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

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  • Restorative justice solutions for youth are growing abroad, can they become part of the mix in the U.S.

    As North Carolina reevaluates its approach to juvenile justice, the state is looking to examples like Italy, where restorative justice practices such as victim-offender mediation, in which the victim and perpetrator of a crime meet with a mediator to discuss and reconstruct the incident, play a critical role in cases involving youth. The country incarcerates fewer children and young adults on a given day than North Carolina despite its population being roughly six times the size of the state's.

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  • Vermont State Police try sending mental health workers out with troopers. Is it working?

    The Vermont Department of Public Safety hired embedded mental health crisis workers to respond to mental health-related calls alongside state troopers, with the goal of de-escalating tensions that can lead to unnecessary arrests and use of force. While data is still being collected, service providers say the program has helped connect their clients to needed treatment and support.

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  • Online network matches inmates with services after release, similar to a dating site

    The Inside Out Network is an online service that allows people who are incarcerated to search for and connect with organizations providing re-entry support, helping them begin to create a plan before they are released. So far, at least 1,600 people incarcerated in Arizona have enrolled in the program.

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  • Fentanyl overdoses dropped in 4 states. These solutions are helping

    During the pandemic,New Jersey launched an initiative making the lifesaving overdose drug naloxone available at pharmacies without a prescription. Alongside strategies such as prioritizing access to harm reduction centers and making overdose data publicly available, the approach helped the state record a 7 percent decrease in overdose deaths as the majority of the country saw concerning spikes.

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  • Black students fought to defund school police in LA and hire mental health counselors instead

    After a period of backpack searches and police pepper-spraying students, Students Deserve, a youth-led activist group, pushed for the Los Angeles Unified School District to withdraw all funding for school police and divert it to mental health support for Black students. The school board approved a plan to cut one third of the school police budget, roughly around $25 million, and instead use it to fund “221 psychiatric social workers, counselors, “climate coaches,” and restorative justice advisers to schools with the highest number of Black students.”

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  • Pima County programs help keep drug users out of jail, save taxpayers money

    Tucson’s Drug Treatment Alternative to Prison program, or DTAP, offers intensive treatment and recovery services to certain people convicted of nonviolent offenses as an alternative to serving a sentence behind bars. Participants also receive support and counseling around job and life skills, transportation, and other critical needs, and at least 119 people have successfully completed the program since 2011.

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  • Santa Fe's once-vaunted diversion program for people with addictions has dwindled to nearly nothing

    One of the nation's first programs using police officers to get people into drug treatment instead of jail succeeded at first, and inspired other programs throughout New Mexico. But the original Santa Fe program now serves as a lesson in what can all but kill such a program, thanks to a leadership vacuum and mistakes that undercut the cultural change needed within a police department. Like the first program of its kind, in Seattle, Santa Fe's LEAD (Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion) program takes aim at people whose drug abuse deeply entangles them in the justice system when what they need is treatment.

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  • Oakland's success shows how Philly-wide restorative justice could work

    Modeled on a long-running and successful program in Oakland, Philadelphia schools' Relationships First program uses restorative justice to reform school discipline. The program follows a three-step approach to changing culture. At its core, teachers and students deepen their relationships so that when they use group dialogue to address the harm that people have caused, the chances for healing are greater. Violence has dropped when it was used in one Philadelphia neighborhood in cases of serious offenses. In Oakland, expulsions, suspensions, and racial disparities are all way down.

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  • To clean up East Baltimore, this mentor shores up buildings – and youths

    A community organization focuses on the wellbeing of young people in order to prevent violence. Members are mentored and taught martial arts by founder, Munir Bahar. Young residents also help clean up their neighborhood, hold food drives, and lead anti-violence marches.

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  • 'A clear winner': How education in prison can help people after release

    Correctional education opportunities provide a number of benefits: Skills, self-esteem, job opportunities, and lower chances of going back to prison. Educational opportunities for people serving prison time decrease the possibility of recidivism by 30 percent.

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