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  • Can ‘Bystander Intervention Training' Stop Hate Crimes?

    High-profile violence directed at Asian-Americans generated enormous interest in bystander intervention training. The most popular program in New York, a free online course from Hollaback!, teaches five approaches to intervening in a nonviolent incident, when someone is being harassed. Research has shown the method to be effective at interrupting an attack. Some critics see these methods as too short-term a solution, but other experts say they can helpfully make people more aware of threats to others and more able to respond in the moment, rather than freezing uncomfortably in the presence of a bias attack.

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  • There's a new approach to police response to mental health emergencies. Taking the police out of it

    San Francisco's Street Crisis Response Team replaces or aids police officers in responding to calls about people in nonviolent behavioral health crises. A collaboration of the city's fire and health departments, the program puts three-person teams – social workers, paramedics, and peer counselors – on patrol to respond to calls or to look for people in crisis. The $4 million pilot project has taken 800 calls in its first four months, connecting people to the care they need without the violence that can occur when police are first responders. The city hopes to expand its hours to 24/7 soon.

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  • In France, Accents Are Now Protected by Law

    The French National Assembly overwhelmingly passed “the Law to Promote the France of Accents,” which criminalizes discrimination against someone based on their accent. The bill makes linguistic discrimination, or “glottophobia,” an offense punishable by up to three years’ jail time and a fine of up to €45,000 (USD$54,000). Early indications of the law's impact include the normalizing of native accents in national discourse, the appointment of a Prime Minister with a strong accent, and the French national broadcaster FranceInfo’s naming “glottophobia” one of the words of 2020.

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  • How These Danish Bees Give Hope to Refugees

    Newly-arrived immigrants are finding work and a sense of acceptance as beekeepers through Bybi, an organization that helps refugees integrate in Denmark. Bybi is serving the immigrant community while also reversing the decline of bee populations, which are vital to agriculture and entire ecosystems.

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  • The invisible shield: how qualified immunity was created and nearly destroyed the ability to sue police officers in America Pt. I

    The Civil Rights Act of 1871, as a direct response to white resistance to Reconstruction-era reforms in the former Confederacy, gave people the right to sue government officials for depriving them of their civil rights. But a series of court decisions from the Civil Rights Era of the 1960s through the 1980s undercut the law's intent, so much so that police officers ended up with "qualified immunity" from liability for rights violations – effectively avoiding accountability, even when they act in bad faith.

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  • Algorithmic Redlining Is Real. Why Not Algorithmic Greenlining?

    Urban planning algorithms have contributed to the racial wealth gap by prioritizing funding for communities that don’t need extra funding, but which would create a higher return on investment. The algorithm bias negatively impacts neighborhoods that are typically Black and poor. Detroit’s water and sewage utilities were disconnected as a result of an algorithm, highlighting the “fundamental pitfall of algorithms, as well as the risks that they can be misused or produce unintended consequences.”

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  • Inside the community patrols in San Francisco's Chinatown

    Rising alarm over hate crimes targeting Asian-Americans, particularly the elderly, drew many volunteers to the community patrols that have organized over the past year in the Bay Area. Chinatown Safety Patrol, started just weeks before the Atlanta spa murders, suddenly attracted dozens of people willing to watch over and help elderly neighbors, giving them the confidence to go about their lives on the streets. The patrols serve as a deterrent to predatory violence. They also can deescalate conflict. Their main function is to protect residents in ways that the police can't or won't.

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  • Teen invents playing cards that are gender-equal -- and diverse

    16-year-old Maayan Segal and her father launched Queeng, a deck of cards that represents gender equality and includes a range of racial and cultural identities. The first iteration sold over 50,000 decks but was re-designed after critics cited the lack of racial diversity. The hand-drawn cards include a range of skin tones and facial features, and king cards are replaced by male and female “Monarch” cards, "Dutchess" or "Duke" cards replace queen cards, and "Prince" or "Princess" cards replace jack cards. There are also female jokers. Five days after its release, Queeng 2.0 already sold over 4,000 decks.

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  • After crime plummeted in 2020, Baltimore will stop drug, sex prosecutions

    When Baltimore prosecutors stopped prosecuting most lower-level crimes to ease jail crowding during the pandemic, they discovered that making many fewer arrests did not fuel a crime wave. In fact, crime dropped substantially, counter to what most other cities experienced during the same time. The experiment showed that not prosecuting for drug possession, prostitution, trespassing, and other minor offenses has minimal, if not positive, effects on crime. The policy was made permanent and officials will now connect people with needed health and social services instead of jailing them.

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  • Taking cops out of traffic stops: Would it make a difference? North Carolina examples offer a clue

    For four years, Fayetteville, N.C., police virtually banned their officers from making traffic stops for petty violations having nothing to do with traffic safety, but increased their enforcement of speeding, red-light, and drunken driving violations. During that time, traffic fatalities decreased. So did the use of force by police, complaints about the police, and injuries to drivers and police. About half as many Black drivers' cars were searched. Unnecessary traffic stops can strain police-community relations and show bias against non-white drivers.

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