Public Safety
Covering topics such as corrections, criminal justice, emergency management, gun control and police/fire/EMS.
There are places we shouldn’t be living. With federal disaster aid uncertain, states and localities should build voluntary buyout programs to relocate residents from floodplains.
The one-time grant funding let cities and counties demonstrate new ideas and expand existing efforts to curb gun violence. When the ARPA sunsets, some efforts may scale down, but local governments have been planning to maintain the bulk of the work.
Older, sick prisoners cost far more to incarcerate. Since they pose little or no risk to public safety, states should ease the path to medical parole.
They’re tearing through communities just about everywhere between the Rockies and the Appalachians. The U.S. has seen a broad shift in tornadoes to the east, to earlier in the year and clustered into larger outbreaks.
Overloaded with cases, public defenders often cannot give enough time to each client, and defendants may face long waits to get an attorney.
The governor is calling for closure of an unspecified prison as a cost-saving measure. The state’s inmate population is down 45 percent from its peak in 2006.
Police departments use these techniques to help determine where they should concentrate their resources. Artificial intelligence is raising new questions of privacy and transparency.
During the pandemic, California released about 15,000 prisoners early. About a third ended up back in prison by the start of this year.
Washington State joins Virginia, D.C. and Georgia in requiring the installation of speed-limiting devices on cars belonging to drivers convicted of excessive speeding.
Corrections work shouldn’t be a stressed-out, dead-end job. There are promising ideas for turning it into a mission-driven profession.
The administration has a NIMBY problem, facing local opposition to the placement of immigrant detention centers.
New legislation would shield officers from prosecution for acts taken in the line of duty. Critics say no one should be unaccountable.
The causes of these alarming gaps in equitable access to emergency care are complex. Fixing the problem won’t come from patchwork efforts or temporary fixes.
The new laws will make it easier for long-term inmates to apply for parole and for ex-inmates to expunge their criminal records after serving time.
With bipartisan support, the legislature has passed one of the nation's most expansive bills offering protection to abuse survivors convicted or accused of a crime connected to their abuse. Other states may follow.
Rather than limiting curfews to downtown, police could give teens a half-hour to disperse from any part of the city at any time.
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