by Mary C. Piemonte
Center for Disease Control and Prevention courtesy photo
“The opioid crisis is far from over,” according to a news release from the United States White House on Oct. 21, 2015.
News brief: by Mary C. Piemonte
Rep. Elgie Sims (D – Chicago), joined by members of the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus discusses the recently passed body camera and police reform legislation. Photo courtesy of Rep. Sims
In an attempt to restore the broken trust of communities of color against police officers in the state of Illinois, Rep. Elgie R. Sims Jr (D-Chicago) recently spear-headed some legislation that will update policing regulations to avoid more tragedies. Continue reading
by Mary C. Piemonte
FBI website photo of its Director James B. Comey speaking about race relations at Georgetown University in February 2015.
Commenting on the current tensions between minority communities and law enforcement in America, James Comey, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation stated three months ago in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., that ‘We must learn to live together as brothers or we will all perish together as fools.”
Comey’s statement came months before the recent death of Freddie Gray, in Baltimore, Md., and the violence that followed his funeral.
And he added in his speech at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., that police officers throughout the county must “recognize … racial biases and get to know the communities they serve.” Continue reading
by Mary C. Piemonte
Department of Justice courtesy photo of U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder
In his “latest step to alter the federal government’s approach to dealing with nonviolent drug offenders” yesterday, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder “endorsed a proposed change to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines that would reserve the harshest penalties for the most serious drug offenders.”
by Mary C. Piemonte
Franz Trautmann, a representative from the Netherlands, talking about how other countries deal with drug use, during the “Rethinking the War on Drugs” symposium at Northwestern Law School on Feb. 20, 2014.