Gov. John Bel Edwards of Louisiana asked the state’s inspector general to investigate Ware, one of his state’s largest juvenile detention centers, after a New York Times report supported by the Fund documented a long record of abuse, lenient oversight and suicide attempts. The Times report, published in partnership with the Investigative Reporting Program at the University of California, Berkeley, ...
“Dodging Standards,” a series of stories by Carolina Public Press reporter Kate Martin exposed a series of deficiencies in North Carolina’s child welfare system, including that state officials had long known that counties paying less for social services workers experienced substantial turnover in staffing and hired unqualified workers. Since the series, supported by the Fund, was published in March, the state government ...
As part of Hawaii Civil Beat’s ongoing series supported by the Fund examining the state’s child welfare system, John Hill surveyed western states to find that Hawaii almost stands alone. More than 80 percent of children taken into protective custody in Hawaii are removed from their families without a judge’s approval. Hill found that Hawaii relies on warrantless removals far ...
In Texas, one of 12 states that refused federal funding to expand Medicaid to provide care for more low-income people, residents have less access to health care than in any other state. Reporters Kim Krisberg and David Leffler, writing in Public Health Watch, co-published with The Texas Tribune and supported by the Fund, documented the many weaknesses in the Texas Medicaid program ...
Some of Wall Street’s biggest firms are using accounting tricks – over-valuing assets and booking risky investments in jurisdictions with lax transparency – to make life insurance companies look more financially healthy than they are. These actions, documented by Lucy Komisar for 100 Reporters with support from the Fund, risk the pensions of millions of people. Komisar found that three ...
For decades, states have expanded laws that punish repeat offenders more harshly even if they commit minor crimes. With support from the Fund, Tana Geneva took a deep look at prison populations in Mississippi and Louisiana, filing freedom of information requests for data on people serving 20-year-plus sentences. The data shows that there are nearly 2,000 people in the two states serving ...
In Hola Cultura’s series of eight podcasts and three online news stories, reporters in Washington, DC, with support from the Fund, explored how the legacy of redlining and other forms of housing discrimination have had dire consequences for many DC neighborhoods. The series looked at the lack of green spaces and the impact of heat islands on these densely populated urban blocks, whose ...
Reporter Katherine Reynolds Lewis, with support from the Fund, looked at how a rural Tennessee school district turned to an app to help change its practices after being censured for imposing discipline disproportionately on Black students and those with disabilities. The new technology promised to aid in the use of restorative practices, which have been hailed for positive results in ...
Earlier this year, Alaska’s top child-abuse expert resigned after Wisconsin Watch uncovered serious questions about her work in both Wisconsin and Alaska. With one of the Fund’s new follow-up grants, Wisconsin Watch has continued to track Dr. Barbara Knox, who is now working for University of Florida. Reporter Hope Karnopp waded through more than 150 pages of records from the ...