Artwork stating 'Education Destroys Barriers', 'We Demand Treatment', and 'I Need A Chance'

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  • Genesee County's senior abuse prevention model to be taken statewide

    The elder abuse task force is a specialized unit of the Genesee County Sheriff’s Department that provides critical services to older residents and issues abuse-related warrants. Since its founding in 2018, the unit has served nearly 2,000 elderly residents and issued over 275 warrants; now, this abuse-prevention model is being scaled statewide.

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  • A downtown Flint vending machine is helping combat opioid overdose deaths, stigma

    Vending machines provided with the help of organizations like the Genesee Health System and Harm Reduction Michigan dispense fentanyl testing strips and Narcan kits as a form of harm reduction to combat the opioid epidemic and destigmatize safe drug use. When it debuted earlier this year, the machine distributed more than 2,100 test strips and 904 Narcan kits in six weeks. There are currently 52 machines placed across the state.

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  • Looking to cut down 911 response time, UM-Flint police offer the city a data-driven solution

    The University of Michigan-Flint Department of Public Safety launched a new problem-oriented policing initiative aimed to reduce crime and improve 911 response time downtown. Having the UM-Flint department patrol downtown frees up the City of Flint department to answer 911 calls in the rest of the city more quickly. Problem-oriented policing has helped crime levels decrease significantly and helps foster connections between law enforcement and the communities they serve.

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  • Flint pastor builds laundromat to help families experiencing hygiene poverty

    Programs that bring laundry services to schools, churches, and community centers drastically improve attendance. A lack of access to laundry services and products can lead to a number of issues such as school absenteeism, which can lead to decreased literacy rates, higher suspension rates, and a higher likelihood of dropping out.

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  • Black people no longer disproportionately affected by COVID-19 in Flint, health officials say

    At the start of the coronavirus pandemic, public health officials in Flint, Michigan began tracking the demographics of those who were testing positive for the virus in order to better align the county's public health action and outreach. In doing so, officials realized that a lack of access to testing in predominately Black neighborhoods was a contributing factor and decided to launch mobile testing, barrier-free sites, and other interventions at the state level.

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  • How Genesee County wants to change criminal justice: A New Juvenile Justice Center

    A new Juvenile Justice Center that will focus on trauma-informed treatment of children rather than simply jailing them is still more than one year from completion. But, in the years leading to its opening, the county's family courts have cut in half the numbers of children held in detention by emphasizing rehabilitation programs over jail. Many of the services are based on the "Missouri Model" of juvenile justice, which has been shown to reduce incarceration and prevent crime through evidence-based approaches that are more therapeutic than punitive.

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  • Will the Special Investigative Unit decrease gun violence in Flint? Audio icon

    In the first full month since it was created to take illegal guns off the street, Flint's Special Investigative Unit seized 64 firearms and made dozens of arrests. The unit's predictive policing approach relies on data that tell the police where gun crimes are concentrated. Critics contend that focusing enforcement on historically high-crime areas creates a feedback loop of racially disparate policing, in that more cops in a neighborhood means more arrests, which in turn invites more enforcement. Targeted gun enforcement has a mixed record of crime reductions and racial inequities.

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  • Flint Community Schools is Going Door to Door to Find Hard-to-Reach Students

    Staff from Flint Community Schools are taking a more door-to-door approach to find the close to 1,500 students who have not yet started attending virtual school when the fall semester started. FCS assembled "wellness teams" made up "social workers, behavioral specialists, nurses, and paraprofessionals" and sent them to neighborhoods with mapped routes to walk around neighborhoods and find students and their families, as well as help identify needs to assist with including food assistance, wi-fi hotspots, and other individual needs.

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  • Will a gun buyback program remove weapons from Flint's criminals?

    A privately funded gun-buyback program is one of three core elements of the city of Flint's violence-reduction plan, but research has shown that such programs fail to make a dent in violent crime because the guns they take out of circulation were not destined to be used to commit crimes in the first place. City officials expressed hope that offering gun owners $50 to $100 to turn in their unwanted guns will reduce the city's violence. In reality, researchers said, the program might have more effect on reducing the risk of suicide. But crime guns are rarely surrendered in voluntary programs like Flint's.

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  • Interruption: A fix for Flint's gun violence

    Across the country, mental health professionals, city officials, and community leaders have been developing grassroots responses to curb gun violence. From mediation to education, a driving factor behind these efforts has been prevention. As Flint, Michigan witnesses a striking increase in violent crime, they look to these responses as possible interventions for their own community.

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