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Philadelphia is fighting street violence through hospital and doctor visits

Dominique “Peak” Johnson

October 25, 2021 |

WURD |

Radio |

Under 3 Minutes

Response Location: United States, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Healing Hurt People helps the survivors of gun violence and other assaults starting bedside in hospitals and continuing during a patient's recovery. The group, partnering with other services providers, treats mental trauma with cognitive therapies led by peer counselors – people with the street credibility that earns trust among the young people who are the target of these services. When people better understand their experience, they can learn from it and find safer, healthier ways to live.

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In Arizona, a radical change in juvenile detention

Ruxandra Guidi

September 20, 2021 |

High Country News |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, St. Johns, Arizona

Unrealistic fears of a wave of youth violence left rural Apache County, Colorado, with an unused, costly youth detention facility. So the local courts decided to refashion the empty jail into the Loft Legacy Teen Center, an after-school hangout offering a "care-first" approach to teen problems. Mentors and a truancy prevention program help youth avoid trouble and get educations. Youth arrests have dropped, though that might also be credited to the state's risk-assessment tool that is meant to guard against overuse of punishment.

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Where Juvenile Detention Looks More Like Teens Hanging Out

Ruxandra Guidi

September 13, 2021 |

70 Million |

Podcast |

Over 15 Minutes

Response Location: United States, St. Johns, Arizona

Apache County, Arizona, once had a costly, under-used juvenile detention center and a traditional philosophy that stern punishment would steer young people away from misbehavior. Now the abandoned detention center is The Loft Legacy Teen Center, an after-school hangout with mentors, connections to social services, and a place where youth can go to socialize – a rare commodity in this rural community. It's run and staffed by the court system and its probation department. But its methods are love and support, not threats of arrest and incarceration. Juvenile arrests are now way down.

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Stopping Gun Violence, One Youth at a Time

Julie Reynolds Martinez

September 09, 2021 |

The Imprint |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Salinas, California

For more than 10 years, a pair of programs helped make major reductions in youth violence in Monterey County and the Salinas Valley by targeting the small number of people at highest risk of committing violence. That targeting led to a combination of law enforcement threats and social services help in the county's Group Violence Intervention program. When the money and enthusiasm for that dwindled, the strategy shifted to more carrot than stick, using the Advance Peace model of providing services to youth to put their lives on firmer footing.

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This Experiential Learning Farm Helps Youth Build a Better World

Ambika Chawla

September 09, 2021 |

Yes! Magazine |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Columbia, Maryland

Low-income communities of color have less access to nature, they experience "nature deprivation" at a rate three times higher than white people. Regular access to the outdoors improves respiratory health, physical fitness, cognitive functioning, and psychological well-being. The Freetown Farm was conceived as a place where all people can experience nature. Its exposing young people of all backgrounds to nature. Through its year-long internship program learned how to plant food, among other things.

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As homicides surged, Oakland's premier anti-violence program went quiet

Rachel Swan

September 07, 2021 |

San Francisco Chronicle |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Oakland, California

Oakland Ceasefire's "delicate architecture" balancing law enforcement and community-based responses to gun violence, which seemed to have helped lower the city's gun violence by half since 2012, came crashing down during the pandemic. While arrests continued, the alternative offered to people at high risk of violence – an array of services to turn their lives around – withered with a virtual ban on in-person meetings. Violence in the city surged as years of progress unraveled. The program is working to rebuild, while questioning if it should distance itself more from the police.

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King County's rise in gun violence doesn't have an easy explanation

Nate Sanford

September 01, 2021 |

Crosscut |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Seattle, Washington

Community Passageways does the kind of violence intervention work that the city of Seattle plans to invest in to expand its reach. Peer mentors reach out to young men at highest risk of suffering or committing violence. They mediate disputes and counsel the men on finding work and staying clear of criminal trouble. While this group has made progress in connecting people to jobs and other help, its effects on Seattle's recent surge in gun violence are unknown. Similar programs elsewhere, focusing on the same sets of conditions that cause much community violence, have been shown to be effective.

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Greensboro's Cure Violence program promotes healing over policing to prevent gun violence

Sayaka Matsuoka

September 01, 2021 |

Triad City Beat |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Greensboro, North Carolina

Greensboro's version of the Cure Violence program, called Gate City Coalition, has helped reduce homicides nearly to zero in the two neighborhoods where it operates. At a time of escalated gun violence, the Cure Violence approach seems to be working by mediating disputes before they turn violent, counseling against retaliation, and attacking the root causes of violence by helping residents connect with needed services. This "work on the whole individual" approach is based on the outreach workers' credibility in the community, as an alternative to the police.

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Since when is being a teenager a crime?

Eda Uzunlar

August 07, 2021 |

Reveal |

Illustrations |

Under 800 Words

Response Location: United States, Wyoming

Neighboring states of Wyoming and South Dakota take starkly different approaches toward youth who get in trouble. Side-by-side comic panels follow two real cases through each system. A South Dakota teen gets help that steers her off a destructive path. A Wyoming teen gets punished, and ends up in a downward spiral of more trouble and more punishment. Both states once had relatively high youth incarceration rates. Now only one of them, Wyoming, does: the second-worst in the U.S., and three times the national average.

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Could this reentry program be the key to less gun violence in Philly?

Jo Piazza

August 05, 2021 |

The Philadelphia Citizen |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Philadelphia Youth Sentencing & Reentry Project started an intergenerational healing circle in 2020 that brought together young men with older men who served decades in prison, after being sentenced as youth. As a form of group therapy combined with life-skills coaching, going from old to young and vice versa, the group fostered a sense of personal growth and hope in participants – all aimed at lowering people's likelihood to commit violence. The results, as intangible as they may seem, inspired a repeat of the group in 2021, and the addition of a group serving younger and older women.

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