Project Mend was started by Syracuse University professor Patrick Berry, whose own family member’s incarceration prompted him to help incarcerated people tell their stories.
Justice & Equity
Posted inHousing
Syracuse Housing Authority residents moving out contemplate their future — and their landlord’s
Relocation looms over uncertain tenants in the terraces of McKinney Manor, the first Syracuse Housing Authority complex slated for destruction ahead of neighborhood redevelopment.
Posted inPolicing
Syracuse police collect countless data points. How vulnerable is that data to ICE?
Daniel Schwarz, a member of the city’s Surveillance Technology Working Group, worries about the city’s data practices. State and city officials have said the city’s data is safe.
Posted inPolicing
Common Council pushes back on Syracuse police’s press for unpopular drone program
Lawmakers held a Public Safety Committee meeting meant to answer the council’s questions on the proposed drone program. SPD officials failed to assuage councilors’ concerns.
Posted inHousing
Syracuse lawmakers vote to roll over fines imposed on landlords to tax bills
Rolling over the fines will make it easier for the city to collect about $2 million in fines that property owners have skirted in the last two years.
Posted inPolicing
Three Baldwinsville police officers took ‘demeaning’ photo of prisoner in 2005, documents reveal
Photograph ‘had great potential to bring discredit to the Baldwinsville Police Department,’ disciplinary records show. Officers took the photo shortly after U.S. military’s Abu Ghraib scandal.
Posted inJustice & Equity
When conviction integrity units exonerate the innocent, prosecutors escape blame
In New York, half of CIU exonerations involve prosecutorial misconduct, but DAs rarely acknowledge who got it wrong.
Posted inNews
Syracuse police again ask Common Council to approve funding for controversial drone program
SPD asked councilors in November 2024 to fund a “drone as first responder” program but skipped a review process meant to limit the use of surveillance technology in the city.
Posted inHousing
‘Poison in the locker room’: Why Joe Driscoll issued a city official’s most direct rebuke yet of SHA’s executive director
The city’s Interstate 81 project director Joe Driscoll called on SHA’s board to remove Executive Director Bill Simmons. Driscoll has dealt with Simmons in meetings related to the redevelopment of public housing.
Posted inJustice & Equity
What city officials, nonprofits believe Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown means for Syracuse
City officials held a virtual community briefing Monday night to talk about the changes in immigration policy and how those changes will affect Syracuse.