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  • After 'painfully slow' start, restorative justice program tries to reset

    July 17, 2021 |

    Sentinel Source (The Keene Sentinel) |

    Text |

    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, Cheshire County, New Hampshire

    The Cheshire County Restorative Justice Program works to take low-level defendants, accused of things like shoplifting or alcohol violations out of court and into an alternative process, sparing them criminal records that would later weigh them down. The program’s goal is to push the legal system toward restorative justice, reimagining its traditional processes.

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  • Restorative Justice Part 1: Juvenile Court Diversion is Cheap and Effective, But Inconsistent Across NH

    April 20, 2021 |

    Granite State News Collaborative |

    Text |

    Over 3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, New Hampshire

    New Hampshire's 40-year-old system of diverting many juvenile prosecutions away from courts and incarceration, and into community-based restorative justice programs, has saved public money, lowered youth crime rates, and changed lives. By addressing root causes of lower-level offenses, the programs provide treatment to youth who apologize and atone for their offenses, and who then often perform community service projects to erase their arrest record. But there are many fewer resources now than at the program's start, creating an uneven and inequitable patchwork of available services statewide.

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  • Criminalizing Mental Illness, Part 2

    January 14, 2021 |

    KALW |

    Podcast |

    Over 15 Minutes

    Response Location: United States, Los Angeles County, California

    Los Angeles County's Office of Diversion and Reentry has moved about 6,000 people out of jails and into programs providing mental health care, drug treatment, housing, and job training at a cost that is about one-fifth that of incarcerating people with mental illness. Like Eugene, Oregon's CAHOOTS program, ODR provides an alternative to the default model in the U.S. of incarcerating people with such health problems. L.A. County is now shifting as much as $500 million from policing to supportive services because programs like ODR and CAHOOTS fall far short of the actual need.

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  • How Genesee County wants to change criminal justice: A New Juvenile Justice Center

    January 10, 2021 |

    Flint Beat |

    Text |

    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, Flint, Michigan

    A new Juvenile Justice Center that will focus on trauma-informed treatment of children rather than simply jailing them is still more than one year from completion. But, in the years leading to its opening, the county's family courts have cut in half the numbers of children held in detention by emphasizing rehabilitation programs over jail. Many of the services are based on the "Missouri Model" of juvenile justice, which has been shown to reduce incarceration and prevent crime through evidence-based approaches that are more therapeutic than punitive.

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  • How the Criminal Justice System Fails People With Mental Illness

    November 26, 2020 |

    The Intercept |

    Text |

    Over 3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, Tyler, Texas

    Crisis-intervention and de-escalation trainings for police were meant to reform the criminal justice system's handling of people suffering from mental illness. But a lack of rigorous standards in the training and use of these approaches means that they routinely fail as a means of diverting people from arrest and incarceration toward treatment. That failure, combined with a lack of adequate mental-health-care resources, maintains jails' and prisons' role as the nation's de facto mental health care hospitals, even though they lack the will and the means to help people heal.

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  • Alternative sentencing program offers resources for recovery rather than jail time

    November 23, 2020 |

    Richland Source |

    Text |

    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, Mansfield, Ohio

    The Richland County Community Alternative Center provides court-ordered drug and alcohol treatment in lieu of jail for people facing criminal charges related to their addiction. In 60-, 90-, or 120-day treatment terms, patients from across Ohio receive addiction counseling, therapy, work training, and other skills classes. Case managers help prepare people for re-entry when their sentence has been served. The center is run by the courts, which pay for treatment services, which makes it unusual.

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  • Community courts and the homeless: Do these programs make a difference?

    September 05, 2020 |

    The Register-Guard |

    Text |

    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, Oregon

    As an alternative to traditional courts, community courts provide resources to those experiencing homelessness. Fines and jail time are often the punishment in traditional courts for those charged with trespassing or loitering, but community courts provide services that help people find housing, jobs, health care, and even offer mobile showers, food stamp assistance, and mental health care. While the long-term data are lacking and don't offer a clear picture of recidivism rates, community courts do provide a better quality of life for those living on the streets.

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  • Can Prosecutors Be Taught to Avoid Jail Sentences?

    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.

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  • How Bangor drug court participants are getting help staying sober during the pandemic

    June 16, 2020 |

    Bangor Daily News |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United States, Bangor, Maine

    Bangor drug court in Maine has turned to the use of Zoom to keep in contact with program participants during the Covid-19 pandemic. Although meeting via video call can disguise some physical symptoms of drug use, this new process has so far seen success with all participants still enrolled and one even graduating from the program.

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  • Youth Are Flipping an Abandoned North Carolina Prison into a Sustainable Farm

    June 15, 2020 |

    Civil Eats |

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    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, Wagram, North Carolina

    A former North Carolina prison has been reclaimed by the nonprofit Growing Change to teach sustainable farming to youth who otherwise might be doomed to their own prison terms without an effective intervention. The 9-year-old program, while small, is meant to serve as a model for reusing many other shuttered prisons as the nation’s incarceration numbers fall. Boasting positive effects on recidivism, the program’s focus is the racially diverse youth of the rural, impoverished eastern part of the state – the same people who disproportionately get imprisoned.

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