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

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  • Digging Our Way Out of the Hole: The Safe Alternative to Solitary Audio icon

    Washington's prison system cut by half the number of people held in solitary confinement by reducing its security system's reliance on the method and helping former solitary detainees transition back to the general population in a healthier way. But a formerly incarcerated journalist who spent more than seven of his 27 years in prison locked in solitary confinement says the state's disciplinary system is still rooted in an overly punitive approach to mostly petty offenses. A system based on positive incentives to good behavior exists in North Dakota prisons, modeled in part on Norway's approach.

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  • Unreasonable suspicion: When residents call police, who pays the price when bias shapes their concerns?

    When the police got called to check on a "suspicious" Black man at the door of a house in a mostly white suburb of Madison, they held him at gun point until he convinced them he was there with the owner's permission. The resulting public outrage has turned into a search for solutions. While the city pays for a study of its policies and questions the adequacy of its implicit-bias training of police officers and 911 operators, neighborhood groups are working to educate residents about alternatives to calling police for all but the most serious threats to safety.

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  • The Non-Partisan “Pro-Voice” Abortion Space

    An organization founded in Oakland, CA is bringing non-partisan abortion counseling to those who feel isolated by platforms that are designated as either pro-life or pro-choice. The goal of the organization, which is staffed with trained volunteers from across the country, is to help "people process their experiences around abortion without any preconceived notions about what that should look like."

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  • As call for police reform grows here, some look to Oregon for possible answers

    Protests over police officers' conduct in the death of Daniel Prude prompted Rochester, N.Y., officials to look to Eugene's CAHOOTS program for an alternative model in responding to mental health crises. But CAHOOTS officials caution that their longstanding practice of dispatching mental health counselors as first responders, in place of police, has resulted in a safer, more caring response only because the agency is part of a broader system of social services. CAHOOTS teams are on call 24/7, replacing police on up to 8% of 911 calls and calling for police backup a fraction of the time.

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  • How South African activists hope to integrate cities built to divide

    The South African government has provided free apartments to millions of people since the end of apartheid, in part as a way to address structural inequalities rooted in apartheid. The program has been a lifeline for many but has also exacerbated segregation because the housing is built just outside of cities, where Black, Asian, and mixed-race South Africans were once legally required to live. This creates new structural inequalities because it makes it harder to access good jobs, which tend to be in the city center. Advocates are now petitioning the government to build housing in the city center.

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  • What happened when the BC government started selling cannabis Audio icon

    Legalized marijuana sales in Canada were supposed to make the industry safe, stable, and prosperous. But the rollout of licenses for pre-existing private dispensaries has turned into a debacle for small businesses in British Columbia. Ignoring the advice given to Health Canada by dispensaries seeking licenses about sensible ways to regulate, the agency delayed approving licensing applications for months, only to begin raiding applicants' businesses as soon as competing government dispensaries started opening. Hundreds were put out of work and quality product grew scarce.

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  • Portland's High Stakes Experiment to Shrink the Role of Police in Fighting Gun Violence

    Two years after reorganizing a police gun-enforcement unit to focus it on an evidence-based approach to preventing retaliatory shootings, Portland city leaders abolished the unit in a round of police budget cuts and failed to reinvest that money in community-based alternatives that don't rely on the police. The result, criminologists say, is a worst-case scenario: a policing reform that creates a vacuum and could be to blame for an alarming spike in gun violence. The most effective solutions, they say, blend effective policing with proven community-based programs.

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  • NYPD Study: Implicit Bias Training Changes Minds, Not Necessarily Behavior

    After all 36,000 New York Police Department officers took required training in recognizing implicit racial bias, more officers understood how racism may increase officers' aggressiveness but there was no evidence that this awareness translated into a less racially disparate outcome in the numbers of people stopped and frisked. Since the protests of police bias that started in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014, most states have imposed mandatory implicit-bias training on police. NYPD's study is a rare measurement of the effects such training can have.

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  • Remote Learning Progress Report: Broadband proves to be major issue

    Rochester School District previously used hotspots on buses to help students traveling to extracurricular events, but once the pandemic showed how many families were struggling to stay virtually connected, the buses were turned into traveling hotspots for different neighborhoods. The district was able to get all but 20% of its student population connected and is looking for more ways to minimize the digital divide.

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  • How Efforts To Save Hawaii's Forests Are Preventing A 'Freshwater Crisis'

    Landowners, state employees, environmental groups, and local hunters are working together to protect Hawaii’s forests and drinking water by eradicating invasive plants from the state’s protected forests. By allowing native plants to flourish, these forests could help combat climate change by sequestering carbon and allowing freshwater quivers to recharge with rainfall. Since 2013, the state has built 132 miles of fence to keep grazers away from forests to prevent the spread of seeds of invasive plants. However, this method can be expensive; a 1,400-acre fence cost over a million dollars.

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