Inside the L.A.P.D.'s Experiment in Trust-Based Policing

The Office of Neighborhood Safety in Richmond, CA took a radical new approach to urban violence by creating mechanisms to financially stabilize perpetrators of violent acts in crime-ridden neighborhoods - essentially paying people not to kill. They have been dramatically successful at weening violent criminals off the destructive behavior by using a comprehensive approach that includes using solid data, employing mentors with similar backgrounds to the criminals, and monetary incentives.

Across the country, hospitals are embracing intensive intervention programs to help victims of violence — including those who have criminal histories — after they have been brought in for treatment of injuries. Such programs can help prevent retaliation, reduce the chance a patient will be violently injured again, and put people on track for success.

The Centre for the Prevention of Radicalization Leading to Violence in Quebec has expanded rapidly, becoming a model for programs around the world. What sets it apart from projects in Europe and the United States is that it confronts extremism of all stripes — not just Islamist — and focuses on behavior that signals the risk of violence, not just radical ideas, only involving law enforcement as a last resort.

For women looking to acquire new jobs skills, access to childcare can transform their opportunities. Generations Advancing Together through Education is a Boston-based program that provides job training for women along with free childcare, with the goal of placing the women in higher-paid employment. So far, 45 women have benefitted from the program.

Police departments across the United States are implementing strategies and reforms in response to the growing number of unsolved criminal cases. With cold cases often linked to declined trust in police and the undermining of wellbeing in, typically urban, neighborhoods, these reforms are seeking to reverse course.

Since Camden began addressing its high homicide rate in 2012 with closer collaboration with the community and stricter rules on the use of force, both murders and complaints about police have fallen dramatically. As part of what is considered some of the most extensive police reforms in the country, the city put more police on the streets. That had both good outcomes (interactions outside of crises) and bad (a troubling increase in low-level arrests). But, when many cities’ police-brutality protests in 2020 turned violent, Camden’s did not.

To replace lost business and keep their employees on staff, Tasmanian businesses quickly diversified into new product lines to meet COVID-19-related demand. A camera accessories firm that saw nearly all of its sales to the film and TV industries dry up became a manufacturer of face shields. A plastic manufacturer increased its business by turning out acrylic counter-top protective screens. And a whiskey distillery began producing 2,000 liters of hand sanitizer per week.

More than 2,700 police departments in the U.S. have crisis intervention teams aimed at responding to mental health crises with fewer arrests and less violence, but the death of Daniel Prude in Rochester police custody offers clear lessons in the shortcomings and misuse of the CIT model. A lack of adequate mental health services across the country, coupled with superficial training of the police, too often means a police response to a crisis will not de-escalate the situation or lead to meaningful help for the person in crisis. A recent study found CITs have not shown they will lower violence.

Frustrated by a tight labor market, two locally owned Grand Rapids employers discovered the virtues – economic, not just moral – of hiring formerly incarcerated people, whose gratitude for an opportunity translated into excellent performance and less risk of adding to rapid turnover. The employers helped guarantee success by paying for support services that made post-prison transitions easier. The employers then talked hundreds of other local employers into doing the same. Besides providing a business advantage, the program changes lives and is evidently contributing to much lower rates of recidivism.

Employers like the St. Partick Clinic in South Sudan are hiring based on attitude and trainability instead of technical skills and knowledge to find employees that are trustworthy and reliable.