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  • Still Can't Breathe: How NYPD Officers Continue to Use Chokeholds on Civilians

    January 21, 2021 |

    The City |

    Text |

    Over 3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, New York, New York

    New York Police Department banned chokeholds in 1993, to prevent unnecessary injury and death. The practice has been scrutinized especially closely since the 2014 death of Eric Garner. But despite hundreds of complaints alleging the forbidden use of chokeholds, no NYPD officer has been fired for using a chokehold since 2014, nor have any complaints yielded more than some lost vacation time as a penalty. The failure of the policy stems from many causes, including ambiguity in the policy and its enforcement and lack of respect for investigative findings of the Civilian Complaint Review Board.

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  • Where surveillance cameras work but the justice system doesn't

    January 19, 2021 |

    Rest of World |

    Text |

    Over 3000 Words

    Response Location: Mexico, Mexico City

    Mexico City's 11-year-old video surveillance system, one of the most advanced in the world, was a massive investment in public safety: about $660 million to date to cover the city with more than 30,000 cameras and other devices. Like so much else in Mexico's law enforcement apparatus, it has done little to control crime but instead has become a tool of corruption and official impunity. While the cameras have helped keep tourists and elites safer, the vast majority of crimes go unreported and only a tiny number of police investigations benefit from the surveillance system.

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  • Newark cops, with reform, didn't fire a single shot in 2020

    January 10, 2021 |

    NJ Advance Media |

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    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United States, Newark, New Jersey

    In 2020, six years after the Justice Department imposed a series of reforms on the Newark Police Department, Newark police officers have reduced their use of force so much that they didn't fire their guns at all in 2020, nor did the city pay any brutality-lawsuit settlements. Reforms in training, including de-escalation tactics, all backed by supportive leadership and extensive community outreach, turned a "rogue department" of brutality and racism into a more trusted, effective force.

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  • The scramble to archive Capitol insurrection footage before it disappears

    January 08, 2021 |

    MIT Technology Review |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United States

    Several groups are preserving digital content related to the capital insurrection to ensure it is archived in case it gets deleted. A subreddit thread collected thousands of Tweets, Snapchats, and other videos to upload to the cloud, while the Woke Collective ensured the survival of livestreams by publishing them on its own YouTube and Twitch accounts. Efforts to crowdsource the identification of members of the mob include the Instagram account, @homegrownterrorists, and the journalism site, Bellingcat, which invited contributions to a publicly editable Google spreadsheet of links.

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  • Under Biden, the Justice Department is expected to again police the police

    December 29, 2020 |

    The Washington Post |

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    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, East Haven, Connecticut

    After East Haven, Connecticut, police officers were caught harassing residents based on race, the Obama Justice Department took the police department to court and won a consent decree requiring a long list of reforms, in hiring, training, discipline, and use of force. The oversight, rare for a small city, changed the department's culture and won praise from many residents, who now trust the police more. Such federal action waned in the Trump years, but is expected to revive in the Biden administration, though perhaps under a more collaborative, less coercive model.

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  • A secret settlement hid an officer's misconduct. Outside Maine, it would have been different.

    December 09, 2020 |

    Bangor Daily News |

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    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, Colorado

    A Colorado law enacted in 2016 requires law enforcement officers to disclose their past disciplinary records when seeking a new job at a different agency. By making such disclosures automatic, the law standardizes hiring practices statewide, protects past employers from liability for making the disclosures, and most importantly prevents rogue officers from hopping from one job to the next undetected. Maine has no such requirement., and so some of its agencies might unknowingly hire an officer with a record of misconduct.

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  • New Orleans actively releases videos of police shootings. Is it paying off with trust?

    November 23, 2020 |

    The Current (Louisiana) |

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    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, New Orleans, Louisiana

    Once viewed as one of the nation's most brutal and corrupt police departments, New Orleans Police Department has earned steadily improving public support with a host of reforms. One reform that it took voluntarily, and in contrast with common practice in Louisiana, is to quickly release body-camera videos of police shootings and other uses of force. Though its effect is hard to untangle from other initiatives, video releases have become routine. In one case, a video prompted an official apology after proving rubber bullets were used against protesters. This helped lead to new restrictions on crowd control.

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  • Soccer star leads an awakening on child hunger in Britain

    November 23, 2020 |

    The Christian Science Monitor |

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    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United Kingdom

    The pandemic has highlighted the issue of child poverty in England leading to public indignation and the reversal of a government policy that sought to end free meals for children during summer vacation. Professional soccer player Marcus Rashford brought attention to child hunger across the United Kingdom. When the government was slow to provide food, businesses filled the need by sending meals to families facing food insecurity.

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  • 'It gave me hope in democracy': how French citizens are embracing people power

    November 20, 2020 |

    The Guardian |

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    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: France, Paris

    Cities across France are using citizens’ assemblies, where a diverse group of citizens study important issues and make policy recommendations. In Paris, 150 citizens spent nine months working on the climate convention, which resulted in 149 recommendations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030. President Macron pledged more funding and accepted all but three of the proposals. The convention also showed how citizens’ assemblies improve community cohesion and reduce polarization. Ireland, the UK, and Belgium have also successfully used citizens' assemblies to address important social issues.

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  • A Watchdog Accused Officers of Serious Misconduct. Few Were Punished.

    November 15, 2020 |

    The New York Times |

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    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, New York, New York

    New York City established its Civilian Complaint Review board in 1993 to strengthen its police-discipline system, a response to complaints that police officers rarely were punished for harassment and brutality, especially in Black and brown neighborhoods. In 6,900 cases in which the board recommended the toughest punishment, however, police officials overruled it more than 70% of the time over the past two decades. The result is a disciplinary mechanism designed to instill trust but that instead "has become all but toothless" because of how it is structured and how police leaders responded to oversight.

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