In a story for The New Yorker, FIJ/Schuster diversity fellow Lisa Armstrong reports on the movement to end solitary confinement for juveniles. Her piece, “A Teen-Ager in Solitary Confinement,” chronicles the plight of Jermaine Gotham, who was sixteen the first time he was locked in “the box” in an upstate New York county jail. In 2016, President Obama banned solitary confinement ...
Southern New Mexico’s fragile behavioral health system has taken many hits in recent years and doesn’t meet the region’s needs, according to a series of reports by NMPolitics.net in collaboration with the Las Cruces Sun-News and KRWG News. Law enforcement is increasingly tasked with handling crises they can’t fix, data shows. Policymakers have taken some steps to help, but progress ...
Even after Hurricane Harvey, the best efforts by Harris County officials to purchase the most flood-prone homes won’t make a dent in the larger problem, according to the Texas Tribune in a collaboration with Reveal and ProPublica. Despite the obvious need and high demand, Harris County, home to Houston, is plagued by challenges endemic to buyout programs. Limited funds, competing ...
As more people seek information about opioid addiction and its consequences, finding unbiased information is extremely difficult, according to a new report by Cat Ferguson for The Verge. In fact, some popular publications that distribute information about addiction and treatment are doubling as marketing arms for treatment centers. Ferguson, who is pursing a broader investigation into how rehab marketers manipulate ...
Leaf blowers and other gas-powered lawn and garden machines emit surprisingly large amounts of smog-forming chemicals. But scant research exists on the potential risks to the mostly low-paid immigrant workers who use the equipment for many hours each week. FairWarning commissioned tests that found that levels of hazardous ultra-fine particles were as much as 50 times higher around the machines ...
Steve Burger of WNIN public radio of Indiana delved into the background of a psychologist often hired as an expert court witness after the psychologist was convicted of felony charges for falsifying an evaluation in one case. The psychologist, Albert Fink, had performed dozens of competency evaluations over the last 10 years, and those evaluations were now under question after ...
In her latest package focusing on recidivism in America for USA Today, FIJ/Schuster Institute diversity fellow Lottie Joiner examines how women are faring in a criminal justice system designed with men in mind. Many of the programs that help inmates re-enter society aren’t appropriate for women, Joiner reports. Once an inmate is in the system, it’s hard for her to stay ...
Jeff Kelly Lowenstein has been leading reporters from across the globe in an investigation of the worldwide lottery industry. In the United States, he assembled a team from the Columbia Journalism School and PennLive as part of an ambitious reporting project to better understand how lotteries are gamed by some of their frequent players. The team submitted public records requests ...
A team from Carolina Public Press reviewed three years of public records for all 1,200 adult care homes in North Carolina and conducted dozens of interviews with regulators, patient advocates, facility managers and others. The result was a series of stories revealing the inconsistencies and troubling issues that undermine the regulation and oversight of these private, for-profit facilities. (Photo by ...
With no place to house some mentally ill people who could pose a danger to themselves or others, New Hampshire has taken the unusual step of housing them in the psychiatric unit of the state prison — even if they haven’t committed a crime, according to a report by Nancy West, co-published by InDepthNH.org and the New Hampshire Business Review. That’s despite warnings by the ...