A Movement Led By Victims Of Violent Crimes Is Preaching Alternatives To Tough Sentences
But a small contingent of crime survivors and law enforcement officials is preaching the opposite to solve the problem. The debate is brewing both in California and in the national spotlight.
Los Angeles Times:
Survivors Of Violent Crime Raise Their Voices In California To Call For A New Approach To Criminal Justice
Her father, uncle, a cousin and two older brothers. Those are some of the family members 16-year-old Aaliyah Smith has lost to gun violence. Then there are her friends. Jermaine Jackson Jr., 27, was shot and killed in 2016 while he painted over graffiti in San Francisco. Toriano “Tito” Adger, 18, was shot there a year later at a bus stop. He called Smith, who was nearby, and warned her to run. She made it inside a library moments before the crack of gunfire. (Ulloa, 4/17)
In other public health news —
Los Angeles Times:
Organs From Drug Overdose Victims Could Save The Lives Of Patients On Transplant Waiting List
The widening tragedy that is the U.S. drug-overdose epidemic could have an improbable silver lining: for the 120,000 desperate Americans on the waiting list for a donated organ, the line could get a little shorter. In 2000, only 149 organs from donors who suffered a fatal drug overdose were transplanted into patients waiting for a replacement kidney, heart, liver or lungs. In 2016, overdose victims donated 3,533 such organs for transplant. (Healy, 4/17)
Orange County Register:
Seniors Get Sneak Peak At The Technology That Could One Day Make Daily Life Easier
Wearing what looked like a space-age bicycle helmet, Jean Hedrick leaned forward and stared intently at the light displays in front of her.Nearby, a robotic arm spun, dropped its claw and picked up a block. It was Hedrick manipulating the robotic arm, without touching its computer. The helmet she wore was fitted with electrodes measuring electrical impulses from her brain and sending commands to the mechanical arm. (Mellen, 4/16)