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 785 results for your search. View and Refine Your Search Terms

NYPD Study: Implicit Bias Training Changes Minds, Not Necessarily Behavior

Martin Kaste

September 10, 2020 |

NPR |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, New York, New York

After all 36,000 New York Police Department officers took required training in recognizing implicit racial bias, more officers understood how racism may increase officers' aggressiveness but there was no evidence that this awareness translated into a less racially disparate outcome in the numbers of people stopped and frisked. Since the protests of police bias that started in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014, most states have imposed mandatory implicit-bias training on police. NYPD's study is a rare measurement of the effects such training can have.

Read More
Go to Original Story
Portland's High Stakes Experiment to Shrink the Role of Police in Fighting Gun Violence

Casey Parks

September 10, 2020 |

The Trace |

Text |

Over 3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Portland, Oregon

Two years after reorganizing a police gun-enforcement unit to focus it on an evidence-based approach to preventing retaliatory shootings, Portland city leaders abolished the unit in a round of police budget cuts and failed to reinvest that money in community-based alternatives that don't rely on the police. The result, criminologists say, is a worst-case scenario: a policing reform that creates a vacuum and could be to blame for an alarming spike in gun violence. The most effective solutions, they say, blend effective policing with proven community-based programs.

Read More
Go to Original Story
Call police for a woman who is changing clothes in an alley? A new program in Denver sends mental health professionals instead.

Elise Schmelzer

September 06, 2020 |

The Denver Post |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Denver, Colorado

To avoid unnecessary arrests and reduce police-public friction, Denver's STAR program (Support Team Assistance Response) sends a mental health professional and a paramedic to some mental-health-related 911 calls instead of sending police. In the first three months of the pilot program, the STAR team – covering only certain areas of the city during weekdays – handled 350 calls without needing police backup. STAR builds on a 4-year-old program pairing Denver police with mental health professionals. That program handled 2,223 calls in 2019 and is expanding.

Read More
Go to Original Story
In CAHOOTS in Oregon

Taylor Perse

September 04, 2020 |

Voices of Monterey Bay |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Eugene, Oregon

Oregon's CAHOOTS program has succeeded in replacing police on many mental-health crisis calls over its 30-year history because it is integrated in a larger system of services, including law enforcement. CAHOOTS' crisis workers, who cover the cities of Eugene and Springfield with three vans taking dozens of calls for help a day, come to their jobs with expertise as EMTs, nurses, or social workers. Then they spend 500 hours of training in crisis management and de-escalation, learning to offer help without forcing it, and without the threat of arrest except in the few cases when police backup is needed.

Read More
Go to Original Story
Drones Have Earned Their Place in Small-Town Wisconsin

Jed Pressgrove

September 04, 2020 |

Government Technology |

Text |

Under 800 Words

Response Location: United States, Linn, Wisconsin

A drone program has helped the small town of Linn find missing people, rescue people in medical distress, and find multiple drowning victims in the town's lake. Police now spend less time conducting searches and have saved lives with their eye in the sky. By carefully developing policies and by practicing transparency, making flight logs public, the town has eased privacy concerns and earned enough community support to pay for the latest drones with donations.

Read More
Go to Original Story
Where Calling the Police Isn't the Only Option

Sarah Holder Kara Harris

September 03, 2020 |

Bloomberg CityLab |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States

As the "defund-the-police" campaign sparks interest in alternatives to police-only responses to crises involving mental illness or similar problems, cities as disparate as Eugene, Oregon, and Stockholm serve as exemplars of ways to handle thousands of calls per year without involving the police. Like Eugene's CAHOOTS program, Stockholm's Psykiatrisk Akut Mobilitet (PAM) sends mental health and medical professionals to help people suffering mental crises. Now Oakland, Portland, Denver, New York, and other cities are exploring how to customize such programs to their own communities' needs.

Read More
Go to Original Story
Interest in Community Police Watch Training Soars as Courses Go Online

Meka Boyle

September 02, 2020 |

San Francisco Public Press |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, San Francisco, California

Groups in the Bay Area that have successfully sought to have police disciplined for misconduct and won new police-accountability policies have turned their form of organized monitoring into a training platform for protesters nationwide. Responding to widespread Black Lives Matter protests, groups like Berkeley Copwatch and Wecopwatch use online education to teach hundreds of activists nationwide how to use videotape archives to systematically document abuses, and how to perform the work of legal observers at protests. Those activities are meant to act as deterrents to abuse.

Read More
Go to Original Story
New York Police Change Attitudes After Implicit-Bias Training

Ben Chapman

August 30, 2020 |

Wall Street Journal |

Text |

Under 800 Words

Response Location: United States, New York, New York

Mandatory implicit-bias training for all New York Police Department officers influenced the thinking and behavior of a majority of the department, but there is no proof that it reduced racial and ethnic disparities in the department's enforcement practices. A survey conducted after the $5.5 million, 2018-19 training program found that 70% of officers reported a better understanding of the problem and 58% said they attempted to put the coaching they received into practice. The training was aimed at increasing officers' awareness of their racial biases in order to improve relations with the community.

Read More
Go to Original Story
Can Prosecutors Be Taught to Avoid Jail Sentences?

Tina Rosenberg

August 25, 2020 |

The New York Times |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Columbus, Ohio

A nonprofit consulting firm, Prosecutor Impact, advances the cause of reducing incarceration and related reforms by helping reform-minded elected district attorneys confront one of the greatest obstacles to change: their own staff's opposition. In Columbus, a two-week curriculum educated front-line prosecutors about local services that can serve as problem-solving alternatives to punishment. It also taught them about poverty's challenges and engaged them in dialogue with prisoners, to make them more open to alternative approaches, which a local defense lawyer says was successful.

Read More
Go to Original Story
Don't Call The Cops — Call CAHOOTS

Kate Archer Kent

August 13, 2020 |

Wisconsin Public Radio |

Radio |

Over 15 Minutes

Response Location: United States, Eugene, Oregon

In Eugene and Springfield, highly trained, unarmed mobile crisis response teams get dispatched by their cities' public-safety 911 systems to behavioral-health crises that do not require a police response. The 24/7 service, now in its 32nd year in Eugene, saves tens of millions of dollars per year by diverting cases from the criminal justice system and emergency-room care while defusing potentially violent interactions and getting people the care they need rather than the care imposed on them.

Read More
Go to Original Story