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Community Responder Teams Fact Sheet
Colleen Kristich — Apr 2, 2025
Community responders are first responders who respond to nonviolent, noncriminal calls without police. Over 100 American cities now use community responder teams to address low-level health and social needs, which saves police and ambulance time and allows them to respond faster to higher-priority calls.
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Community Responder Teams Fact Sheet
Colleen Kristich — Apr 19, 2023
Surprisingly, most calls to 911 are not about emergencies or crimes. In 2019, over 95% of 911 calls handled by the Erie County Sheriff were noncriminal calls for service (e.g., accidents, alarms, nonviolent disputes, etc.). Violent crimes—including murder, forcible rape, and arson—made up just 1.3% of calls.
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The MRTA: What You Need to Know About Marijuana Legalization in New York
Miles Gresham — May 31, 2021
In March 2021, New York State adopted the Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act (MRTA), a historic law that legalizes the use of recreational marijuana. In doing so, the MRTA centers racial and economic justice to repair the harms caused by decades of biased marijuana enforcement. It will bring revenue from marijuana legalization to communities most impacted by criminalization. It also removes or expunges past marijuana convictions.
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The Cost of Incarceration in NYS: Erie County
Vera Institute of Justice — Apr 13, 2021
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Restorative Practices in Buffalo: Building and Rebuilding Community
Kathryn Franco — Apr 21, 2018
Restorative practices/restorative justice (RP or RJ) is an alternative approach to our current punitive system of addressing conflict and crime. It is an age-old practice with origins in many indigenous cultures and has become increasingly popular in schools, communities and court systems in recent years. Here in Buffalo, individuals began advocating for restorative justice nearly two decades ago. Since then, many organizations, community groups, and schools have been using the practice …
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The City of Buffalo Police Department
Sarah Wooton — Dec 21, 2017
This fact sheet was drafted by Sarah Wooton, a policy analyst at Partnership for the Public Good. It documents the history and demographics of the City of Buffalo Police Department, its recent activity, its organization and chain of command, the bodies that are tasked with oversight of the department, and how residents can file a complaint. The fact sheet shares the current schedule of district community meetings happening monthly across the City, and concludes by listing contact information …
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Gang Prevention in Buffalo, NY and National Best Practices
Gabriella Agostinelli — Apr 25, 2013
While there is no consensus over a specific definition of “gang,” research has identified a group of characteristics to discern whether a group is a “gang.” According to the Office of Juvenile and Delinquency Prevention, these characteristics include: formal organizational structure (not a syndicate), identifiable leadership, identified territory, recurrent interaction, and engaging in serious or violent behavior.
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The Erie County Holding Center and Correctional Facility
Rachel Jones — May 2, 2009
The Erie County Holding Center is a maximum security detention center. The Center is used to house inmates before their trials. The Erie County Holding Center is located at 40 Delaware, Buffalo New York, 14202. The Erie County Correctional Facility is a medium security facility, which can house 1,070 inmates. It holds inmates who have committed a variety of different crimes. The Correction Facility also houses parole violators for the State of New York. These …