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

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  • Inside One Baltimore Group's Effort to Stop Youth Violence Before It Starts

    Baltimore's Roca program uses cognitive behavioral therapy, and patience and persistence, to work at changing the thinking of young people at high risk of committing or suffering gun violence. Counselors help their clients examine the trauma in their lives, learn to change their reactions to stress and conflict, and to choose legitimate jobs over the street economy. Unlike violence interruption programs that seek to mediate crises just as they threaten to turn deadly, Roca does its work further upstream, seeking to shape interactions before they turn critical.

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  • This Fitness Entrepreneurship Course Is a Second Chance for the Formerly Incarcerated

    People who spend their time in prison getting physically fit might seek to turn what they've learned into a job as a fitness trainer, once they're released. But felony convictions act as a barrier to such jobs. A Second U Foundation, founded by a formerly incarcerated man who faced such barriers, provides an eight-week course in running a fitness-training business. Of the 200 people who have taken the course since 2015, three-quarters have been hired by health clubs, while the others started their own businesses. Foundations and grants foot the bill so that the training is free.

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  • The helpline for jealous and violent men

    Most domestic violence telephone helplines offer help to women who have been abused, and counseling programs for men provide their services in prison, once men have committed serious violence. But Línea Calma tries to prevent domestic violence by offering men psychological counseling by phone. The sessions of 60 to 90 minutes focus on helping men understand their feelings of rage, often linked to jealousy and machismo. In just a few months, the line (which in Spanish means the Calm Line) has taken more than 2,000 calls and some couples attest to its effectiveness in enabling men to react more calmly.

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  • Can a Radical Treatment for Pedophilia Work Outside of Germany?

    Prevention Project Dunkelfeld is "arguably the world's most radical social experiment in treating pedophilia." Its prevention-first approach to providing treatment to people who are sexually attracted to children means that it encourages people to volunteer for treatment and disclose past and planned crimes without the threat of being reported to authorities and punished. German law makes this possible, but in most places such crossing of lines from thoughts to action would be grounds for mandatory reporting. This policy and the program's disputed claims of effectiveness have drawn harsh criticism.

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  • Some Minnesota school districts made changes to grading systems during pandemic to help protect GPAs, they may not go back

    In St. Paul, Minnesota, the St. Paul school district switched from a letter grade structure to a pass/fail system. A trend that was seen across other districts in the states. The move came after the pandemic resulted in an increase in students failing classes across the district and was part of a “do no harm” philosophy. Data shows the change helped some students and some said they felt more supported. The move is part of a larger effort the district is trying to prevent students from failing like credit recovery.

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  • San Francisco's new homeless street teams make progress, garner praise

    San Francisco's Street Crisis Response Team is a pilot project meant to divert 911 calls for mental health emergencies from police to new teams of mobile counselors. Though it started with only one team and later expanded to four, the project in less than six months took 20% of the eligible calls. More than half the clients were helped on the streets, while most others were hospitalized or connected with shelters. The city is proposing a major expansion of this and related teams aimed at reducing the reliance on police in non-violent situations.

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  • Colorado's Second Chance Center is redefining what success looks like after incarceration

    At the Second Chance Center, people emerging from prison get the necessities to survive, like housing, clothing, and food. But they also get deeper learning about how to repair their lives, thanks to an inclusive and empowering message from the staff, most of whom are formerly incarcerated. "They need to be seen," says one counselor. More than 7,000 have gone through the program, which boasts recidivism rates far lower than the state average. Now it's opened in downtown Denver to serve people coming out of the city and county jails.

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  • Cómo se trabaja en los barrios pobres de Argentina para reducir el consumo de drogas

    La Federación Hogar de Cristo, una red creada por sacerdotes católicos, agrupa a 190 centros barriales de 19 provincias de Argentina y ha ayudado a más de 20.000 personas a tratar sus adicciones. Lo hacen desde 2008 y no han parado ni en pandemia.

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  • How a program became a model for life after prison

    Colorado's Transforming Safety initiative empowers communities to decide how to use grant money to address high rates of recidivism. One community-chosen grantee is Colorado Springs Works, founded by a man who made a habit of asking those he was incarcerated with why they had been sent back to prison on parole violations. Lack of good jobs was a key reason, and so the program he created helps recently incarcerated people get job training and jobs on the outside.

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  • Enlisting Mental Health Workers, Not Cops, In Mobile Crisis Response

    The long-running CAHOOTS program, which replaces police with medics and social workers to respond to non-violent, non-criminal mental health crises, suicide threats, and problems stemming from homelessness, serves as a model for similar programs in the nationwide push to reimagine policing. CAHOOTS teams de-escalate crises at first simply because they are not armed police. They also take the time and have the training to calm situations and get people the help they need. Programs in Phoenix and Denver demonstrate how the idea plays out in larger cities.

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