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

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  • Possibilities of Progress: Integrating Crisis Care Infrastructure into the Philadelphia Police Force and the United States

    To increase the safety of people in mental health crisis, Philadelphia police train most officers in crisis intervention tactics and try to build better-informed responses into 911 operations. But problems persist. In the U.K., similar challenges – also disproportionately affecting Black people – have been addressed with a nationwide Crisis Team UK program. Calls for help can be answered by teams integrating multiple talents, from psychiatry to social work. Though progress has not been uniform nationwide, satisfaction and safety have improved, according to activists and a small survey.

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  • On Parole, Staying Free Means Staying Clean and Sober

    People in two New Jersey counties who were at risk of abusing opioids while on parole were given extra support services, and an immediate trip to rehab instead of back to prison when they slipped up. The pilot program is New Jersey's version of Swift, Certain and Fair, a federally funded program to help people succeed while on parole. In some of the 30 states with SCF programs, copying the original and successful Hawaii model didn't work. But New Jersey's approach to helping people succeed instead of laying traps to send them back to prison was deemed a success with a small, focused pilot program.

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  • Life after prison: Communities heal by helping former inmates succeed

    People returning home to Akron from prison step into a community that needs healing, work that the formerly incarcerated can help with because of the lessons they can impart to younger people. But first they need their own healing. South Street Ministries and Truly Reaching You, two nonprofits run by formerly incarcerated men, help people in re-entry clear the barriers to housing and jobs that can doom them to returning to prison. They also provide peer counseling and mental health care.

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  • People leaving prison in Michigan still face hurdles to getting an ID

    Michigan prisons and the state's secretary of state teamed up to provide people leaving prison on parole with the one thing they often lack: valid personal identification papers. Without a Social Security card or state ID, people struggle to get hired, rent housing, or open a bank account. In the program's first six months, more than 1,200 people got IDs. That's only a third of those eligible. Private groups have taken up some of the slack. The state says it should provide get the service fully up to speed by late 2021.

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  • 'We're dealing with victims': Ride-along offers glimpse at anguished work of crisis teams

    Rochester's Person In Crisis team, launched in response to the death of Daniel Prude in police custody during a mental health crisis, began a six-month pilot project in January. PIC uses a "co-response model" of crisis intervention, sending social workers alone or with police, as first responders or called in by police at a scene, to connect non-violent people with needed services. PIC teams work 24/7, replacing or supplementing police on calls where help, not arrest, will resolve the problem, and empathetic conversation can work better in places where distrust of the police runs high.

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  • As Formerly Incarcerated People Return to Their Communities in W.Va., This Network of 'Resource Brokers' Is There to Guide Them

    The West Virginia Council of Churches formed a network of community reentry councils to help people leaving prison line up basic necessities, from housing to employment. The councils use their members' community connections as a bridge between prison officials, who won't release people if they lack plans for a place to live, and returning citizens, whose housing, counseling, and employment needs can determine the difference between success and another stint in prison on a technical parole violation. Grants from two foundations helped the Council of Churches expand its network during the pandemic.

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  • Bringing a Veterans Treatment Court to Sedgwick County

    Kansas' only veterans treatment court started small, but it has proved the concept to Sedgwick County officials who want to copy its success. Veterans courts provide treatment in lieu of conviction and punishment for veterans charged generally with non-violent, less-serious offenses. The costs are much lower than for incarceration, with greater benefits to the defendants. National statistics show a 14% recidivism rate, much lower than for the criminal justice system overall. In Johnson County, 41 veterans have gone through the 18-month program; none have reoffended.

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  • Failure to Thrive: NYC's $100 Million ‘Diversion Centers' for Mentally Ill Sit Empty or Barely Used

    Despite committing hundreds of millions of dollars to programs that make New York City's emergency response to mental health crises less punitive, a pattern of over-promising and under-delivering, plus pandemic snarls, kept the programs from getting off to an effective start. Two "diversion centers" where police could bring people in crisis, as alternatives to jail or hospital emergency rooms, either sit empty or have served only a tiny number of people. A program to send counselors with police on calls never got off the ground. In its place is a non-policing team that is having trouble recruiting EMTs.

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  • Drug treatment program is helping local inmates overcome addiction

    The Bartholomew County Jail's drug treatment program started in January 2020 with a rigorous application process, followed by about 400 hours of group and individual therapy for incarcarcerated people with drug abuse problems. The therapy attempts to unlock the reasons why each person's previous attempts to get healthy have failed. All but five of the 49 graduates so far have stayed out of jail and stayed in touch with the program, which helps them after their release with housing and job searches.

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  • Can police be taught to stop their own violence?

    When Minneapolis police officers were videotaped standing by or trying ineffectively to intervene in George Floyd's murder by a fellow officer, horrified police departments nationwide rushed to embrace a peer intervention program called ABLE (Active Bystandership for Law Enforcement). ABLE is based on a five-year-old program that has helped transform the culture of New Orleans' once-troubled police department, cutting shootings, taser uses, and citizen complaints. Officers are taught how to overcome rank and cultural inhibitors with actions and language that stop brutality by their colleagues.

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