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

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  • In a roiled Minneapolis, schools are testing new model for safety

    Washburn High School in Minneapolis is taking a different approach for in-school safety, one that doesn't rely on a police presence. The school district ended its contract with the Minneapolis Police Department and replaces School Resource Officers with civilian safety specialists, who are not uniformed, armed, and have no power of arrest. Instead, the specialists provide more community-centered services to visiting students who were disconnected, aiding with food distribution, and evaluate school safety plans.

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  • Yadda Garuruwan Jos Ke Kokarin Hadin Kai Bayan Shekaru Cikin Rikici (1)

    Tare da taimakon wata kungiya mai zaman kanta, al’ummar wasu garuruwa guda biyu da suka fada rikici a 2001 sun samu hanyar da za su zauna lafiya da juna. Wasu harare da mayar da martani da ya faru a tsakanin kiristocin unguwar Balkazai da kuma musulman unguwar Mai Damisa sun janyo asarar daruruwan rayuka da gidaje. Manyan da kungiyar ‘Youth Initiative Against Violence and Human Rights Abuse’ ta horar suna bawa matasa labaran zaman lafiya da ya wakana a Jos. Samarin da kungiyar ‘Jos Stakeholders for Peace’ ta horar kuma sun yarda su ajiye makamansu.

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  • Restorative Justice Part 3: In Vermont, Restorative Justice Under Statute May Not Lead to Equitable Services

    Reacting to troubling trends in incarceration in the 1980s, Vermont legislators created a system of community justice centers to give its justice system a distinct rehabilitative rather than punitive slant. The CJCs exist in every county and involve the community in repairing the harm from crimes, following a restorative justice approach. Though gaps in data on race mask Vermont's racial disparities in criminal justice, the system saves money and spares many people incarceration, while giving crime victims and communities a more direct say in how to hold people accountable for the harm they cause.

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  • How one Chinatown curbs anti-Asian violence and unites a city

    Anti-Asian hate crimes during the COVID-19 pandemic have sparked a movement nationwide to stand up against bias and to help protect those most vulnerable to attack, the elderly. In one of America's oldest Chinese enclaves, Oakland's Chinatown, Compassion in Oakland has attracted thousands of volunteers of all races and ethnicities to chaperone the elderly on their errands and to patrol the streets as additional eyes and ears for the police. Shopkeepers and residents feel safer. And, among the volunteer protectors, bridges are being built where tensions and rivalries have long existed.

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  • The Polarised City (2): Jos, Divided By Religion, United By Football

    With team names like Reconciliation, Peace, Love, Humanity, and Forgiveness, the football league organized by Face of Peace Global has begun to chip away at the religious-based fears and hostility that tore their city apart for a generation. Following 18 years of sectarian violence between Muslims and Christians in which people settled into starkly separate zones, the football coaches recruited teams deliberately mixed across religious and neighborhood lines. Divisions did not dissolve instantly, but players say that over time they have grown to trust and like their teammates, small steps toward peace.

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  • Restorative Justice in Indian Country

    Like standard drug courts, the Penobscot Nation's Healing to Wellness Court refers people facing drug-related criminal charges to substance abuse counseling as an alternative to punishment. But this court and other tribal wellness courts are steeped in indigenous customs, blended with restorative justice approaches, to emphasize rehabilitation based on trust, support, and native traditions. The threat of punishment looms over participants should they fail in their counseling program. But no one has been jailed in the past two years in the Penobscot program.

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  • The Mexican women who kicked out the cartels

    Ten years after the women of Cherán, an indigenous town in Michoacán, took up arms to lead an uprising against criminal cartels, their town is an "oasis" of low crime in a region otherwise beset with violence. The town declared itself autonomous and women now belong to the community police force that patrols the town and its surroundings. The cartels' illegal logging and extortion of businesses had corrupted local politicians and threatened a way of life. The town's men did nothing about it, so the women led the uprising that established order and kept the crime at bay.

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  • A Portland Program Intended to Reduce Police Interactions With People in Crisis Is Off to a Slow Start

    The Portland Street Response program sends a paramedic and social worker on non-emergency calls, often involving mental health crises, instead of sending police. The pilot project, operating during weekday hours in one neighborhood, was assigned 60 calls in its first 40 business days. That tiny percentage of 911 calls falls short of expectations, possibly because dispatchers' screening of calls is defined too narrowly, or because dispatchers are being protective of the police. Supporters say the program always was meant to start small and deliberately, but its call volume is averaging much less than planned.

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  • No badges. No guns. Can violence interrupters help Minneapolis?

    MinneapolUS puts unarmed community members on Minneapolis streets to prevent street violence, part of the city's effort to redirect resources from the police to other crime-prevention efforts. Four teams of 20 to 30 members, many of them former gang members and formerly incarcerated, have intervened in beatings and potential shootings. They use a public-health approach pioneered by the organization Cure Violence, which has proven effective in other cities.

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  • What do communities do when the police retreat?

    Little Earth Protectors is one of several community patrol groups that emerged in Minneapolis' unrest after George Floyd's death in police custody. Named for a mostly Native American neighborhood with high rates of violence, the Protectors filled a vacuum left by short-staffed police who had lost support in the community. Patrolling the streets, usually unarmed, the Protectors mediate disputes, discourage drug and prostitution activity, and guard against property destruction. Seven larger groups doing this work have been given city contracts to provide their services if civil unrest breaks out again.

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