The ex-monk and the Thai sex mafia: helping victims find another way

In the past, Los Angeles was a dangerous city fraught with gang wars. Lately, though, LA has become a safer city due to six changes enforced by the police cracking down on public violence and gangs.

Chicago is curbing homicides through an anti-violence initiative that uses social networks to rank people’s likelihood of killing and being killed. Police then do home visits and have personal conversations with people of high risk to inform them of consequences of future crimes.

Post-traumatic stress has dire consequences for U.S. veterans, including an increase in suicide, and not all therapeutic treatments for the disorder have succeeded. To treat and potentially cure the effects of PTSD, the Center for Mind-Body Awareness offers veterans Buddhist-inspired meditation, and mindfulness, as well as skills to develop creative expression.

Patients' last years of life are the most expensive for the health care system. For a fifth of the cost, a Zen hospice program, in San Francisco, is helping those who are dying improve their quality of death by enjoying the present.

In a year that has seen murder rise in New York, locals are trying to mediate between gang members, in part by using "violence interrupters," who are trained to break cycles of violence.

India’s television serials are ubiquitous and wildly influential, bringing families of every background together every night. For some producers and screenwriters, that reach comes with responsibility, as they use their medium to fight rape and gendered violence.

Palm Beach County, Florida has many of the same social problems that Philadelphia has, including “gangs, drugs, and poverty.” However, their school system has managed to keep students safe by employing “safe-school case managers” who build relationships with students, and they offer a youth court that is a system run by students who peer-review cases of unrest. The initiatives in this county has prevented school violence from happening without metal detectors and just two police officers.

Project Longevity, a program aimed at reducing violence by gang and group members, has had a positive impact in reducing shootings and homicides in New Haven, according to a study by Yale University sociologists.

Crushing poverty and extreme violence - fueled by drug trafficking and police corruption - are behind a mass migration of Central American children to the United States in recent months that has overwhelmed U.S. border resources and driven illegal immigration to the fore in U.S. congressional elections. But the United Nations has praised Nicaragua's security model, which includes social services to help youths in gangs find jobs as well as sport programs like little-league baseball teams.

The anti-violence program at a YMCA in Chicago has war veterans mentoring young gang members as a treatment for the mental and physical wounds of violence. The gang members have healthy role models and the veterans a new sense of purpose.