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Vermont Plans to Send Cash to Immigrant Farmworkers Left Out of Stimulus

Elizabeth Hewitt

February 04, 2021 |

Civil Eats |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Vermont

Vermont approved coronavirus relief funding for immigrants who did not qualify for federal aid in the first round of the CARES Act. Migrant farm workers play a vital role in Vermont’s dairy industry and were hailed as essential workers who ensured a functioning local food supply during the pandemic. Undocumented immigrants have disproportionately been affected by the pandemic, but the majority of states have not provided this demographic with a financial security net.

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A GOP Governor and BLM Activists Agreed on Restoring Voting Rights to Felons. Will It Last?

Kaila Philo

February 04, 2021 |

Politico |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Iowa

More than 3,000 Iowans voted in the 2020 presidential election thanks to an executive order signed by the Republican governor after a protest campaign by activists to erase Iowa's permanent ban on voting by people with felony records. But that number was just a fraction of those newly eligible to vote, due to limitations in the order and a lackluster effort to inform the public. Iowa has a disproportionately high number of disenfranchised Black citizens who could be helped by a more permanent constitutional fix. That fix has now been stalled by the choice to act by executive order.

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‘Make no mistake': Drag queens are leading a racial reckoning in Chicago's famous LGBTQ neighborhood

Jake Wittich

February 03, 2021 |

The GroundTruth Project |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Chicago, Illinois

The Chicago Black Drag Council launched after a series of protests that called on Chicago’s LGBTQ neighborhood to address racial discrimination and oppression. A handful of businesses quickly agreed to a live-streamed town hall to discuss ways to increase inclusivity. As a result, a prominent host of popular drag shows was ousted for racial discrimination and the business chamber dropped the neighborhood’s nickname, “Boystown,” from marketing materials because it is not inclusive. The Drag Council has also raised tens of thousands of dollars in cash and supplies to support Black- and trans-led initiatives.

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In the first six months of health care professionals replacing police officers, no one they encountered was arrested

David Sachs

February 02, 2021 |

Denverite |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Denver, Colorado

Denver's STAR (Support Team Assisted Response) program deliberately reduces potentially violent encounters between uniformed police officers and troubled people by responding to certain low-level crises with a mental health clinician and a medic. In STAR's first six months, the team offered 748 people help rather than jail, without requiring any arrests to resolve problems. With more resources, the team could have handled more than 2,500 incidents. The police chief supports the program's expansion, saying it frees his officers to handle more serious matters.

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HBCU student media confronts local news bias

Alexis Wray

February 02, 2021 |

Scalawag |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Greensboro, North Carolina

In 2018, The A&T Register, the online student-run newspaper for North Carolina A&T State University, the largest Black university in the country, conducted a media investigation. It examined the way local media wrote headlines that associated the university with crime. They examined headlines that fell into two categories; those that used the campus as a locator for crime, or headlines that based outdated affiliations. Then, the editor-in-chief, Alexis Wray, presented their findings to local outlets hoping to effect change. They did. Their investigation led to changes in future headlines.

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How New York Quietly Ended Its Street Drug War

Max Daly

February 01, 2021 |

Vice |

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Over 3000 Words

Response Location: United States, New York, New York

From 2009 through 2019, street arrests for drug possession and sales fell by 80% in New York City, sparing hundreds of thousands of people harsh incarceration terms while defying warnings that more lenient enforcement of low-level drug crimes would wreak havoc on the city. The reforms came about because of persistent advocacy by groups opposed to racially disparate enforcement and its social harms, as well as legislative and court-imposed limits on punishment and stop-and-frisk policing. Now ticketing rather than arrest is used far more often for all types of drugs.

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More Than 1,000 Open Prostitution Cases In Brooklyn Are Going To Be Wiped From The Files

Otillia Steadman

January 28, 2021 |

Buzzfeed |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, New York, New York

The Brooklyn district attorney is prosecuting few prostitution cases and has dismissed 262 cases that he and sex worker advocates say are a byproduct of law enforcement unfairly targeting trans women and women of color. The DA is working toward dismissing more than 1,000 cases and declining to prosecute all new cases. While legislative action is needed to achieve full decriminalization and to void the 25,000 criminal records that date to 1975 in Brooklyn, the DA exercised his discretion based on the harm done by arresting women for sex work and on related loitering charges.

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Seattle Cut Its Police Budget. Now the Public Will Decide How To Spend the Money.

Manjeet Kaur

January 28, 2021 |

The Appeal |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Seattle, Washington

Since 2017, Seattle residents have had a direct say in how some city money is spent on neighborhood projects. It's a form of "participatory budgeting" that has been spreading from Brazil through many U.S. cities. After the 2020 racial justice protests, King County Equity Now, Decriminalize Seattle, and other groups spent several months calling for a budget that takes money from policing and invests in "true public health and safety" projects. After eight weeks of hearings, the city agreed to put $30 million – $12 million cut from police – into a citizen-controlled safety budget.

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An Oregon city's decades-old alternative to police

David Kroman Sara Bernard

January 28, 2021 |

Crosscut |

Podcast |

Over 15 Minutes

Response Location: United States, Eugene, Oregon

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

Daniel J. Gross

January 28, 2021 |

The Greenville News |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, South Carolina

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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