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

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  • How Miami-Dade's Mental Health Program Steers People To Treatment, Not Jail

    For nearly two decades, Miami-Dade's Criminal Mental Health Project has worked to decriminalize mental illness, diverting people from jail into treatment and social services with an approach that has helped cut the jail population almost by half and save taxpayers millions. Combining the services of health care providers, law enforcement, and housing agencies, the project pairs participants with peer specialists and puts them on a treatment plan that can get their criminal charges dropped or reduced. Another benefit of the project: lower recidivism rates for people with serious mental illnesses.

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  • ‘Scrap it, start fresh, and think:' What Milwaukee can learn from New York City on housing young offenders

    As Wisconsin’s Milwaukee County seeks to transform how it handles young offenders, it looks to New York City as a model for change. In New York, the city has shifted its focus from large, state-run facilities to community-based programs and secured, residential homes. Milwaukee County weighs the lessons learned from this initiative and seeks to re-evaluate the services and long-term effects of its criminal justice programming.

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  • Ypsi-based program aims to restore dignity for women giving birth while incarcerated

    The Michigan Prison Doula Initiative seeks to provide pregnant women experiencing incarceration the support and care they need to maintain physical and mental health before, during, and after giving birth. The initiative has partnered with the Michigan Department of Corrections to start work in one prison – with the hopes of expanding to others – by providing prenatal counseling, support during birth, and postpartum visits.

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  • 'Nobody was born bad'

    Chattanooga’s Violence Reduction Initiatives used a focused deterrence strategy to reduce crime. The initiative has led to a decrease in gang-involved homicides and shootings, working with individuals on probation to provide them with the social services they need to stop them from re-entering a life of crime. A core part of this method is to show communities that they’re not forgotten and that they’re cared for, and yet securing funding and consistent support for such programming has been challenging.

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  • ‘We believe that they can come home and be a positive force for change:' How one program helps people transition out of incarceration

    In Wisconsin, the Alma Brothers Smart Reentry program works to reduce the rate of recidivism by building relationships with those being released from prison and reentering society. By providing each man in the program with a guide during the last year of his sentence and first year out of prison, the program is able to offer support, resources and opportunities that the former inmates may not otherwise have.

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  • Australia is building community alternatives to prisons — they work

    With their national imprisonment rate on the rise, Australia is pivoting to a justice reinvestment strategy that diverts money towards "early intervention, prevention and diversion." Although this has yet to be implemented on a large scale, small projects are underway in parts of the country and have delivered promising results.

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  • Special Courts for Veterans Languish

    Veterans treatment courts were developed in 2008 as a way for veterans to receive mental health counseling and substance abuse treatment rather than face incarceration. Created to address the mental health concerns that can lead to drug abuse and other issues, the courts have not seen the successes that were originally anticipated. Due to little demand, inconvenient locations, and mixed results, experts are calling into question the existence of such specialized courts.

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  • Denver Program Aims To Divert Low-Level Drug, Prostitution Offenders Away From Jail

    In Colorado, four communities are piloting a program that offers low-level drug or prostitution offenders an alternative to prison. This program, known as Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion, matches the offender with a case manager who in turn connects them with treatment and training resources.

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  • Scrubbing The Past To Give Those With A Criminal Record A Second Chance

    Indiana's Second Chance law was passed in 2013 and allows people to petition to remove their misdemeanor convictions and arrests from public view. In Marion County alone, more than 11,500 people have visited the full-time paralegal processing all requests since legislators implemented the law. Many of those visitors speak with relief about the newfound opportunities that have come their way since the dismantling of that barrier. This is part of a growing movement in the US to reimagine the existing criminal justice system that creates far more problems than it solves.

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  • Jail or Bail? There's a New Option

    Between the opposite extremes of jailing too many people unnecessarily before trial or releasing too many unsupervised, New York City judges in 2016 began to use a "supervised release" option. In the first three years, the program's 11,000 defendants showed up for court dates 89% of the time while 8% were rearrested for new felony crimes. The program, which requires people check in regularly with a case manager, helped reduce the jail population by more than a third. The approach tries to balance the needs of public safety with the reality that even a short jail stay carries its own social harms.

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