Using AI as a Weapon Against Overfishing, A New Approach to Helping Homeless Addicts and More

 
How AI Can Help Keep Ocean Fisheries Sustainable, Fast Company
Overfishing is a huge threat to global ecosystems, but experts are taking a cue from Silicon Valley to find a solution. By mounting cameras on fishing boats and using the same facial recognition tech that Facebook uses to identify people in photos, scientists can classify different fish species and help root out illegal harvests.
A Sober Utopia, Pacific Standard
A new program in Colorado takes a radical approach to helping homeless addicts — giving them the freedom to rebuild their lives on their own terms. Housed in Fort Lyon (ironically, a former prison), the program is a mix of rehab, university and startup, with many residents pursuing creative interests and building businesses as they become sober.
Inside LAX’s New Anti-Terrorism Intelligence Unit, The Atlantic
With 75 million travelers passing through its terminals every year, LAX is one of the most vulnerable terrorist targets in the U.S. But the airport behemoth has built an intelligence team from the ground up with analytic capabilities that “rival the agencies of a small nation-state.” The team’s innovative approach to fighting terrorism could signal a larger shift in the way global infrastructure sites protect themselves — building their own intelligence units when “the FBI, CIA, and Homeland Security [are] simply not good enough.”
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A Possible Path to Ending Smartphone Addiction, Diagnosing Journalism’s Cynicism Problem and More

 
The Binge Breaker, The Atlantic
Prompted by a never-ending stream of vibrating notifications, the average person checks their smartphone at least 150 times a day. As an alternative to severing all ties to technology, the advocacy group Time Well Spent, co-founded by former Google employee Tristan Harris, is working to convince software companies to find their conscience and halt the psychological tricks that keep us hooked on screen time.
When Reportage Turns to Cynicism, The New York Times
The media’s been blamed for paving Donald Trump’s path to the White House, with hours of free airtime during the primaries and false equivalences during the general election. But two reporters pinpoint another problem with the business: Journalism focuses too narrowly on what’s going wrong. If news organizations were to practice “solutions journalism” (like much of what you’ll find here at NationSwell) and share what’s working, we might place more faith in our institutions to fix problems.
Shuttered State Prisons Spring Back to Life, Stateline
As mass incarceration continues to decline, the nation’s correctional facilities are emptying out. What to do with 150 state prisons we no longer need? Some governments are flipping the properties over to businesses and nonprofits. In Illinois, two juvenile prisons will be converted to reentry centers for adult inmates, while in California, medical marijuana growers believe a lockup (once teeming with drug dealers) could make a perfect greenhouse.

The Room Full of Recliners That’s Saving the Lives of Drug Addicts, An Investment in the Poor That Pays Off and More

 
Overwhelmed by Overdoses, Clinic Offers a Room for Highs, Boston Globe
The number one cause of death among Boston’s homeless? Opioid use. Overdoses are such a common occurrence that they disrupt workers’ daily tasks at Boston Healthcare for the Homeless Program. In response, the organization is making a drastic, controversial move: opening a room where addicts can come down from their highs while under medical supervision. Some claim that it’s a plan that will simply enable users; others, including the Boston Public Health Commission and the Massachusetts Society of Addiction Medicine, believe it’s an effective way to get the drug pandemic under control and reduce the number of fatalities.
Free Money Lifts People out of Poverty, and That’s an Investment That Pays for Itself, Tech Insider
Despite America’s vast wealth, more than one in five children grow up in poverty in this country. While many believe that giving the less-fortunate money increases laziness, North Carolina discovered that Cherokee tribe members receiving up to $6,000 a year from casino revenue gave parents the ability to save money and pay bills on time — all the while continuing to work the same amount as they previously did. Not only that, their children experienced a reduction in mental health problems, fewer behavioral problems and improved performance in school.
Crowdsourcing the Future of a Social Movement, Stanford Social Innovation Review
You’ve probably heard the popular saying, There’s no “I” in team. While running a major crowdsourcing campaign, funders and nonprofit leaders in the LGBTQ community learned just how powerful collaboration is at maintaining social progress. More than 14,000 ideas were collected from residents of all 50 states, creating a vast data set about LGBTQ issues — something that’s cost prohibitive for one organization to source, but that will help guide the entire movement for years to come.

Why Youthful Indiscretions Shouldn’t Result in Jail Sentences, How to Save Babies Born with Opioid Addictions and More

 
A Prosecutor’s Vision For A Better Justice System, TED
Adam Foss, a prosecutor with the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office in Boston, recently asked a group of TED participants how many had ever drank underage, tried an illegal drug, shoplifted or gotten into a physical fight. While viewed by most as youthful indiscretions, these same offenses often land black and brown youth in criminal court, viewed as being dangerous to society. Which is why Foss is using prosecutorial discretion to dismiss minor cases that aren’t worthy of a criminal record.
Tiny Opioid Patients Need Help Easing Into Life, Kaiser Health News and NPR
In this country, addiction to heroin and prescription painkillers like hydrocodone, oxycodone or morphine continues to rise, even afflicting new moms. During pregnancy, these mothers must decide between getting clean and risking a miscarriage or delivering a baby that’s likely to experience drug withdrawal. With about 21,000 infants suffering from withdrawal each year, doctors in Rhode Island, nurses in Connecticut, researchers in Pennsylvania and public health officials in Ohio are all working on solutions to help these new families.

Website Seeks to Make Government Data Easier to Sift Through, New York Times
Just because the government releases endless pages of data to the public doesn’t mean it’s easy to turn those statistics into something that you can actually comprehend and use. DataUSA, an open source brainchild coming from the M.I.T. Media Lab, organizes and visualizes the information, presenting it in charts, graphs and written synopses. Thanks to this project, instead of just hearing a statistic of how many people in Flint, Mich., live in poverty, for example,  you can see it visually represented on a map.

Drug-Addicted Veterans Find Compassion in a Surprising Place

It goes without saying that prescription drug abuse is a growing problem in this country. A whopping 52 million Americans over the age of 12 have used prescription drugs non-medically, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. In some cases, former service members among those addicted. They return home from war injured and are prescribed powerful painkillers; some struggle to wean themselves off the drugs and end up in trouble with the law.
Judge Robert T. Russell Jr. of the City Court in Buffalo, New York thinks vets in this situation deserve special consideration. Which is why, back in 2008, he established a special veterans’ treatment court and joined the nonprofit Veterans Healing Initiative.
There are now 131 courts for veterans suffering from drug addiction across the country like the one Judge Russell started. “It’s a vicious irony, as the soldier who served his country honorably is hooked on drugs by a military doctor and then the system tosses them aside,” Judge Craig Trebilcock, a colonel in the Army reserves who serves at the York County court, told Michael Smerconish of the Olean Times Herald.
One soldier the court helped is 29-year-old Justin Slesser. Nine years ago, he served in Iraq and was twice-injured due to falls from vehicles during his time overseas. After returning home, the Percocet he was prescribed for his pain wasn’t helping, so the Veterans Affairs doctors supplemented it with OxyContin. Like many others, Slesser became addicted to the drugs and when the doctors cut off his supplies, he started using heroin.
Slesser committed various crimes and wound up in the court of Judge Trebilcock, who sentenced him to a veterans treatment program. With its assistance, Slesser consolidated and addressed his legal troubles, got clean, and received treatment for his PTSD. “Without the veterans court, I’d probably be dead,” Slesser, who graduated from the treatment program two months ago, told Smerconish. He now works for a distribution company, which knows about his past and is cooperating with his treatment needs.
Judge Trebilcock said that Slesser “is highly intelligent, eloquent, was an outstanding sergeant in Iraq, and became an incredible addict who was essentially using his organizational skills learned in the Army to coordinate stealing, using drugs in a four- to five-county area with a number of other people. It took over a year, but we got him off the heroin, and he is once again highly successful.”
According to Justice for Vets, one in six soldiers who served in Iraq or Afghanistan suffers from substance abuse, but with savvy members of the judiciary like Judge Trebilcock, more of them can make a clean start.
MORE: This Florida Jail is Giving Veterans a Second Chance
 

Yes It’s True. Subsidizing Housing for the Homeless Can Save Them — and Taxpayers’ Money

It’s so simple. If you really want to stop homelessness, start by giving people a place to live. That’s the mission of the 100,000 Homes Campaign, a national movement created by the nonprofit Community Solutions that works with communities across the country to connect the most vulnerable homeless individuals with housing. These apartments are highly subsidized — paid for mostly by the federal government, with contributions of 30 percent of any income these individuals receive as rent, no matter how much that amount changes over time. In return, the formerly homeless have a solid starting point to get back on their feet, along with a connection to any supportive services that they want or need — from addiction counseling and medical services to budgeting tools and more.
The idea of providing “housing first” has already proved itself in Utah, where the rate of chronic homelessness has been reduced by 74 percent over the past eight years, putting the state on track to eradicate homelessness altogether by 2015. In Atlanta, the same initiative moved 800 people off the street in 2013. And now the campaign is gaining momentum in Tennessee, where 200 individuals were placed in homes in just 100 days in Nashville. All together, participating communities have connected more than 83,000 Americans, including at least 23,000 homeless veterans, to apartments. And the best part? The program is actually saving taxpayers money.
MORE: Phoenix Just Became the First City to End Chronic Veteran Homelessness. Here’s How
Studies have shown that the public cost of providing permanent supportive housing for the most vulnerable homeless people — meaning those with addiction, mental illness or chronic diseases like cancer — is less than simply allowing these individuals to stay on the streets. The biggest reason is health care. Homelessness causes illness, as well as exacerbates existing mental and physical ailments and addictions, leading many individuals to seek out expensive medical services, much of it on the taxpayers’ dime. “The inability to tend to your basic healthcare needs results in people on the streets ending up in emergency rooms and ending up in in-patient hospitalizations. And one night in the hospital is a whole month’s rent on most places,” Becky Kanis, director of the 100,000 Homes Campaign, told Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes. “We are paying more as taxpayers to walk past that person on the street and do nothing than we would be paying to just give them an apartment.”
AND: This Hero Isn’t Just Alleviating Homelessness; He’s Preventing It
On its face, this movement may seem counterintuitive. As Cooper told Kanis, “It does seem like you’re rewarding somebody though, who’s — you know — drinking or doing drugs or just being irresponsible.” But Kanis disagrees. “I see it as giving them a second chance. And most people, given that second chance, do something about those behaviors.” Indeed, the 60 Minutes report cites a University of Pennsylvania study, which found that when homeless people in Philadelphia were given housing and support, more than 85 percent remained in homes two years later. These individuals were unlikely to become homeless again. While the program isn’t 100 percent successful — in fact the 60 Minutes report follows one individual who can’t seem to shake his addiction — the changes in those who take advantage of their second chances are nothing short of remarkable. Just look at the before and after photos. “There is something that’s really dehumanizing about living on the streets in so many ways. And then, really, in a matter of days, from having housing, the physical transformation is almost immediate,” Kanis says. “And I don’t think that there’s anybody, once they see that, that would say, ‘Well, let’s put them back on the streets again.’”
ALSO: How Can We Beat Homelessness? Predict It Before It Happens