Restorative justice is a wonderful concept; a way to make student discipline less punitive and more productive. But in Los Angeles Unified , it's little more than a slogan, generally misunderstood and rarely applied. The district did a...
This story is part of a special project by Urbanite magazine that grew out of the unrest in Baltimore following Freddie Gray’s funeral in April. Find the whole thing here . When all else failed, Freddie could run. As a...
In 1994, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development embarked on an experiment to test the effect of housing vouchers. The Moving to Opportunity study randomly assigned some 47 percent of the 4,600 participating...
Racism on American campuses is a matter of national concern again this week following protests at the University of Missouri at Columbia that led on Monday to the resignations of both the campus’s chancellor and the system’s...
In 2013, I met a woman who’d spent two years in solitary confinement. Her words rattled me. She told me, “You’re not going to get it. You think you get it, but you don’t, and it’s so much worse than you...
The death penalty has always provided a window into the darkest corners of American life. Every pathology that infects the nation as a whole—racism, most notably—also affects our decisions about whom to execute. A new report from the Death...
Juan, once homeless and addicted to heroin, was arrested when he broke into a warehouse. “It was empty, I just needed a place to sleep,” Juan said. The police found drugs on Juan, and charged him for possession, which was...
Last spring, with the Ebola outbreak under control, students in Sierra Leone returned to school after a months-long hiatus. But absent from the classrooms were several thousand adolescent girls. A law that went into effect in April bars...
Traditionally, kids who are disruptive in class get a few warnings and then get sent to the office. However, those children might be going through traumatic life experiences outside of school that are causing the behavior. In January,...
Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy today said the state should consider treating young offenders as juveniles until they are 21 years old, a cutting-edge reform proposal. “You can commit a nonviolent offense at 17 without a criminal...
I work some days from a small office in San Francisco, and every day, I gotta eat. For a stretch of several weeks this year, I obtained my lunch from an iPhone app called Sprig. It’s a beautiful piece of software. A trompe l’oeil...
Project Longevity , a program aimed at reducing violence by gang and group members, has had a positive impact in reducing shootings and homicides in New Haven, according to a study by Yale University sociologists. ...
A new report on sexual abuse within the American military sheds light on male rape and assault—and how little is actually known about the issue. Rates of military sexual trauma among men may be as much as 15 times higher...
Instead of arresting people accused of low-level drug crimes, Fayetteville police are about to adopt a program that aims to get them the treatment and services they need. The program's primary goal is to help nonviolent drug abusers become...
A Bay Area teen and a long-time cop have an open conversation about police brutality Hello Carl , Thanks for kudos on graduating from high school! It was definitely the most exciting thing that’s happened in my life thus far....