Everything Isn’t Total Shit: A Few Good Things Happened Recently
A reminder that there are good things happening!
A landmark study on the impact of free prison and jail communication revealed that free calls are linked to reduced recidivism rates.
Critical Connections: The Power of Free Communication in Prisons and Jails, a new study by prison abolition nonprofit Worth Rises, revealed that free prison and jail communications led to reduced recidivism rates. Free communication also improved mental health for individuals who are incarcerated and their loved ones, led to less violence, provided financial relief for those who are incarcerated and their loved ones, increased rehabilitation, and led to stronger connections for parents and their children.
Thanks to Worth Rises’ work of fighting for free communication, 330,000 incarcerated people now have access to fully free phone calls, with families saving $622.5 million.
Mariska Hargitay's End The Backlog Campaign achieved rape kit reform in all 50 states.
After 16 years of advocacy, Law & Order: SVU actress Mariska Hargitay’s nonprofit The Joyful Heart Foundation, announced that all 50 states, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico have now enacted at least one of their End the Backlog campaign’s pillars of rape kit reform.
In 2010, the Joyful Heart Foundation’s End the Backlog initiative developed a grassroots, survivor-focused, and actionable nationwide campaign to end the rape kit backlog.
California will give new parents hundreds of free diapers for all newborns born in the state.
California has launched a first-in-the-nation program that will provide free diapers to all newborns in the state in an effort to ease the financial strain on new parents.
The Golden State Start, a program co-sponsored by California and the national nonprofit Baby2Baby, will distribute diapers to around 70 participating hospitals across the state. The program allows for each family at the partnered hospitals to receive 400 diapers sized for newborns and babies up to 14 pounds.
Amsterdam became the first capital city in the world to ban ads for meat and fossil fuels.
Beginning on May 1, ads for products including meat, as well as for airlines and for cars that run on gasoline, are no longer allowed to be displayed in Amsterdam.
“If you spend lots of tax money and have lots of policies trying to manage climate change in Amsterdam, why would you rent out your public walls to exactly the opposite?” Anneke Veenhoff, a city councillor from GreenLeft, said.
As of this week, animal welfare organizations have completed the process of getting 1,500 beagles out of a Wisconsin-based facility that bred them for scientific testing.
On April 30, two nonprofits (Big Dog Ranch Rescue and The Center for a Humane Economy) announced that they had purchased 1,500 beagles from Ridglan Farms, a Wisconsin-based facility that breeds beagles for scientific testing.
As of this week, the organizations announced that they have completed the process of moving the 1,500 beagles from the facility. The dogs are being fostered and rehabilitated at partnering shelters and rescue organizations.
New Jersey lawmakers are moving to protect access to reproductive and gender-affirming healthcare.
On Monday, the New Jersey Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee approved S2260, which would impose civil penalties on people and entities that hinder rights to reproductive and gender-affirming healthcare services.
Health insurers, for instance, would be prohibited from denying or limiting coverage of medical services involving abortion and gender-affirming care, according to the bill. Medical providers who treat patients traveling from outside New Jersey would also be protected from facing criminal or civil penalties in other states.
In the last year, citizens and residents of Ghana have planted over 30 million trees.
At the 21st Session of the United Nations Forum on Forests at the United Nations headquarters in New York City, Ghana’s Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah, announced that citizens and residents of Ghana have planted over 30 million trees in the last year.
Armah-Kofi Buah also said that the government is committed to planting an additional 30 million in the next year in an effort to reverse the destruction of forest reserves.
Lawmakers in Hawai’i passed a bill to limit corporate money in state elections.
Hawai’i could soon become the first state in the U.S. to sidestep the Citizens United U.S. Supreme Court case that allows unlimited corporate spending in local elections.
Senate Bill 2471, which is now with the Governor for signature, contends that corporations are “artificial persons” created by state law and granted powers and privileges by it, and that those powers do not include spending money to influence elections.
Colorado passed a new anti-conversion therapy bill after the Supreme Court ruled against its ban.
In an attempt to circumvent a recent Supreme Court ruling that effectively struck down the state’s ban on so-called conversion “therapy,” lawmakers passed H.B. 26-1322 (the “Civil Actions for Conversion Therapy Survivors Act”).
The bill would allow conversion therapy survivors to sue therapists for damages if they tried to change their sexual orientation or gender identity. The bill defines conversion therapy as treatment provided by a licensed mental health professional with the “predetermined outcome” of changing someone’s gender identity or sexual orientation.
“What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something.” – Howard Zinn