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

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  • Chicago organization uses predictive analytics to identify young people who may be headed for trouble

    Eddie Bocanegra of READI Chicago describes his group's gun-violence-prevention model. Data from police and hospitals, plus community intelligence, identify those people most at risk of committing or being victimized by gun violence. Then, providing those at highest risk with cognitive behavioral therapy, job-finding help, and other social services has been shown to reduce this group's victimization by nearly one-third and its likelihood of arrest for gun violence by 80%.

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  • Shootings and murders are down in Chester as new community-driven program takes root

    Barely half a year after creating the Partnerships for Safe Neighborhoods, the Delaware County district attorney's office and Chester police have seen a sharp drop in shootings. While multiple factors may affect the violence levels, officials and community members give much of the credit to the new program, which uses a focused deterrence approach to threatening to arrest people at risk of committing violence, but in return offering trade school training, rental aid, and counseling from community partners. The program shows the residents officials want to address the root causes, not just lock people up.

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  • The Path Forward: Decriminalizing addiction through diversion

    In Alamosa County, law enforcement officers who believe drug abuse is at the root of a person's criminal behavior can refer that person to treatment and other services, rather than arresting and jailing them. The Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) program, used in multiple places around the country, has helped the county jail fewer people and send more into treatment. It also has caused a large drop in arrest warrants, because case workers help people make their appointments in court and elsewhere. Now, San Miguel County, N.M., is working to adopt LEAD, though it needs more treatment facilities.

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  • This city de-funded the police. Here's what happened next

    Less than a year after Rochester experienced its own version of the George Floyd case, when a clash with police led to the death of Daniel Prude, a man in a mental health crisis, Rochester diverted money from the police to fund a Person In Crisis team to respond differently to such crises. Two mental health and social workers accompany police on relevant calls 24/7, about 100 calls per week. Their presence can de-escalate potentially violent encounters and get people the help they need without an arrest.

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  • From a Prison Garden Sprouts Real Growth

    Lettuce Grow teaches gardening skills to 200 incarcerated people per year in 16 Oregon prisons and juvenile detention centers. The teaching includes college-level courses and hands-on gardening on prison grounds, which then yields hundreds of thousands of pounds of fresh vegetables for prison kitchens. Graduates of the program commit many fewer crimes than the average ex-prisoner and have found work after prison at nurseries and in other horticultural pursuits.

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  • Have Colorado educators cracked the code to digital diversity?

    Across the country enrollment in online charter schools is disproportionately white, except in one state- Colorado. In Oregon, the opposite is true. This article compares what factors differentiate the state of Colorado versus the state of Oregon in terms of enrollment in charter schools along racial lines. Some differences include a larger diverse population in the state of Colorado, alternative schools that target at-risk students, and a larger team devoted to overseeing charter schools.

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  • Leaving Behind Uniforms And Sirens, Summit County Sheriff Expands Crisis Response

    The Summit County, Colorado, sheriff's office runs SMART (Systemwide Mental Assessment Response), which pairs armed deputies with clinicians to respond to mental health crises. In 2020, the two teams took hundreds of calls but made only one arrest. Instead, most people are helped on the spot or referred to services that can help. The county plans to expand the service to 24/7 with two more teams, plus one mobile crisis until to handle suicide threats, staffed only by civilian mental health professionals. This report discusses the range of models used nationwide with and without police involvement.

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  • Austin youth re-entry program has 15% recidivism rate, compared to 75% nationwide

    Jail to Jobs pays youth while they get trained for jobs in construction, manufacturing, landscaping, and cooking. The youth come from youth detention, the streets, probation, and foster care and their trainers are formerly incarcerated. Jail to Jobs, with four locations in Austin, has helped more than 600 young people find employment despite their pasts. Only 15% of its graduates have been jailed afterward, a lower-than-average recidivism rate.

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  • NYC is sending social workers instead of police to some 911 calls. Here's how it's going.

    A pilot project in three New York Police Department precincts of Harlem showed in its first month that it can divert some mental-health crises away from hospitalization and toward other forms of help. Teams of medics and social workers took about one-quarter of such calls, sometimes at NYPD invitation. They sent about half of the people in crisis to a hospital, significantly less often than the police do in such cases. The goal in replacing police is to avoid needless violence and arrests in non-violent, non-criminal emergencies.

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  • NYC's Non-Police Mental Health Pilot Increasing Rate of Those Getting Aid, Data Show

    In its first month as a pilot project in a part of Harlem, New York's Behavioral Health Emergency Assistance Response Division (B-HEARD) handled one-quarter of 911 calls for mental health crises. Despite fears of danger to the teams of social workers and paramedics, police backup was needed only seven times out of 110 cases. More people accepted help from the non-police teams than in the past from teams of police and paramedics. And that help depended half as often on hospital visits. People got helped on the scene or went to community centers for services. The city plans to expand the program.

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