July 2018  |  The American Prospect  

To improve relationships with communities of color, a reconciliation movement has begun in several cities, in which police brush up on their history, admit past mistakes, and listen to frank talk and hard truths. 

Tags: BirminghamLos AngelesStockton National Initiative for Building Community Trust and Justice Reconciliation

June 2018  |  John Jay College of Criminal Justice  

When a parent looks down at their newborn child, they’re filled with hope. A hope that if this child works hard in life, he’ll be successful. It doesn’t matter where he was born, how much his parents make, or his ethnicity. That hope is there. It’s a hope we pride ourselves on as a nation—we’re the “Land of Opportunity.” But in today’s America—where many black and brown children are often looked at with more suspicion and less empathy—we have to start asking ourselves a tough question: Do we give every child the same opportunities?

Tags:

June 2018  |  BBC  

In a bid to regain the trust of the public and reform their profession, more working police officers are learning to do their own research. Meet the police pracademics.

Tags:

June 2018  |  ABC News  

In order for any “zero-tolerance” policy to take effect and stop people from committing crimes, the criminals have to know that such uniform consequences are handed out, David Kennedy, a criminal justice professor at John Jay College, told ABC News.

“If zero-tolerance or any other law enforcement policy is designed to deter than it can’t possibly work until people know that that’s what’s waiting for them,” said Kennedy, who also heads the school’s center for study on violence prevention, called the National Network for Safe Communities.

Tags:

June 2018  |  New Haven Register  

City police Lts. John Healy and David Zanelli are trying to open a dialogue with the communities they serve.

Healy and Zanelli are district managers for the Dwight/Chapel and Fair Haven districts, respectively, who engaged with residents in an event this week in an effort to build bridges between two communities often at odds. It was held by Project Longevity New Haven and the Urban League of Southern Connecticut’s New Haven office.

Tags: New Haven Group Violence Intervention

June 2018  |  The Advocate  

With the arrival of summer's notorious bloody months and the now-defunct anti-violence initiative BRAVE in the rear-view mirror, Baton Rouge's law enforcement officials are embracing a new method for violence intervention: showing up unannounced to the homes of those they believe are linked to the violence.  

These home visits, coined "custom notifications" by researchers with the National Network for Safe Communities based in New York, are set up to demonstrate to these people — on a very personal level — that law enforcement is aware of their ties to potential violence, to warn them of the consequences of such violence and to offer them support if they choose a different path, said Baton Rouge Police Deputy Chief Herbert "Tweety" Anny. 

Tags: Baton Rouge Group Violence Intervention Custom Notifications