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Residents of St. Paul, Minnesota, could very well see a mobile fleet of bike-powered hot tubs to cure the winter blues. Meanwhile, bus riders in southwest Detroit might find themselves waiting for their next ride at a “stoplet,” a bus stop decked out to have “the feel of an intimate city park.” And folks in Philadelphia, don’t resist when the enticing smell of food draws you to a marketplace for immigrant cuisine in Mifflin Square Park. These are just a handful of the 144 finalists for the...

In 2015, America’s mass incarceration rate declined to its lowest level in nearly two decades, according to a recent report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. The number of people locked up in local, state, and federal prisons across the country dropped to 670 inmates for every 100,000 residents (down from 760 inmates in 2007), or an estimated 6,741,400 people. The 1.7 percent decline in the United States’ prison population isn’t some marginal decrease; it marks the largest annual...

In Germany, the percentage of people who have registered as organ donors is about 12 percent. In the country right next door — Austria — the rate is nearly 100 percent. The difference is not, as one might imagine, some major cultural or religious divergence. It’s that, in Austria, you are automatically an organ donor unless you opt out. In Germany, you have to opt in. Behavioral research shows that we are naturally inclined to go with the default choice. This finding is helping a program in...

There seems to be a growing gulf between the will of the American people and the function of our criminal justice system. Though more Americans oppose the death penalty today than at any other time in the last four decades, capital punishment persists as a primary cog in the penal system. And while at least 77 percent of Americans oppose mandatory minimum sentencing for non-violent drug offenses, prisons in at least 26 states remain overcrowded, largely with inmates imprisoned long term for...

In the long fight to close achievement gaps in America’s public schools, some troubling trends are holding strong. The gap between higher- and lower-income students persists, and race, income, and segregation remain deeply connected when it comes to academic performance. But new research shows that the racial gap, though stubborn, appears to be slowly closing. That’s a finding from a study released Thursday by the Economic Policy Institute that lends hard data to the progress and continued...

Three years ago, Patricia Caldwell was laid off from her job on the production floor of a carseat factory in Highland Park, Michigan, and decamped to her mother’s house in Detroit, teenage kids in tow. But the tight quarters quickly became untenable. With her income slowed to a trickle, Caldwell says, “I had to work from ground zero.” The family became homeless. Those spirals of job loss and homelessness are a common refrain at Coalition on Temporary Shelter ( COTS ), a hub for women and...

Note: Arthur Evans, PhD, head of the City of Philadelphia's Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services, has long been a leader in the trauma-informed movement, implementing recovery-oriented services for individuals served by the city, working to foster cross system collaboration with programs such Police Crisis Intervention (CIT), implementing early intervention initiatives for infants and toddlers, and using art to transform communities. As head of the APA, Arthur...

Statistics tell us that two-thirds of Americans reading these words, including physicians, will recognize that experiences in their childhood still trail after them today, like small ghosts. Fortunately, medical science now recognizes many proven interventions for recovering from trauma, even decades after events have occurred.

Britain's Prince William, his wife Catherine and his brother Harry urged Britons on Tuesday to talk more openly about mental health issues, saying too many people suffer in silence. Long-standing supporters of mental health initiatives, they launched the "Heads Together" campaign in 2016, which works with charities to help tackle the stigma around mental health. "There are times when whoever we are, it is hard to cope with challenges and when that happens, being open and honest and asking...

Colleges and universities generally try to make information about mental health services accessible to students. But at Northwestern University, students may start seeing such information in a surprising place: syllabi. Wanting the campus to be “accessible and welcoming to all students,” Northwestern’s Faculty Senate last week passed a resolution encouraging “all faculty to include language in their syllabi similar to the following: ‘If you find yourself struggling with your mental or...

Chicago is bolstering its response to emergencies involving people suffering from mental illness to address glaring deficiencies laid bare by the Justice Department. An eight-hour course developed in partnership with EMS System Hospitals will allow paramedics, 911 personnel, police officers and mental health providers to engage in live, “scenario-based” simulations at Fire Academy South, 1338 S. Clinton. The morning class covers psychiatric and behavioral emergencies, signs and symptoms and...

One afternoon about seven years ago, Marty Hadge tentatively stepped outside a two-family, white-shingled house in the former mill town of Holyoke, Massachusetts. Hadge, who was pushing 50, lived in one of the units, alone. He wore 280 pounds on his 5-foot-2 frame, a side effect of consuming antipsychotic medication for several decades. His skin was marred by a haphazard array of tattoos and scars from hundreds of small cuts he’d inflicted on himself. Going out in public wasn’t easy for...