Story Search Results

Advanced Search

There are so many ways to search the solutions journalism stories in this database. Explore our searchable fields:

Search Results

You searched for: -

There are 1308 results for your search. View and Refine Your Search Terms

HBCU student media confronts local news bias

Alexis Wray

February 02, 2021 |

Scalawag |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Greensboro, North Carolina

In 2018, The A&T Register, the online student-run newspaper for North Carolina A&T State University, the largest Black university in the country, conducted a media investigation. It examined the way local media wrote headlines that associated the university with crime. They examined headlines that fell into two categories; those that used the campus as a locator for crime, or headlines that based outdated affiliations. Then, the editor-in-chief, Alexis Wray, presented their findings to local outlets hoping to effect change. They did. Their investigation led to changes in future headlines.

Read More
Go to Original Story
In the first six months of health care professionals replacing police officers, no one they encountered was arrested

David Sachs

February 02, 2021 |

Denverite |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Denver, Colorado

Denver's STAR (Support Team Assisted Response) program deliberately reduces potentially violent encounters between uniformed police officers and troubled people by responding to certain low-level crises with a mental health clinician and a medic. In STAR's first six months, the team offered 748 people help rather than jail, without requiring any arrests to resolve problems. With more resources, the team could have handled more than 2,500 incidents. The police chief supports the program's expansion, saying it frees his officers to handle more serious matters.

Read More
Go to Original Story
How New York Quietly Ended Its Street Drug War

Max Daly

February 01, 2021 |

Vice |

Text |

Over 3000 Words

Response Location: United States, New York, New York

From 2009 through 2019, street arrests for drug possession and sales fell by 80% in New York City, sparing hundreds of thousands of people harsh incarceration terms while defying warnings that more lenient enforcement of low-level drug crimes would wreak havoc on the city. The reforms came about because of persistent advocacy by groups opposed to racially disparate enforcement and its social harms, as well as legislative and court-imposed limits on punishment and stop-and-frisk policing. Now ticketing rather than arrest is used far more often for all types of drugs.

Read More
Go to Original Story
Cops, crisis calls and conflict over who should help

David Kroman Sara Bernard

January 28, 2021 |

Crosscut |

Podcast |

Over 15 Minutes

Response Location: United States, Seattle, Washington

Seattle Police Department's crisis response team answers some of the city's many 911 calls for people in distress, pairing police trained in handling such calls with mental health professionals. The aim is to counter the default policing approach to problems that usually involve mental illness or substance abuse, which is to control people. It doesn't always work, due to the complexity of the calls, the nature of policing, and the department's limited resources devoted to the program. But, when it works, it can help rather than escalate situations, and avoid the ultimate failure, the use of excessive force.

Read More
Go to Original Story
Worker-Owned Cooperatives are Building Their Own Investment Network

Oscar Perry Abello

January 28, 2021 |

Next City |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States

Cooperatives are getting the funding they need through a “nationwide network of loans funds and incubators that specialize in supporting and investing in cooperative businesses.” Coops lack access to traditional funding and are typically member funded. The new source of funding has allowed historically marginalized Black and Hispanic communities the opportunity to create coops where workers share ownership equally.

Read More
Go to Original Story
Seattle Cut Its Police Budget. Now the Public Will Decide How To Spend the Money.

Manjeet Kaur

January 28, 2021 |

The Appeal |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Seattle, Washington

Since 2017, Seattle residents have had a direct say in how some city money is spent on neighborhood projects. It's a form of "participatory budgeting" that has been spreading from Brazil through many U.S. cities. After the 2020 racial justice protests, King County Equity Now, Decriminalize Seattle, and other groups spent several months calling for a budget that takes money from policing and invests in "true public health and safety" projects. After eight weeks of hearings, the city agreed to put $30 million – $12 million cut from police – into a citizen-controlled safety budget.

Read More
Go to Original Story
An Oregon city's decades-old alternative to police

David Kroman Sara Bernard

January 28, 2021 |

Crosscut |

Podcast |

Over 15 Minutes

Response Location: United States, Eugene, Oregon

Like many cities, Seattle is looking to Eugene, Oregon, for a model to shift resources from police to unarmed crisis responders handling 911 calls about mental health, addiction, family conflict, and other non-criminal problems. Eugene's CAHOOTS program has been doing such work for half a century, and since 1989 sending medic-and-counselor teams on calls. In 2019 it saved $8 million in police costs and $14 million for ambulances and emergency room visits. But, while taking police out of situations where they might cause more problems than they solve, it's only as good as its region's social services.

Read More
Go to Original Story
"We're not just relics of the past": How #NativeTikTok is preserving Indigenous cultures and inspiring a younger generation

Li Cohen

January 28, 2021 |

CBS News |

Multi-Media |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: Navajo Nation, United States

Native and Indigenous individuals are using TikTok to share aspects of their traditions, challenge stereotypes, and empower young people to be proud of their culture. The videos range from instructional, teaching people indigenous languages or dance, to putting a "cultural spin" on trending content. The hashtag #NativeTikTok has over 1.3 billion views and users comment that the videos help them feel more connected to and proud of their cultures. The videos follow the tradition of preserving culture through storytelling and offer positive representations of Native and Indigenous people and their cultures.

Read More
Go to Original Story
More Than 1,000 Open Prostitution Cases In Brooklyn Are Going To Be Wiped From The Files

Otillia Steadman

January 28, 2021 |

Buzzfeed |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, New York, New York

The Brooklyn district attorney is prosecuting few prostitution cases and has dismissed 262 cases that he and sex worker advocates say are a byproduct of law enforcement unfairly targeting trans women and women of color. The DA is working toward dismissing more than 1,000 cases and declining to prosecute all new cases. While legislative action is needed to achieve full decriminalization and to void the 25,000 criminal records that date to 1975 in Brooklyn, the DA exercised his discretion based on the harm done by arresting women for sex work and on related loitering charges.

Read More
Go to Original Story
SC law enforcement agencies are supposed to report info on traffic stops, but most are not

Daniel J. Gross

January 28, 2021 |

The Greenville News |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, South Carolina

After the South Carolina legislature in 2005 began requiring police to enforce a seat-belt law with traffic stops, it imposed on all police departments a duty to track and report traffic-stop data on drivers' race. The law was meant as a way to prevent biased policing, through public disclosure of disparities. But only about one-third of the state's law enforcement agencies have consistently complied with the law, and some never have. Some blame ignorance of how the system should work. But another explanation is the state has done little or nothing to enforce the law.

Read More
Go to Original Story