D.C. police recruits are learning about Black history, go-go music and half-smokes. Leaders think it will make them better officers.

Peter Hermann

May 29, 2021 |

The Washington Post |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Washington, District of Columbia

Unsuccessful at filling its police officer ranks with more people of color from the neighborhoods where they'll patrol, the D.C. police department takes its largely white recruit classes into those neighborhoods for lessons on local history and culture. Residents talk to the new officers about their need for safety but their fear and resentment of police abuses. They also educate them about local customs that outsiders might see as a threat until they have a deeper understanding of the culture.

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How well is Cure Violence working in St. Louis?

Casey Nolen

May 26, 2021 |

KSDK-TV |

Broadcast TV News |

Under 3 Minutes

Response Location: United States, St. Louis, Missouri

While homicides in St. Louis in the first part of 2021 increased over already-high numbers in recent years, three neighborhoods served by a new Cure Violence program showed significant decreases in homicides, assaults, and robberies. Cure Violence, a national program, puts "violence interrupters" on the streets to intervene before arguments turn deadly and to provide people with services they need. In one neighborhood, Dutchtown, interrupters say they prevented 87 incidents in less than seven months. The city now is trying to find the money to expand the program to more areas of the city.

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With policing in the spotlight, districts search for alternatives to SROs

Meg McIntyre

May 25, 2021 |

Concord Monitor |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Plymouth, Minnesota

As New Hampshire schools debate the presence of police officers stationed in schools, one model they and other states can consider is found at Minnesota Intermediate School District 287. That district lowered in-school arrests dramatically by replacing school resource officers (SROs) with student safety coaches, trained in de-escalation tactics and crisis intervention. While some staff cite safety fears now, school officials say healthier relationships form between staff and students when help, not law enforcement, is the response to problems.

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Reimagining a Better World After George Floyd's Death

Anoa Changa Laura Rosbrow-Telem

May 24, 2021 |

Yes! Magazine |

Radio |

Over 15 Minutes

Response Location: United States, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Two ways that communities affected by police violence and racial injustice responded to the uprising after George Floyd's murder were block-by-block organizing and participatory budgeting. The first, used in Minneapolis, provided public safety and mutual aid when neighbors formed networks to guard buildings, put out fires, mediate disputes, and deliver aid to people living through a period of unrest. In participatory budgeting, 30 cities turned over control of $400 million in public spending to communities, which set policy based on communal decisions and directed financial priorities.

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In San Francisco, Help Hits the Streets with a Crisis Response Team

Natalie Mead

May 21, 2021 |

What's Next Magazine |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, San Francisco, California

Six San Francisco neighborhoods are now served by the city's Street Crisis Response Teams, which answer 911 calls for non-violent mental or behavioral health crises without police involvement. In its first two months in one neighborhood, the Tenderloin, the team handled 199 calls without any violent incidents or any need for police intervention. That led to the expansion to five more neighborhoods. The program is modeled on Eugene, Oregon's CAHOOTS project's street medics and counselors, but with an additional "peer specialist," someone with lived experience to counsel unhoused people on the streets.

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Baltimore's top cop in demand as cities seek consent decree advice; some locally criticize cost, pace of reform here

Jessica Anderson

May 20, 2021 |

The Washington Post |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Baltimore, Maryland

The Baltimore Police Department was the last agency to enter into a consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice during the Trump administration. This is a process by which a troubled police department submits to federal oversight as a way to reform its practices and culture. Now that the Biden administration has signaled a willingness to use this tool more, police are looking to Baltimore as a model. A federal monitor cites multiple signs of progress in Baltimore. But local activists are frustrated with the slow pace of change and high costs of federal monitoring.

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Philly mothers of gun violence victims work to solve their children's murders

Jo Piazza

May 20, 2021 |

The Philadelphia Citizen |

Podcast |

Over 15 Minutes

Response Location: United States, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Philadelphia police fail to solve most of the city's growing number of homicides, in part because of the no-snitching street code, a byproduct of the community's lack of trust in police. But the streets do sometimes talk when the mothers of murder victims do their own detective work. A number of cases were solved because mothers turned their grief into a resolve to hunt down evidence that they turned over to the police. Their work grows out of the many support groups they have formed to help each other, and from a YouTube channel that helps them draw attention to unsolved murders.

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How Alameda County addresses mental-health crisis response

Stephen Baxter

May 20, 2021 |

Santa Cruz Local |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Oakland, California

Alameda and Santa Cruz counties have fielded their own mobile teams to respond to mental health crises as alternatives to police-only responses. Aimed at reducing conflicts with police, overuse of hospitals and jails, and involuntarily commitments for short-term emergency mental health care, the services' limited hours and resources mean that the police still handle the majority of such calls. Alameda's pilot, begun in July 2020, is able to provide help to about one-third of the four dozen monthly calls it gets. Santa Cruz's volume is higher. Impacts on involuntary commitments unclear.

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The FBI is supposed to track how police use force – years later, it's falling well short

Aaron Miguel Cantú

May 17, 2021 |

The Guardian |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States

Five years after the FBI started tracking how often police use force, the majority of police departments still fail to comply and the FBI refuses to release publicly what information it has collected. The policy was enacted in response to the realization that no one had definitive data on how often the police kill people, use teargas, or other incidents of force. What little data exists showed racial disparities in whom police use force against. But compliance was made voluntary and the FBI made public release of the data contingent on 80% of police departments complying, a goal it's nowhere near.

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Santa Barbara County Looks to Yolo County for Criminal Justice Reform

Katherine Swartz

May 16, 2021 |

Santa Barbara Independent |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Woodland, California

By turning over its criminal justice data to Measures for Justice, a nonprofit developer that turns raw data into publicly available reports, the Yolo County district attorney has a much better grasp on the work that it has been doing. Better data mean better-informed decisions about criminal justice reforms. The investment in the new system is prompting policy changes because of racial disparities showing up in the numbers. And that is prompting many other DAs to clamor for the same kind of system.

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