform advocates, the transformation of the Royal Ulster Constabulary – a militarized enforcer of inequality hated by the people of Northern Ireland – into an entirely new organization was founded on the necessity of community support. Neither easy nor simple, this 20-year process, following 30 years of conflict, intentionally included recruiting local Catholics in order to win local support. Citizen oversight served as another pillar of the new structure, which still has problems but has won critical political support from Sinn Féin, the leading nationalist political party.

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When it comes to police oversight, many watchdogs lack teeth

Rob Kuznia Casey Tolan

June 25, 2020 |

CNN |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States

The most effective civilian oversight agencies that act as watchdogs over police discipline are empowered to conduct independent investigations, impose discipline on individual officers, and influence disciplinary policy. One of the strongest, in Oakland, forced the police chief out of office over police shootings and diversity on the police force. But the lessons to be learned in this field come more often from the many examples of structural flaws that render civilian oversight powerless to counter the wishes of the police, or even to be listened to.

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Police Training In America: How Can We Fix A Broken System?

Meghna Chakrabarti Grace Tatter

June 25, 2020 |

WBUR |

Radio |

Over 15 Minutes

Response Location: United States

Police training often is the suggested fix after controversial incidents of alleged brutality, but training is only one piece of a much larger set of cultural, racial, and social issues. Reforming training in de-escalation tactics on its own has not generally changed a warrior mentality that preaches dominance and hypervigilance to counter perceived resistance or threats with overwhelming force, say a journalist who covers policing and a former police officer and researcher who studies use of force policies. They examine one fatal shooting and why training failed to prevent tragedy.

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9 Departments and Multiple Infractions for One New Jersey Police Officer

Rukmini Callimachi

June 24, 2020 |

The New York Times |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Woodlynne, New Jersey

New Jersey’s responses to police misconduct offer stark lessons in how certain failures can allow troubled officers to hop from job to job undetected. The state lacks a central database of police misconduct and remains one of only five states that cannot revoke an officer’s credentials because of performance. In one case, an officer with serial failures at nine departments, involving 16 incidents in which people he arrested got injured, the red flags that should have been raised never were, allowing him to mistreat residents of majority-Black neighborhoods despite a record indicating racism and brutality.

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In Germany, Confronting Shameful Legacy Is Essential Part of Police Training

Katrin Bennhold Melissa Eddy

June 23, 2020 |

The New York Times |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: Germany

To prevent its police forces from ever again being turned into militarized and politicized tools of an authoritarian state, Germany requires all police trainees to visit former Nazi concentration camps and learn in detail how the Nazi regime used police as a tool. Though the historical comparisons to American policing of racial minorities is not equivalent, the explicit effort to break from a shameful past as a mode of cultural change is instructive. Other reforms include strict separation of police and military and a decentralized structure to keep unchecked power out of the hands of a single agency.

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