In 2018, the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation was quick to write off the death of Rankin County jail inmate William Wade Aycock IV as an accident. But an investigation by Mississippi Today and The New York Times unearthed new evidence in the case that suggests Aycock was killed. With support from the Fund, the reporting found that state investigators ignored ...
Calling it “a hard-hitting exposé on one of the most disturbing and destructive issues of our times, poignantly told through the stories of families directly affected,” the American Psychoanalytic Association this month honored “After the Darien” with a Special Recognition Award. The investigation by Clavel Rangel and Katie Scarlett Brandt, with support from the Fund, examined how migrant children’s mental ...
After InvestigateWest, with support from the Fund, uncovered widespread sexual abuse in Idaho prisons, the state’s Department of Corrections is working with state legislators to change a state law that makes it difficult to prosecute prison staff. The director of the prison system also said the state is updating its policies and working to ensure that people who are incarcerated ...
Following an investigation by Robert Lopez, with support from the Fund, which found that children are working in unsafe conditions in California’s agriculture industry, officials announced changes. For the Los Angeles Times and Capital & Main, Lopez interviewed dozens of young farmworkers who described toiling in fields that reeked of chemicals, laboring for piece-rate wages that paid less than minimum ...
Brightline, the nation’s only privately owned city-to-city passenger train, has failed to implement basic safety measures – and 182 people have died on the railway in the last eight years, according to an investigation by WLRN (the NPR member station in South Florida) and the Miami Herald, with support from the Fund. Reporters spent a year combing federal rail data, ...
Local governments across California are ignoring a state law that was supposed to add oversight to crowded homeless shelters after reports of violence, vermin and health hazards, according to a CalMatters investigative series with support from the Fund. While cities scramble to address sprawling street encampments, the most immediate alternatives – homeless shelters promising nightly refuge – continue to generate ...
California sharply cut back its enforcement of outdoor heat-protection laws as extreme heat intensified in recent years, endangering farmworkers and others who toil in scorching temperatures, according to an investigation by Robert J. Lopez, with support from the Fund. The report, co-published in the Los Angeles Times and Capital & Main, found that on-site safety inspections by Cal/OSHA dropped by ...
Several grantees recently received awards for stories they produced with grants and other support from the Fund, including: NPR’s Station Investigations Team, Columbia Journalism Investigations, the Ohio Newsroom and WVXU received a first-place award from the National Headliner Awards for their investigation of prosecutorial misconduct in Ohio. The Maine Monitor received a New England Newspaper and Press Association Award for ...
Idaho’s governor signed into law two reforms that were introduced after InvestigateWest uncovered serious misconduct in facilities for troubled youth. One of the new laws will create a state oversight agency for youth homes, and the other will establish guidelines for placing troubled youth in group homes. In addition, the legislature commissioned an official investigation into oversight of youth treatment ...
The state House and Senate in Hawaii each passed bills this month that would significantly change the legal process for taking children from their parents when they’re accused of abuse or neglect. With support from the Fund, Honolulu Civil Beat published a series of reports investigating the state’s child-welfare system. That series showed that children are frequently removed from their ...