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What California can learn from Seattle about police shootings

Laurel Rosenhall

October 26, 2019 |

CalMatters |

Podcast |

Over 15 Minutes

Response Location: United States, Seattle, Washington

Seattle has taken a comprehensive approach to police reform, including forming a community police commission, the development of policies on appropriate weapon use, more oversight on police force, and the creation of a specialty unit that focuses on mental health. While there has been pushback from officers, the safety of officers hasn’t been compromised and the use of force has decreased by sixty percent. With some calling it a success, California seeks to implement similar reform at the state level.

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The Kim Foxx Effect: How Prosecutions Have Changed in Cook County

Matt Daniels

October 24, 2019 |

The Marshall Project |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Chicago, Illinois

In her first two and a half years in office as Chicago’s top prosecutor, Kim Foxx lived up to her campaign pledge to prosecute fewer low-level crimes, divert drug cases to treatment, and focus more on gun violence. An analysis of an unprecedented data release shows that Foxx’s office turned away more than 5,000 cases, mostly shoplifting and drug offenses, based on her vow to stop over-criminalizing behavior in ways that ruin lives. Meanwhile, her office prosecuted more gun crimes. Police complained her policies will increase crime, but in the short term at least there was no evidence that they had.

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Flock Safety Says Its License Plate Readers Reduce Crime. It's Not That Simple

Louise Matsakis

October 24, 2019 |

Wired |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Austell, Georgia

Cobb County, Georgia installed new license plate surveillance technology, loaned to them by the Atlanta-based company, Flock Safety. After installation, the test area saw a dramatic decrease in crime, to which Flock took credit for but experts say the connection could be due to a number of things. Furthermore, while surveillance technology has been correlated with decreased crime, communities have called into question issues of personal privacy versus public safety.

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A Police Department's Difficult Assignment: Atonement

Michael Friedrich

October 23, 2019 |

Bloomberg CityLab |

Text |

Over 3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Stockton, California

The city of Stockton police department has embarked on a number of initiatives in the hopes of building trust between them and the communities they work for. With initial funding from the Department of Justice, the department began truth-and-reconciliation processes, including workshops, departmental reforms, public apologies, and community conversations. Actual reconciliation is hard to measure, and yet their efforts to atone for their part in historic and systemic racism have shown positive results.

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In Cahoots: How the unlikely pairing of cops and hippies became a national model

Tatiana Parafiniuk-Talesnick

October 20, 2019 |

The Register-Guard |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Eugene, Oregon

Long before CAHOOTS became a national model for replacing police on some 911 calls with mobile crisis-response teams of medics and counselors, it represented an "odd marriage of police resources and counterculture philosophies." The acronym for Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets is in fact a sly reference to White Bird Clinic's hippies "in cahoots" with cops. But the police have long since made their peace with the service, which spends a tiny fraction of what it costs to run Eugene's police department while handling a large share of non-violent crises involving homelessness and mental health.

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How Baltimore CeaseFire Cuts Violence In Half

Jaisal Noor

October 17, 2019 |

The Real News Network |

Broadcast TV Programs |

Over 15 Minutes

Response Location: United States, Baltimore, Maryland

The Baltimore Ceasefire movement -- which asks community members to put away their guns for specific weekends -- began in 2017 when its organizers had enough of the gun violence in their city. Now, the ceasefire weekends, which happen 4 times a year, have resulted in 30-60% fewer gun-related deaths during designated weekends.

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How a Silicon Valley Start-up Is Helping Police Get Smarter About Solving Gun Crimes

Alain Stephens

October 15, 2019 |

The Trace |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Oakland, California

Forensic Logic, a Silicon Valley startup, has developed a database called the Law Enforcement Analysis Portal (LEAP) that collects, streamlines, and analyzes police data in one, centralized digital portal. With forensic and other law enforcement data often being fragmented and siloed, LEAP gives access to information otherwise unavailable to thousands of police departments.

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Gun Investigators Cautiously Optimistic About New Fingerprint Technology

Ann Givens

October 11, 2019 |

The Trace |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: England, Loughborough

A collaboration between England’s Loughborough University, the UK’s Ministry of Defence, and a company called Foster + Freeman has led to a new technology that can pull fingerprints from shell casings. What was once a nearly impossible task, is showing promise, as police departments across the United States try out the new technology. That said, there are still some questions about its efficacy and ability to stand up as evidence in court.

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Gun Reform is on the Agenda. But Victims of Color Aren't.

Champe Barton

October 09, 2019 |

The Trace |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Washington, District of Columbia

With gun reform being a key legislative topic, the majority of time, energy, and resources have focused on preventing mass shootings, which amount to just 2-3% of gun-related homicides. The rest affect majority communities of color, which policy, lobbying, and reform efforts have largely ignored. Even with local violence-reduction efforts like Oakland’s LIVE FREE focused deterrence or a Chicago school’s focus on cognitive behavioral therapy showing impact, the allotted resources at the federal level continue to pass them by.

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Do Deportations Lower Crime? Not According to the Data

Anna Flagg

September 23, 2019 |

The Marshall Project |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Nashville, Tennessee

A federal deportation program called Secure Communities has been around off and on since 2008, and is a collaboration between local law enforcement agencies and federal immigration like Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). While responding to a perceived connection between illegal immigration and crime, the heavy-handed approach to deportation hasn’t actually had any effect on crime rates, recent studies have shown. The research has also fact-checked another myth about the program – that it helps police solve crimes better – which hasn’t proven to have any distinct correlation.

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