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

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  • An Oregon city's decades-old alternative to police

    Like many cities, Seattle is looking to Eugene, Oregon, for a model to shift resources from police to unarmed crisis responders handling 911 calls about mental health, addiction, family conflict, and other non-criminal problems. Eugene's CAHOOTS program has been doing such work for half a century, and since 1989 sending medic-and-counselor teams on calls. In 2019 it saved $8 million in police costs and $14 million for ambulances and emergency room visits. But, while taking police out of situations where they might cause more problems than they solve, it's only as good as its region's social services.

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  • Cops, crisis calls and conflict over who should help

    Seattle Police Department's crisis response team answers some of the city's many 911 calls for people in distress, pairing police trained in handling such calls with mental health professionals. The aim is to counter the default policing approach to problems that usually involve mental illness or substance abuse, which is to control people. It doesn't always work, due to the complexity of the calls, the nature of policing, and the department's limited resources devoted to the program. But, when it works, it can help rather than escalate situations, and avoid the ultimate failure, the use of excessive force.

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  • "We're not just relics of the past": How #NativeTikTok is preserving Indigenous cultures and inspiring a younger generation

    Native and Indigenous individuals are using TikTok to share aspects of their traditions, challenge stereotypes, and empower young people to be proud of their culture. The videos range from instructional, teaching people indigenous languages or dance, to putting a "cultural spin" on trending content. The hashtag #NativeTikTok has over 1.3 billion views and users comment that the videos help them feel more connected to and proud of their cultures. The videos follow the tradition of preserving culture through storytelling and offer positive representations of Native and Indigenous people and their cultures.

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  • SC law enforcement agencies are supposed to report info on traffic stops, but most are not

    After the South Carolina legislature in 2005 began requiring police to enforce a seat-belt law with traffic stops, it imposed on all police departments a duty to track and report traffic-stop data on drivers' race. The law was meant as a way to prevent biased policing, through public disclosure of disparities. But only about one-third of the state's law enforcement agencies have consistently complied with the law, and some never have. Some blame ignorance of how the system should work. But another explanation is the state has done little or nothing to enforce the law.

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  • Michigan's New Clean-Slate Law Makes State a Leader in Criminal Justice Reform

    A new law in Michigan will automatically expunge misdemeanors and felonies after several years, making it easier to find employment for those who have a record. The automatic nature of the expungement removes the barriers of cost and time for successfully completing the long application process. A clean slate makes it easier for people to improve their lives through better housing and higher pay, leading to lower rates of recidivism.

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

    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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  • Harnessing People Power to Protect Alaska's Last Remaining Wilderness

    A viral campaign from Indigenous activists, TikTok creators, and documentary filmmakers led to about 6.3 million letters being sent to federal agencies encouraging them to halt fossil fuel development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. They created social media content and a toolkit for creators to use on their platforms that made it easy for the message to spread.

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  • Is D.C. Finally on the Brink of Statehood?

    51 for 51 is an advocacy group fighting for DC statehood by educating people about DC residents’ taxation without representation and training advocates in other states, mostly young people, to lobby their senators to support a statehood bill. Organizers also bird-dogged democratic presidential candidates for a public pledge of support for statehood, which 18 did. The group has also gained new support for ending the filibuster, which is needed to pass a statehood bill in the Senate. Support for statehood is at its highest, with a bill passing the House of Representatives for the first time in June 2020.

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  • Baltimore is Democratizing the Economy, One Pint at a Time

    A worker-owned cooperative in Baltimore is giving employees an “alternative to exploitation in traditionally-structured enterprises.” Employees at ice cream maker Taharka Brothers can eventually qualify for ownership, which enables them to weigh in on big decisions and share in profits when the business does well.

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  • Local group gives LGBTQ, BIPOC communities and allies inclusive recovery space

    Diversity in Recovery created an inclusive space for the LGBTQ community, Black and Indigenous people, people of color, and allies, many of whom report negative experiences because of their race, sexuality, and/or gender in other recovery groups. The group provides a safe and affirming space to support each other in recovery and discuss issues that also impact recovery, including conversations about trauma and current events, such as racial injustices and political insurrections. Because of Coivd-19, the group meets twice a week on Zoom, which has enabled people from outside the city to attend.

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