No other sitting Commander in Chief, including Ronald Reagan, who took office in 1981 when prison populations spiked upward rapidly, or George W. Bush, the hang-’em-high leader who presided over 152 executions as Texas governor, had ever set foot inside a federal penitentiary. But last month, President Barack Obama stepped behind bars — hinting that he’s conscious of the legacy he’ll leave and is eyeing criminal justice reform as his next issue to tackle.
“When they describe their youth and their childhood, these are young people who made mistakes that aren’t that different than the mistakes I made,” Obama said after speaking to six nonviolent offenders at El Reno prison, about 30 miles west of Oklahoma City. “The difference is they did not have the kinds of support structures, the second chances, the resources that would allow them to survive those mistakes.” He added, “It’s not normal. It’s not what happens in other countries. What is normal is teenagers doing stupid things. What is normal is young people making mistakes.”
As bipartisan momentum grows in Washington, D.C., reform efforts are also sweeping the nation, many led by conservative governors. Here’s the latest innovations to come out of our country’s statehouses:
TEXAS SHUTTERS PRISONS
Everything’s bigger in Texas, including its correctional facilities. That is, until recently. Starting in 2007, Gov. Rick Perry, Bush’s successor in a “tough on crime” state and now a Republican presidential candidate, led the conservative state in reining in the size of its prison populations. Texas focused on expanding treatment programs and diverting offenders through probation and parole. In 2011, three juvenile facilities were closed, halving the number of incarcerated youth in the state. Cuts continued in 2013, when legislators reduced the corrections budget by $97 million, a clear sign they intended to scale back the system’s capacity. Two prisons near Dallas mired in scandal and operated by Corrections Corporation of America, the country’s largest for-profit prison company, looked to be on the chopping block. When Sen. John Whitimire, the longest-serving legislator, called for the closure of the prisons built during his watch, the decision seemed final. Through the budget process, both were defunded.
UTAH REDEFINES A PRISON-WORTHY OFFENSE
Obama didn’t selected El Reno prison for his visit at random. He picked the institution because half of its inmates are behind bars for drug offenses — the same proportion for the country as a whole. Utah faced the same situation. While crime fell for two decades, the state’s prison population increased without bound: From 2004 to 2013, the number of inmates grew by 18 percent, six times faster than the national average. This March, Gov. Gary Herbert, a Republican, signed a comprehensive reform package (developed by a commission of state and local officials) that reclassified all first- and second-time drug possession violations as misdemeanors, instead of felonies. Along with creating new guidelines for parole violations and adding “re-entry specialists” to smooth the transition from prison, the Beehive State’s new law is expected to eliminate the 2,700 projected incarcerations and save the public $500 million over the next 20 years.
ALABAMA DOESN’T JAIL FOR PROBATION VIOLATIONS
Alabama has one of the nation’s highest incarceration rates, jailing more than 30,000 people in a system designed to hold only 12,000 prisoners — leading officials to call it a “time bomb waiting to explode.” Almost a quarter of newly admitted inmates were thrown into overcrowded cells because they violated the terms of their parole or probation. According to the Equal Justice Initiative, half of those cases were for “minor technical violations,” such as missed appointments, unpaid fines, moving to a new home without permission or losing a job, “that did not result in a new offense.” A law signed in 2010 by Gov. Robert Riley limited incarceration for those who committed an administrative error but didn’t break any laws. The alternatives saved the southern state an estimated $18 million.
INDIANA RETOOLS DRUG-FREE ZONE LAWS
The signs are so commonplace you might not notice them: “Drug-Free School Zones.” In fine print, they’ll inform you that selling drugs within 1,000 feet of school property, a public park, a housing project or a youth center in Indiana is a Class A felony, automatically upping the recommended sentence to 20 to 50 years in prison. The creation of these areas were one of the government’s first salvos in the War on Drugs, passed by Congress in 1970, more than a decade before Ronald Reagan escalated the battle. Indiana’s reform began in 2007 in an unlikely way: bills in each chamber of the legislature initially set out to expand the drug-free zone to include bus stops and churches. Kelsey Kauffman, a professor at DePauw University, tasked her students with evaluating the law’s effectiveness. Over an eight-year campaign, they presented their findings — that more than 75 percent of the defendants affected by the zones were black — to multiple Senate committees. By 2013, new legislation cut the zones in half, limiting them to a 500-foot radius. A bill last year sought to scale them back even further to 250 feet, but political maneuvering killed the attempt.
NEBRASKA OVERTURNS DEATH PENALTY
Smack in the middle of America’s heartland, the Cornhusker State became the first conservative state in four decades to repeal capital punishment this May. Nebraska’s nonpartisan, unicameral legislature defied Gov. Pete Ricketts, a fierce advocate for the death penalty, with a 30-to-19 vote, just barely enough to overturn a veto. Liberals and conservatives alike believed the death penalty was inefficient, costly and immoral. “Today we are doing something that transcends me, that transcends this Legislature, that transcends this state,” Sen. Ernie Chambers, an independent from Omaha, said before the vote. “We are talking about human dignity.” Along with Washington, D.C., Nebraska joined 17 other states in banning capital punishment.
MISSOURI REPEALS SELECT BAN ON FOOD STAMPS
The federal welfare overhaul in 1996, passed by Rep. Newt Gingrich’s Republican stronghold in Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, revoked the ability of felons convicted of drug offenses to receive welfare benefits. The lifetime disqualification from food stamps seemed so vengeful and contrary to public safety that 19 states have chosen to opt out of the provision entirely and 24 states created exceptions, according to a tally by The Pew Charitable Trusts’ Stateline blog. Barring someone from benefits “increases the odds they will commit new crimes by virtue of the fact that you’re creating a significant financial obstacle,” says Marc Mauer, the executive director of The Sentencing Project. A grassroots push, particularly by religious leaders in St. Louis and Kansas City, united lawmakers in values-based support and won the governor’s signature.
GEORGIA WIPES THE SLATE CLEAN
Once a person’s made contact with the criminal justice system, it’s hard to allude its grasp. A criminal record follows you into every job interview. It’s a red flag on every background check for a new apartment or a loan. That’s the case — even if a person isn’t a felon who spent years in the pen or if a judge dismisses the case or a jury agrees the accused is innocent. With prodding from the Georgia Justice Project and others, legislators overhauled the state’s burdensome and limited expungement law. On the day the law went into effect, one-third of Georgia’s population had a record expunged. Bolstered by the success, Georgia Justice Project convinced Gov. Nathan Deal to issue an executive order to “ban the box” asking criminal history questions on state employment applications this February — the first state in the Deep South to change its hiring policy.
Tag: Missouri
For Kids Raised in the Foster Care System, This Program Provides a Future
As teens leave the foster system, they become some of the country’s most vulnerable population. They’re less likely to graduate high school, seek higher education or find long-term employment. Additionally, at least one out of four foster youths will end up homeless, forgo health care and require public assistance, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
Which is why Springfield, Mo., is launching a pilot project teaching customer service skills to young adults, ages 17 to 21, leaving the foster care system and looking to enter the workforce.
The Missouri Customer Service Partnership (MCSP), which is run out of the Ozarks Technical Community College (OTC), assists at-risk youths as they transition out on their own. OTC teamed up with the Community Partnership of the Ozarks to create a 10-week, intensive course, offered both in the fall and spring, with a year of a follow-up mentorship program. It’s one of two in Missouri; the other is run out of St. Louis Community College.
“This is a great transition. It’s a bridge to help them into the workforce and into higher education,” says Marilyn Madden, who coordinates the project. “We’re attempting to empower them to be active citizens regardless of their back-story.”
Throughout the 10-week course, a group of up to 15 youths receive help with resumes and interview skills, as well as job expectations and how to prepare for a career in retail and customer service, reports the Springfield News-Leader. The pilot also assists in job placement and gives students access to support from community and business leaders. After completion of the course, students earn four college credits.
For some teens, the course provides access to more basic needs, such as how to dress or find professional clothes for work or finding a safe place to live and way to commute to work.
“It’s all about connectedness so they’re not all alone,” says Amanda Coleman, community mentorship coordinator for the Community Partnership of the Ozarks. “They need someone to talk to and someone to point them in the right direction.”
The project, funded by the Missouri Division of Workforce Development and the Missouri Department of Social Services, cost about $120,000 in the first year. The first 10-week course began this past fall and of the 12 people who enrolled, 10 quickly found jobs, one relocated and the other is still looking for a full-time position.
“They have challenges they don’t choose,” Madden says.
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These 10 Documentaries Will Change How You See America
Documentary films are known for sparking social change. (Case in point: Who wants to eat at McDonalds after seeing Super Size Me or Food, Inc.? What parent suggests visiting SeaWorld after seeing Blackfish?) Though 2014’s nonfiction films weren’t massive box office hits, they pointed out injustice and lifted our eyes to the doers making a difference. Here are the 10 must-see documentaries that inspired us to action.
10. The Great Invisible
BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 still darkens the coastline along the Gulf of Mexico in the form of altered ecosystems and ruined lives. Named best documentary at the SXSW Film Festival, Margaret Brown’s documentary dives deep beyond the news coverage you may remember into a tale of corporate greed and lasting environmental damage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDw1budbZpQ
9. If You Build It
Two designers travel to the poorest county in rural North Carolina to teach a year-long class, culminating in building a structure for the community. In this heartwarming story, 10 students learn much more than construction skills.
http://vimeo.com/79902240
8. The Kill Team
An infantry soldier struggles with his wartime experience after alerting the military his Army platoon had killed civilians in Afghanistan. On the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ long list for best documentary, Dan Krauss’s challenging film shows how morality dissolves in the fog of war and terror of battle.
7. Starfish Throwers
Three people — a renowned cook, a preteen girl and a retired teacher — inspire an international movement to end hunger. Jesse Roesler’s film includes the story of Allan Law, the man who handed out 520,000 sandwiches during the course of a year in Minneapolis, which we featured on NationSwell.
6. Lady Valor: The Kristin Beck Story
A former Navy SEAL (formerly named Christopher, now Kristin) says that changing genders, not military service, was the biggest battle of her life. In retrospect, her SEAL experience takes on new importance as she comes to understand the true value of the words “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
5. The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz
An online pioneer who developed Creative Commons with the academic and political activist Lawrence Lessig at age 15 and co-founded Reddit at 19, Swartz crusaded for a free and open internet. Another potential Oscar candidate, the film poignantly recounts how Swartz ended his own life at age 26 after aggressive prosecutors initiated a federal case against him.
4. True Son
A 22-year-old black man recently graduated from Stanford returns to his bankrupt hometown of Stockton, Calif., to run for city council. Michael Tubbs convinces his neighbors (and the movie’s audiences) you can have “a father in jail and a mother who had you as a teenager, and still have a seat at the table.”
3. The Hand That Feeds
After years of abuse from their bosses, a group of undocumented immigrants working for a New York City bakery unionize for fair wages and better working conditions. Led by a demure sandwich maker, the employees partner with young activists to fight their case against management and the food chain’s well-connected investors.
2. Rich Hill
Three boys confront impoverishment, learning disabilities and dysfunctional families in this human portrait of growing up in small-town America. The backdrop to the teenagers’ lives is their Missouri hometown of 1,396 residents, where one in five lives in poverty and where the fireworks still glow every Fourth of July.
1. The Overnighters
Our top film and a favorite for an Academy Award nomination details how an oil boom draws a city-sized influx of workers to a small town in North Dakota, where they scrape by on day labor and live in their cars. With the heft, detail and narrative twists of a Steinbeck novel, Jesse Moss profiles the Lutheran pastor Jay Reinke, who welcomes these desperate men into a shelter called “The Overnighters,” to his congregation’s dismay.
Are there any documentaries that should have made the cut? Let us know in the comments below.
Minorities Should Want To Be Police Officers
One of the first facts people noticed after a white police officer killed Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Mo., was that only three of the 53 cops on the local force were black. That’s nowhere near the city’s racial composition, where two-thirds of residents are African-American.
Though the number of minority cops has grown over the past two decades, this lack of diversity is the norm in hundreds of departments across the country, while the key to recruiting and retaining minority officers remains elusive for most departments. As demands for reform echo across the country, we examined the latest research and contacted experts to find the best methods for hiring police forces that better reflect the neighborhoods they serve.
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DON’T MISS: This Is What Community Oriented Policing Looks Like
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7 Things Every Protester Needs to Know
Taking to the streets in protest — bullhorns or banner in hand — is an American tradition. Whether marching for the Tea Party or Occupy Wall Street, each demonstration has added to the history of free speech and assembly that began in the Boston Harbor in 1773 and continues today with protests taking off across the country in response to grand jury decisions on Staten Island, N.Y. and in Ferguson, Mo.
Peaceful protest is a right that’s broadly protected by the First Amendment, but recent events serve as a tangible reminder of the difference between protest and riot — one democratic and productive, the other anarchic and devastating. Here, some key tips that every protester should keep in mind before taking to the streets.
1. Know your rights.
Thanks to the Bill of Rights, you have the right to gather and peacefully protest. You don’t need a permit to protest in a public space like a park, sidewalk, street or plaza, the American Civil Liberties Union reminds activists. However, law enforcement may limit a person from protesting on private property (like an abortion clinic or power plant) unless its owner gives their consent. You’re also allowed to pass out pamphlets, as long as pedestrians are free to pass by without being “physically and maliciously detained” and no building entrances are blocked, the ACLU says.
Additionally, “you never have to consent to a search of yourself or your belongings,” the group adds. An officer may pat you down to search for a weapon or search your belongings if you are under arrest, but otherwise a warrant is required.
If you witness someone else being arrested, don’t interfere or threaten the officer. That will only escalate the conflict and could land you in a pair of handcuffs, charged with obstruction of justice, disorderly conduct or interference with an arrest. Instead, write down the officer’s badge number and photograph or videotape the incident to document any misconduct. (You have the right to photograph anything “in plain view” from a public space, according to the ACLU.) Police officers may not confiscate or delete anything from your camera, nor can they demand to see your images without a warrant. The New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) offers the free Stop and Frisk Watch app for both iPhone and Android that allows bystanders to document an arrest with video or a written survey that is immediately sent to NYCLU’s offices.
2. Realize when you’re on the wrong side of the law.
Legally, an officer can arrest you for not following orders. If you are asked to keep clear of a certain area, for example, it’s in your best interest to cooperate with the order — even though you may legally have a right to be there. You won’t find out if you were correct until you’re before a judge.
That’s not to say that civil disobedience — for refusing to get up from a sit-in at an intersection or disobeying a command — is not a powerful symbol. But you need to be aware that you could be putting yourself in danger.
“We go into a protest knowing that there is a chance that we will get arrested, tear gassed, shot with rubber bullets, or billy clubbed,” says a protest guide written by students at St. Lawrence University in upstate New York. “This isn’t to be dramatic, but realistic. Fear will make the streets anxious and we probably won’t accomplish much.” In case of a confrontation with riot police, you may want to carry a plastic bag with bandanas soaked in vinegar or lemon juice to neutralize tear gas, the guide suggests. Don’t rub your eyes or panic, it adds; instead, rinse your eyes with water until the burning passes.
3. Have a backup plan.
During the Occupy Wall Street protests, Brooklyn software designer Jason Van Anden developed a free phone app called I’m Getting Arrested, which sends a prewritten text message to friends and family if, you guessed it, the cops are threatening you with arrest. The app, which was named by PC Magazine as a top app of 2011, is only available to Android users. (Due to Apple policy, the app won’t function on iPhones.)
Once you’re in a jail cell, you won’t be allowed to use your cell, so make sure to take other precautions. Write the number for a pro bono attorney on your arm and on a piece of paper so you can call once you are at the precinct. Take advantage of your Miranda rights to know the charges against you, to speak to your attorney or have one appointed and to appear before a judge to ask for your release until the trial.
4. Be respectful.
“Stay calm, be polite, and don’t run,” the ACLU recommends. When thousands (or more) of fed-up protesters crowd into a public space, the situation can rapidly get out-of-hand. Cops want to keep order, and sometimes a few rogue troublemakers don’t have the same intentions. Treat officers with respect, and you’ll likely receive the same treatment. Most importantly, never physically resist an arrest.
5. Come prepared with supplies.
Protests are all about making your voice heard. Drawing a quick sign on poster board or printing out a slogan from your computer can amplify your message. Whistles, pots and pans, drums, tin cans, sticks, a megaphone or even coins in an empty bottle will all help you literally increase your volume. Wear shoes you can walk in, comfortable layers of clothes and sunscreen. Avoid items that could be interpreted as a weapon, like a Swiss army knife or any blunt object, and leave all alcohol and drugs at home.
6. Find fellow activists on social media.
Twitter and Facebook are now the places where movements coalesce. Over the past month, hashtags like #EricGarner, #BlackLivesMatter and #ICantBreathe proliferated across the web, accompanied by calls for demonstrations. Those tweets organized like-minded activists to meet at New York City’s Rockefeller Plaza in an effort to shut down the annual Christmas tree lighting and to clutter the floors of Grand Central Terminal with a “mass grave” of bodies within a few quick hours.
Be sure to tweet your whereabouts and why you’re out. After all, there’s no use holding a demonstration if no one hears you. “You can see that it’s not just five people standing in Times Square — it’s people marching throughout the city,” Marcus Messner, a journalism professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, tells the Wall Street Journal. “The immediate visuals we’re seeing on Twitter and Instagram help people overcome that barrier to getting out and protesting.”
If there’s action rising up at multiple spots across a city, stick to one trusted source for location information or you may find yourself fruitlessly chasing different marches.
7. Channel the momentum.
The weeks after a protest can feel like a letdown. Nothing’s changed, you might say, but remember that social progress moves at a glacial pace. (Case in point: Seven decades passed between the convention in Seneca Falls and the day women finally gained the right to vote.) Maintain your involvement through letter writing campaigns or boycotts; study the cause you’re fighting for. And keep marching.
Alternative Courts Can Transform Offenders, Not Just Punish Them
After being pulled over for running a stop sign, Heather Bateman was rummaging around looking for her driver’s license when something else popped out of her purse — her crystal meth pipe.
The policeman at her car window spotted the drug paraphernalia, and Bateman soon found herself in handcuffs.
In a strange twist of events, getting arrested was actually the answer to her prayers.
For months, Bateman had been asking God for some kind of help, as her life spiraled out of control. She was using meth every day. She’d lost her nursing license. She and her 7-year-old daughter were homeless. “It was the lowest part of my life,” she says.
Later, at the courthouse, Bateman was asked if she’d like to take part in an alternative court program — a drug court. “I said, ‘Absolutely. I want to get help.’”
Instead of receiving probation or a prison sentence, Bateman underwent three years of supervised treatment in the St. Paul, Minn., drug court. Her urine was tested randomly to see if she was still using, and she was required to attend treatment and counseling groups. Batemen regularly attended court, where the judge didn’t just issue orders, but asked her what was going on in her life, in the same way a social worker might do.
It wasn’t a straight road, but Bateman found her way to sobriety, regained her nursing license, got married, bought a house and rebuilt her life. But none of this would’ve happened, she says, if she’d simply been sent to jail for drug possession.
Since the first drug court was created 25 years ago in Florida’s Miami-Dade County, the concept has proliferated. Today, there are more than 2,800 specialized courts nationwide that work with juveniles, veterans, the mentally ill, drunk drivers and prostitutes to change their lives after being arrested for minor offenses.
These so-called “problem-solving” courts are born from a recognition that traditional methods of criminal punishment are ineffective. Judges who are frustrated with the existing system and tired of seeing the same defendants appear before them again and again often lead alternative courts, which are designed to address the root causes of the arrest-imprisonment-and-re-arrest cycle.
Alternative courts are growing because they work. Studies have shown that drug courts can reduce recidivism rates by an average of 8 to 13 percent. Additionally, drug court graduates have fewer relapses than offenders who are simply given probation or prison time, according to a 2012 national study financed by the National Institute of Justice.
Most important, the turn toward problem-solving courts may be part of a larger change in the American criminal justice system: leaning toward treatment rather than retribution.
FINDING A BETTER WAY
“The traditional response of sending people to prison or placing them on probation was clearly proving ineffective, if the goal is causing people to change their behavior,” says Associate Circuit Judge Alan Blankenship, reflecting on the beginnings of the drug court he presides over in Stone County, Mo. Blankenship helped start the court 10 years ago, during a methamphetamine epidemic there.
“We realized that imprisoning people is extraordinarily expensive and the environment is not conducive to recovery,” he explains. Prison sentences for drug-addicted defendants “caused more harm and worsened public safety,” he says. “People got worse instead of better.”
Drug courts often employ a multiphase approach to treatment. Initially, defendants are closely monitored, required to undergo frequent drug testing and may have to attend an intensive treatment program, counseling or group therapy. Offenders are assigned a team that might include a probation officer, a social worker and a drug counselor. The group addresses not only treatment needs, but also issues like housing, employment and family reunification.
“The team is going to work with you every step of the way so that you’re not just clean, but stable,” says Chris Deutsch, director of communications for the National Association of Drug Court Professionals.
As defendants accumulate sober time and meet their obligations, drug tests become less frequent and court monitoring loosens. When offenders have shown themselves to be stable and clean, they graduate from the program.
Throughout the process, offenders are required to come to court regularly for conversations with the judge — interactions that look very different from traditional courtroom exchanges. Alternative court judges ask offenders personal questions about family, work and stresses in their life. And they offer praise and encouragement, even applause.
Judge Blankenship says he often says things you might not often hear in a courtroom: “You’re doing great. I appreciate what you’re doing. I’m proud of you.”
“They have this dialogue back and forth and it’s an amazing departure from the way criminal justice interactions normally go,” says Deutsch.
Just a slight shift in approach can have a dramatic impact. Blankenship recalls one defendant who told him, “ ‘I’ve been in many courts in many parts of the country and you are the first judge to look me in the eye and call me by my name. You don’t know how powerful that is.’ ”
However, if offenders are not meeting their obligations, if they are missing meetings or testing positive for drug use, they can be subject to sanctions like community service, extra group counseling sessions or even a few days in jail.
EFFECTIVE & EFFICIENT
When people complete the program, which can take anywhere from a year to several years, they don’t often end up back in court, Blankenship says. The latest data from Stone County indicates that, five years after finishing the program, 13 percent of drug court offenders were re-arrested and only 6 percent were convicted and sent to prison. That’s a significant decrease, when compared with statewide data showing that 60 percent of people with addiction who were sent to prison return there in five years. “No other criminal justice response we’re aware of even comes close to achieving these kind of results with this really high-risk population of offenders,” Blankenship says.
As drug courts have taken root, other alternative court models have appeared.
Savannah, Ga., for example, now has a felony drug court, a mental health court, a veterans’ court, a DUI court and two juvenile courts. Each offers a different twist on the basic drug court model — intensive supervision and treatment tailored to the needs of different populations.
Jean Cottier, coordinator of the Savannah-Chatham County Drug Court, offers impressive statistics about the city’s mental health court. Forty of its graduates, who together had racked up 564 arrests and 1,074 criminal charges prior to participating in the alternative court, only had four arrests and five criminal charges in the two years after completing the program.
Alternative courts also save money, Cottier says. Participants in the felony drug court cost taxpayers only about $19 per day, but “it costs $58 a day to house a prisoner in our local jail,” she explains.
Alternative courts also reduce city spending because they target those who use courts and other public systems the most. People who end up in mental health court, in particular, “are high consumers of services in the community,” Cottier says. A successful mental-illness court can cut ER visits drastically, for instance, saving taxpayer money.
A SEA CHANGE
It’s easy to caricature drug courts, which often offer cakes and hug-filled graduation ceremonies for offenders who complete programs, as part of a soft-on-crime strategy that coddles criminals. Deutsch’s response to that criticism: Drug courts work. Traditional retributive justice doesn’t.
“The people in our community, even some of the most conservative, realize that it’s better to treat people and enable them to transform their lives and become contributing members of our community,” says Judge Blankenship.
While drug courts are becoming more common, they’re still not necessarily reducing the overall prison population. “In many drug courts, criteria for admission can be pretty restrictive,” says Marc Mauer, head of the Sentencing Project, a research and advocacy group. “Many of the people going to prison never had an opportunity to go to drug court.”
One of the best critiques of drug courts, then, might be that there just aren’t enough of them, and they aren’t helping enough people. But their rise may be a signal that the American criminal justice system is beginning to move away from an exclusive focus on punishment.
Drug courts “are a response, a reaction to more than a generation of policy making in this country where we’ve essentially tiled the axis of the justice system in the direction of punitive policy making,” says Greg Berman, director of the Center for Court Innovation, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization.
Twenty-five years ago, Berman says, the criminal justice conversation was about “how to make punishment swift and certain.” Now, within policy circles, “people say, yes, we can change the behavior of offenders.”
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5 Ways to Strengthen Ties Between Cops and Citizens
During a tense confrontation between white police and a black man, officers drew their guns and fired, leaving a mourning mother and an enraged community.
Sounds familiar, right? But it’s not the story you’re thinking of.
In this case, the year was 1987; the place was Memphis, Tenn. And the man killed by cops? Joseph Dewayne Robinson.
His death has a lot in common with that of Michael Brown’s, the black teenager who was killed by an officer in Ferguson, Mo., last month. But while Brown’s passing was followed by the deployment of armored vehicles, rubber bullets and riot gear, Robinson’s led to community dialogue, partnership and, ultimately, a new national model of how police can de-escalate crisis situations. It’s one example of terrible tragedy leading to positive change.
It remains to be seen what will come out of the disastrous events in Ferguson. Brown’s death — and its turbulent aftermath — exposed a deep disconnect between the local police force and the community it serves. As the tear gas clears in the Missouri town and analysts consider how things went so horribly wrong there, here’s a look at five instances where police and communities have worked together successfully, building trust and making neighborhoods safer for both cops and the people they’re supposed to protect.
1) Memphis calms things down
Robinson, mentioned above, had struggled with mental illness and was just 27 years old when he was killed. On the day of his death, his mother had called the cops because her son — high on cocaine — was cutting himself with a large knife and threatening people around him.
The Memphis police arrived and, after a confrontation, shot Robinson 10 times.
The community was deeply disturbed, and people started coming together to look for solutions. “Family members meeting in the kitchen said there’s got to be a better way to deal with these things,” says Veronique Black, a family and consumer advocate at the Memphis chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), a nonprofit mental-health advocacy group.
Two members of Memphis NAMI approached the police department with a plan: Let’s train cops to safely defuse tense situations involving people with mental illness.
In response, the city’s mayor formed a task force and police met with families and mental health professionals. Together they came up with the Crisis Intervention Team (CIT): a 40-hour training program that teaches police to respond to mental illness emergencies in a calm, safe, caring fashion.
“The CIT officer is working very, very hard to slow things down,” says Maj. Sam Cochran, a former member of the Memphis Police Department who oversaw the city’s CIT program for 20 years. CIT members are trained to respond coolly and carefully in all situations — talking down agitated people using a clear, slow voice, defusing conflicts that might otherwise end in injury or death, and finding ways to reduce anxiety while avoiding the use of force.
They’re also specialists in controlling fear, whether it’s the person in crisis, others who happen to be around or even the officers, Cochran says. People who are afraid can be dangerous: “If you don’t get a handle on that fear, it can cause some very difficult challenges,” he says.
The training gives cops a safer way to respond not only to mental health emergencies, but also high-pressure situations of all kinds, like domestic disputes or confrontations between police and a suspect.
The program has worked well in Memphis. “We had something like a 40 to 50 percent decrease in officer injuries on call events related to mental illness,” Cochran says. And although the department didn’t keep statistics on civilian injuries stemming from those kinds of calls, he says, “we felt very confident that if officers weren’t getting hurt, people with mental illness weren’t getting hurt.”
Based on its success in Memphis, CIT has since become a national standard, adopted by about 2,800 police departments nationwide.
2) California cops chat over coffee
While police departments have been arming themselves in recent years with surplus military equipment from the federal government, there might be a much simpler way to make communities safer: over a cup of coffee.
Hawthorne, Calif., police detective John Dixon tried that tactic back in 2011. He convinced his department to set aside a single morning for Coffee With a Cop, an event where officers would sit in a local McDonald’s and talk with anyone who had a question or concern. The event was so popular that the department started holding it in a different area of the city every six weeks.
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These coffee talks allowed Hawthorne police to connect with their neighbors on a more personal level. The idea, Dixon says, is to reclaim “the small-town feel of knowing a cop on the corner.” They are also a way to break through the barriers that can separate cops and civilians (like the bulletproof glass at the front desk in the police station), Dixon says. “It opened up a lot of lines of communication.”
Previously, cops might only interact with civilians during calls for service, Dixon explains. “Officers tend to go to the call, handle the call and then leave.” But Coffee With a Cop lets officers and neighbors relate as people, to see each other as more than just a robbery victim or a law enforcer.
After the program’s initial success, Hawthorne police Sgt. Chris Cognac wrote about it in a federal newsletter on community policing, and the idea caught fire. The department received a grant and started training other police departments how to commune over a cup of joe.
Some 680 departments in the United States as well as forces in Canada, Australia and Nigeria have held Coffee With a Cop events, Dixon says.
Dixon says police departments often ask what kind of return, in numbers, they’ll get from holding a Coffee With a Cop event — How many arrests will it lead to? How many guns will be seized? But the effect of the events isn’t quantifiable in that way, Dixon says. It’s about relationship-building, not crime stats.
At the events, people often talk about problems that they wouldn’t think to call 911 about, but that add up to diminishing a neighborhood’s safety, Dixon says. One neighbor, for instance, complained to a cop about an abandoned couch in an alleyway, where people were hanging out and doing drugs, he says. The officer immediately pulled out his phone and called the city to have public works haul away the sofa.
3) Boston makes a miracle
Cops and neighbors can bond over a hot beverage — or they can come together to confront violent gang members and convince them to put down their guns.
That’s what the work of David Kennedy, criminologist and author of two books on crime prevention, has shown.
Kennedy is the mastermind behind the so-called “Boston Miracle,” which drastically reduced youth homicides in the city in the 1990s. The method is one of the most high-profile models of police and neighborhood leaders working together to end street violence.
Kennedy’s approach is based on the understanding that most urban violence is caused by a small number of people. Therefore, police shouldn’t treat whole communities as problematic simply because some members are violent, and residents should work with cops who are willing to focus on tackling the troublemakers.
Under Kennedy’s model, cops, probation officers and others identify the people responsible for most of the shootings. These people are invited to a call-in, where they’re given straight talk by neighbors, police, prosecutors, street-outreach workers and clergy. The message: Keep doing what you’re doing and we’ll come down on you hard, prosecuting you in federal court if possible. Or, put the guns down, and we’ll help you secure jobs, find housing and access other social services.
At a call-in, gang members learn that the cops and the community already know who they are and what they’re up to — and most important — that they want to help them make a change.
This tactic, which has since spread to dozens of other communities, isn’t a silver bullet. Boston’s homicide rates crept back up in the 2000s, but Kennedy argues that his approach needs to be an ongoing process with continued investment on both sides.
4) New Haven welcomes newcomers
Almost 10 years ago, leaders in the city of New Haven, Conn., noticed a problem. Undocumented immigrants, who can be among the most vulnerable to crime, were afraid to talk to police.
The solution? A new ID card for all city residents — regardless of their citizenship status.
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“Prior to it coming out, undocumented immigrants were often afraid to report violations for fear of deportation,” says Luiz Casanova, New Haven’s assistant police chief. “We had a number of crimes go unreported. Witnesses of crimes did not come forward. Horrific crimes — sexual assaults, rapes, home invasions.”
And while immigrants were avoiding police by not reporting crimes they witnessed or experienced, they were often the ones most in need of police protection. Why? Many undocumented immigrants couldn’t open bank accounts, so they carried around large amounts of cash, leading to a reputation among muggers that they were “walking ATMs.”
In 2007, New Haven addressed these problems when, under the leadership of former Mayor John DeStefano Jr., the city council voted to create the Elm City Resident Card. Additionally, New Haven issued a general order prohibiting police from asking victims or witnesses of crimes about their immigration status.
The ID card helps people open bank accounts and access public services. It also imparts to immigrants a sense of belonging, leading to a new feeling of trust with the police. After the card was introduced, Casanova says, crime went down in immigrant neighborhoods by about 20 percent — despite the fact that more people were reporting crimes.
Other cities, including San Francisco and Trenton, N.J., have since followed New Haven’s lead, rolling out their own municipal identification cards.
5) Detroit tries to bring cops home
Sometimes cops and communities feel disconnected because they actually are, geographically speaking, far away from one another. Many police officers don’t live in the cities they serve, but commute from other towns.
In an effort to encourage members of the force to live in the communities in which they work, Detroit began offering tax-foreclosed homes to cops for $1,000 and grants of up to $150,000 for renovations in 2011.
Programs like this stem from the theory that cops may be more invested in a community if they see it as their home not just their workplace. They also increase the likelihood that community members develop stronger relationships with officers who also happen to be their neighbors.
It’s difficult, however, for a city to force cops to live in town. Courts across the country have struck down lots of residency requirements. And police officers argue that, in an already dangerous job, it’s safer for them to live away from the people they arrest.
That hasn’t stopped cities like Detroit from trying, though. Atlanta offers discounted apartment rentals to cops, plus incentives to buy homes and bonuses for those that relocate. And Baltimore also offers cash to police officers who buy homes.
The latest town to consider such incentives? Ferguson, Mo.
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While Civil Unrest Rocks Their Community, This Teacher is Working to Prevent Ferguson’s Kids from Going Hungry
Since police shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed, college-bound teenager in Ferguson, Mo., the violent unrest in the small town near St. Louis has yet to cease. With outrage and confusion coming from all directions, basic safety and calm are at a premium. Families are in danger, and as a result, school has been canceled for at least the remainder of this week.
In Ferguson, a week off from school means more than just missed lessons.
The poverty rate there is almost double Missouri’s average, so unfortunately, many kids don’t get proper nutrition unless they are in school, according to the Huffington Post.
Thankfully, Juliana Mendelsohn, a teacher in Raleigh, N.C., recognized the need to provide food and launched an online campaign to raise money for hungry children in Ferguson. Appealing for donations on the crowd funding site Fundly, Mendelsohn says, “when I found out school had been canceled for several days as a result of the civil unrest, I immediately became worried for the students in households with food instability.”
So far, over $78,000 has been raised by thousands of donors (as of publication), with another two days left to reach the goal of $80,000. Dennis Hu, Fundly’s CEO, was so impressed with the mission and success of the campaign that he personally called Mendelsohn to express his support for her.
All the money raised goes directly to help those in need through the St. Louis Area Foodbank, which says the funds are substantial enough to continue making a difference for the next year.
“Regardless of your opinion on the civil unrest in Ferguson,” Mendelsohn continued, “there is no need for innocent children to go hungry because of it.”
If you’re interested in donating, click here.
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Play the Lottery, Help a Veteran. Yes, It’s That Easy
Buying scratch-off lottery tickets might not be the best use of a person’s cash, but since there’s little chance that everyone is going to cease playing their lucky numbers, many states are smartly dedicating a portion of money earned from lottery proceeds to vital programs.
In Colorado, for example, the state lottery funds bike and hiking trail maintenance, parks and recreation construction and maintenance, wilderness education for kids and more. New Jersey’s lottery benefits a variety of schools and education programs. And Missouri legislators recently proposed that lottery funds be dedicated to helping veterans.
Missouri State Representative Sheila Solon decided to sponsor the amendment when she learned that the state’s Veterans Commission was operating at a loss. “The lottery ticket would be one way that we could cover shortfalls for our veterans homes, to help with the upkeep of our veterans’ cemeteries, and also to restore full funding for the outreach programs which are so important for our veterans,” Solon told Linda Ong of Ozarks First.
The amendment proposed that those playing the game of risk be given the option to buy a special veterans ticket, which would generate funds for the Veterans Commission Capital Improvement Fund. Currently, lottery funds benefit education in the state.
Ong spoke with one local veteran, John Dismer, who disagreed with the idea. “It’s going to take away from education, because there’s only so many dollars in the lottery system, so you’re going to take some of it away. Now if the education system was real fat and everything, that might be alright. But I don’t think it is.”
In a close vote, many Missouri voters agreed with him — on August 6, 55 percent of voters rejected the amendment.
But this probably isn’t the last we’ll hear of this funding idea. After all, since 2006, a veterans lottery ticket in Illinois has generated $11,000,000 for that state’s former service members.
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This St. Louis Program Houses Veterans First, Asks Questions Later
Cities across the country are finding social and economic benefits from using a housing-first approach toward helping the chronically homeless get permanently off the street. In other words, house them first, then help to stabilize their lives. This approach ends up saving communities money because chronically homeless people make such expensive use of government services.
According to a census taken last January, St. Louis has 100 chronically homeless individuals. Of those, 50 are veterans. So city officials decided to make a big push to house those needy soldiers by offering many of them furnished apartments, free of charge, as part of Operation: REVEILLE.
The money funding the program comes from a $750,000 HUD “rapid rehousing” grant. “They especially need a stable place to start their recovery journey,” Joanne Joseph, homeless program manager for the St. Louis VA, told Jesse Bogan of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
On July 30, the 50 homeless vets turned up for a meeting about the program, and each was screened to determine if they qualified for housing. According Bogan, most of the men were between the ages of 50 and 65, but one — 25 year-old Army veteran Esa Murray — “represented the next generation of homeless veterans.”
Murray served in Tikrit, Iraq, but was sent home due to mental disorders. After living in a tent in Indiana with his wife, he made his way to St. Louis after they split up. He hoped to qualify for the new housing program, but his time in the service falls a few months short of the two-year minimum requirement to qualify for an apartment.
Despite this, clinical social worker Toby Jones agreed to admit him to the program. “By the time we are done with him in a year, he should be able to walk away and sustain himself,” Jones told Bogen.
The program has enough funding to house the men for about one year, while caseworkers will help them try to achieve independence. For those who can’t obtain it, there will be continued support. The men are required to participate in services and abide by rules if they want to stay in the sponsored housing.
Near the end of the event, Antoinette Triplett, head of St. Louis’s Homeless Services Division told these often-overlooked veterans something they aren’t used to hearing: “I want to apologize on behalf of our nation that you are veterans and had to be homeless.”
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