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Decades of Data Suggest Racial Profiling is Getting Worse, Not Better

Mike Sherry Mary Sanchez

October 28, 2020 |

Flatland |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Missouri

In 2000, Missouri passed one of the nation's first and most comprehensive laws aimed at ending racial profiling by police in traffic stops. But racial disparities have grown worse since then, with Black drivers far more likely than white drivers to be stopped and searched. The law relies on data collection to air the problem, which in turn was supposed to spur more reforms. But the state's lackluster efforts to enforce the law and lack of follow through on other reforms has turned the annual data gathering into "little more than exercises in futility."

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The ambitious effort to piece together America's fragmented health data

Nicole Wetsman

October 19, 2020 |

The Verge |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States

The uncertainty surrounding COVID-19 and the health impacts it may have for different people prompted doctors from across the U.S. to create a national patient database to better study and understand how the virus interacts with other underlying conditions. Although the database itself is adaptable and researchers hope it can also be used in the face of future pandemics, they also say "five years from now, the greatest value of this data set won’t be the data. It’ll have been the methods that we learned trying to get it working."

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Unlike Vermont, New Hampshire state police don't collect racial data for arrests

Alyssa Dandrea

October 18, 2020 |

Concord Monitor |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, New Hampshire

New Hampshire's official response to nationwide protests of racial bias in policing lacks a critical element: a statewide database showing the race of drivers and passengers in police stops and arrests. Unlike neighboring Vermont, which since 2014 has kept a data-informed eye on racial disparities in policing, New Hampshire officials say they cannot afford to integrate such data from local agencies. Instead, those local agencies are now under a legislative mandate to report what they track to their communities. Advocates say statewide analysis would better inform police training and policies.

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Utah Is Trying To Prevent Gun Suicides. Are Other States Paying Attention?

Heath Druzin

September 29, 2020 |

Boise State Public Radio (KBSX) |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Utah

Concerned about the high numbers of suicides in the state, Utah's local government introduced a three-pronged approach to preventing further suicides that hinged on targeting gun owners and Second Amendment activists. Although there has been some push back along the way, suicide rates have decreased since the state shifted their approach from awareness-only to one that is "data-driven and aims to involve community members from gun store owners to high school sports coaches."

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How They Did It: Collaborating Across a Continent on Latin America's Untold Migrant Stories

Mariana Limón

September 02, 2020 |

Global Investigative Journalism Network |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: Colombia

A cross-border collaborative and investigative journalism effort brought 24 media organizations in 14 countries and more than 40 media professionals to report on the migrants from Asia and Africa who travel every year through Latin America to reach the United States and Canada. Although data was often hard to obtain, an award-winning migration reporter who was not part of the project said it "succeeded in humanizing the migrants, in part because of the multi-formatted way in which the stories were published."

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Interest in Community Police Watch Training Soars as Courses Go Online

Meka Boyle

September 02, 2020 |

San Francisco Public Press |

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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.

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How Many Coronavirus Cases Are Happening In Schools? This Tracker Keeps Count

Simone Popperl Bo Hamby Steve Inskeep

August 28, 2020 |

NPR |

Multi-Media |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Kansas

The National Education Association has launched a school-focused COVID-19 case tracker in the U.S., all thank to the efforts of a Kansas theater teacher. Alisha Morris started with an excel sheet and took to online searches to start logging the number of positive cases, first around her state, and later was tracking 48 U.S. states. By the time she handed off the data to the NEA, Morris, along with various volunteers "had logged over nearly 4,300 cases at more than 1,000 schools."

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AI & Big Data Will Lead to Better Conservation

Jake Bullinger

August 07, 2020 |

Bitterroot |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States

Naturalists are using technology like smartphone cameras and artificial intelligence to better track animal and plant conservation efforts across the United States. The online platform eButterfly allows users to share photos of butterflies that can inform scientists about how certain species’ ranges are shifting. Colorado Parks and Wildlife use a version of AI to identify and count species photographed by camera traps. While, AI could allow scientists to sort through more images and map out more complex ecological relationships, machine-learning algorithms take time to set up and large datasets to train.

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How Europe's Greenest Capital Is Saving City Trees

Edward Belleville

August 03, 2020 |

Next City |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: Germany, Berlin

Cities around the world are using apps and interactive platforms to encourage resident volunteers to care for their urban forests. For example, in Berlin, Gieß den Kiez (Water the Neighborhood) is an app that allows users to watch their local trees and water them in times of need. When the app launched, there were 1,000 unique users and over 7,000 individual tree waterings in the first six weeks. However, the cost of planting and maintaining trees can be expensive and where the trees are located in cities and who benefits from them is not always equitable.

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Giving Police Departments Money to Buy Body Cameras Will Never End Brutality

Tyler Hicks

July 26, 2020 |

Truthout |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Milford, Delaware

Body-worn cameras gained popularity as a potential check on police brutality, but for them to fulfill that purpose, numerous changes in typical public policies are needed, starting with public access to videos and independent oversight of camera policies. Research is inconclusive about whether cameras have changed police conduct, but they have discouraged citizen complaints about police. Other changes that could improve the use of cameras as a police-reform tool include constraining officers' discretion to record and better automated review of reams of stored data.

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