The global food crisis
A series by The Washington Post explores the causes and implications of the current global food crisis, the likes of which have not been seen since the 1970s. "A complex combination of poor harvests, competition with biofuels, higher energy prices, surging demand in China and India, and a blockage in global trade is driving food prices up worldwide." The impact is not limited to impoverished countries; consumers in the U.S. and other countries are feeling the impact of rising food costs.
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Inside the Seminoles' ascension from poverty to profit
The last three decades have seen the Seminole Tribe of Florida ascend from extreme poverty to substantial wealth thanks to their lucrative Indian gaming endeavors. A South Florida Sun-Sentinel investigation found that, while this wealth is shared throughout the tribe, a "a handful of tribal leaders have especially benefited, steering millions of the tribe's money and business to themselves, their families and their friends." As a sovereign nation, the Seminole's are not obligated to open their records, but the Sun-Sentinel obtained thousands of pages of documents and conducted extensive interviews providing a rare glimpse inside the tribe.
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Anti-poverty agency funded private jet trips to MTV awards
In another installment of The Miami Herald's Poverty Peddlers series, reporters Scott Hiaasen and Jason Grotto reveal that the Miami-Dade Empowerment Trust, the county's largest anti-poverty agency, squandered millions of dollars on lavish parties, bad loans and insider deals. The reporters showed that public money for the poor went to pay for celebrities like Sean "Diddy" Combs and Shakira to fly to Miami for MTV award shows; the flights used a charter company run by a board member.
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Chicago's drug war toughest on minorities
A Chicago Tribune analysis of federal data shows that enforcement efforts in the the war on drugs hits minorities far harder than whites. Darnell Little reports that inner-city dealers are hit much harder than the more discrete dealings in suburban areas. Prison populations also reflect harsher penalties for minorities. Analysis of Chicago's predominantly African-American neighborhoods revealed that "97 percent of East Garfield Park, 99 percent of West Garfield Park, 98 percent of Woodlawn, 96 percent of Englewood and 82 percent of Austin fall within 'safe zones'" — designated areas that are covered by mandatory sentencing rules.
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Abuses at Texas state schools go unpunished
A Dallas Morning News investigation into disciplinary records of employees at state schools for the mentally retarded " found hundreds of cases of abuse at the hands of those charged with caring for the mentally retarded – everything from extreme physical violence to flagrant neglect." Yet records are not kept regarding criminal charges filed as a result of abuse. Emily Ramshaw reports that while many reports of abuse find their way to county DAs, very few are considered serious enough to prosecute. "Little fear of criminal punishment, combined with low-paid staffers who receive only cursory training, appear to create an environment in which abuse can thrive, advocates say."
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Secret Shelters
Fred Kelly reports on a two-week investigation by The Charlotte Observer which uncovered an "underground network" of shelters and safe houses, many run by religious ministries, which have sprung up as official shelters face issues of overcrowding. Exact numbers on how many of these make-shift shelters exist are unknown, but The Observer located 17 in the course of their investigation. Officials in the area worry about lack of oversight and regulation which could put residents at risk.
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Black children left in danger by state agency
Investigative Reporter Jeremy Rogalski of KHOU-Houston discovered the state agency that protects abused children may be more likely to leave black children in dangerous and abusive home situations. The story examines whether a Texas program designed to address the large percentage of African-American children in foster homes has pressured case workers into "leaving African-American children in place at all costs."
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Selling innocence
Scott Zamost and Jeff Burnside of WTVJ-South Florida update the 2001 "Selling Innocence" investigation by interviewing Savannah Haile, now 12 years old. Pictures of Haile were posted on a so-called "child-modeling" Web site without her consent, and her story became part of the WTVJ stories. The report exposed the two men behind the Florida-based Web site, and they currently face child pornography charges.
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Hard lessons learned on the way to school
Jason Whitely of KHOU-Houston analyzed street-by-street crime data from the past two years to find out how close the city’s 1,500 murders, rapes and assaults came to Houston public schools. The investigation showed that, within a mile of Benavidez Elementary, there were nine murders, 39 rapes and six assaults since 2005. The neighborhood near Dogan Elementary saw six murders, 20 rapes and four assaults.
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In Louisiana, Post-Katrina insurance appeals made more often by whites
Rukmini Callimachi and Frank Bass of the Associated Press report on a disparity in post-Katrina insurance claims. Based on analysis of Louisiana's insurance claims, they determined that residents of predominantly white neighborhoods "have been three times as likely as homeowners in black neighborhoods to seek state help in resolving insurance disputes." Their analysis suggests that those most in need of assistance are not aware of their options to dispute insurance settlements. "The findings surprise few on the front lines of a disaster that has reawakened issues of racial equality...Donelon, the insurance commissioner, said his department made an extra effort to reach as many people as possible and let them know the agency was willing to press their case with insurers."
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Lost opportunities in foster care
Jenifer B. McKim of The Orange County Register writes about lost opportunities to save a 10-month-old foster child who was returned to his mother and brutally murdered. "The investigation found that nearly two dozen abused or neglected children who had been under protection of the Juvenile Court in Orange County have died over the past six years. Most died of illnesses or accidents, but some could have been saved. " The Orange County Register litigated for more than a year in Juvenile Court to get details of 23 children under court protection who died.
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A tale of elderly exploitation
In a unique investigation built as a narrative, Lee Hancock of the Dallas Morning News reports on a troubling trend of finacial exploitation of the elderly. This series details the experiences of Mary Ellen Bendtsen. "Her crumbling mansion is now a battleground for her relatives and two art-deco antique dealers with a history of befriending elderly Dallasites - and ending up with their homes and money." While this story focuses on the experiences of an individual, it is estimated that "one in five elderly Americans will be victims of some form of financial exploitation, losing at least a third of their assests. For each case reported to authorities, 12 to 15 cases are believed to go unreported."
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Racial Diversity in adoptions on the rise
Lynette Clemetson and Ron Nixon of The New York Times looked at federal records and data maintained by Cornell University to identify a rise in interracial adoptions. "In 2004, 26 percent of black children adopted from foster care, about 4,200, were adopted transracially, nearly all by whites. That is up from roughly 14 percent, or 2,200, in 1998." Included in the report is a graphic which illustrates the changing trends in transracial adoptions.
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America's Racial Expulsions
In the story "Leave or Die: America's Hidden History of Racial Explusion," Elliot Jaspin of Cox News Service used Census Data and other documents to expose the systematic expulsion of blacks from counties across the U.S. "Beginning in 1864 and continuing for approximately 60 years, whites across the United States conducted a series of racial expulsions, driving thousands of blacks from their homes to make communities lily-white. In at least a dozen of the most extreme cases, blacks were purged from entire counties that remain almost exclusively white, according to the most recent census data. The expulsions often were violent and swift, and they stretched beyond the South." The Austin American-Statesman has put together a thorough multimedia package for the story.
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Minorities denied for loans more often
Mc Nelly Torres and Jeremy Milarsky of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel analyzed the federal Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data for 2000-04 and found that "blacks and Hispanics who have applied for conventional mortgage loans in South Florida were denied more often than white applicants, even when income levels were about the same." The analysis also showed that when people of color were approved for loans they tended to pay higher interest rates than whites. Homeownership among minorities is at an all-time high nationwide, but minorities continue to struggle.
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People with lower incomes risk more on lottery
Adam Bell and Jim Morrill of The Charlotte Observer analyzed four years of data from the South Carolina lottery to show that people with lower incomes spend a greater portion of their income on lottery games than more affluent players. The investigation found people earning less than $30,000 a year spent an estimated $627 per household annually, nearly triple the spending of those making more than $50,000. "In South Carolina, households with the same income levels in predominantly black neighborhoods generally spent more money than people in predominantly white neighborhoods." The paper analyzed ZIP code data in the Carolinas to estimate average household income spent on the lottery.
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UFW strays far from Chavez's legacy
Miriam Pawel of the Los Angeles Times examines the current state of United Farm Workers to find that Cesar "Chavez's heirs run a web of tax-exempt organizations that exploit his legacy and invoke the harsh lives of farmworkers to raise millions of dollars in public and private money." Pawel's reporting finds there is little to link the UFW with the impoverished farmworkers for whom Chavez crusaded. "The UFW is the linchpin of the Farm Worker Movement, a network of a dozen tax-exempt organizations that do business with one another, enrich friends and family, and focus on projects far from the fields: They build affordable housing in San Francisco and Albuquerque, own a top-ranked radio station in Phoenix, run a political campaign in support of an Indian casino and lobby for gay marriage."
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Children die in spite of Okla. abuse reports
Ziva Branstetter, Curtis Killman, Nicole Marshall, Omer Gillham and Ginnie Graham of the Tulsa World report in a three-part series on Oklahoma's failure to save at least 30 children who died from abuse and neglect in the past five years. The series detailed cases in which the Oklahoma Department of Human Services had prior reports of abuse and neglect involving children yet the children were not removed from the home and ended up dying from abuse and neglect. The paper also found the state had paid out at least $1 million during that time to settle lawsuits involving child welfare workers. Branstetter notes "Many states have laws allowing release of information following a child abuse death and this is what we used in Oklahoma to get the records."
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N.J. lottery sales go up as income goes down
Judy DeHaven and Rob Gebeloff of The (Newark, N.J.) Star-Ledger analyzed five years of lottery data by ZIP code, obtained through the state's Open Public Records Act, and found that lottery revenues rose as incomes fell. "This was particularly true for its bread-and-butter money-makers — the Pick 3 and Pick 4 drawings and instant games." The investigation found that per-capita ticket sales were much higher in lower-income ZIP codes. In communities with average household incomes that were below $52,000, the lottery sold an average of $250 of tickets per person annually. That was more than double the amount for ZIP codes with $100,000 households. Using minutes of meetings in the last five years, it was also found that faced with unprecedented budget shortfalls, state officials were pressuring the lottery to grow.
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Most Tasered suspects unarmed
Richard D. Walton and Mark Nichols of The Indianapolis Star examined the use of Tasers by Marion County law enforcement officers. "At least 112 unarmed suspects were Tasered while fleeing IPD or sheriff's deputies. At least 87 people were shocked while handcuffed. And only one in 12 Tasered suspects was reported to have been armed." The review looked at 1,100 instances of Taser use during a 19-month period. "The Star's review also shows that blacks and Hispanics were shocked with Tasers at a far higher rate per number of residents than whites."
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'Guest workers' suffer from exploitation, neglect
A nine-month investigation by Tom Knudson and Hector Amezcua of The Sacramento Bee "has found pineros [Latino forest workers in the United States] are victims of employer exploitation, government neglect and a contracting system that insulates landowners — including the U.S. government — from responsibility." The report, "based on more than 150 interviews across Mexico, Guatemala and the United States and 5,000 pages of records unearthed through the Freedom of Information Act" shows responsibility for these "guest workers" is spread among several federal agencies and private contractors with no effective oversight. Part two shows the government has been aware of problems with the program but has failed to do anything to fix it. "First in 1980 and again in 1993, Congress expressed shock at the abuse of Latino forest workers in America's woods and the hypocrisy of undocumented workers doing government work." The third part of the series focuses on "The number one cause of death among pineros" — van accidents. "They are the byproducts of fatigue, poorly maintained vehicles, ineffective state and federal laws, inexperienced drivers and poverty-stricken workers hungry for jobs."
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Wash. program's flaws exposes public, vulnerable adults
Ruth Teichroeb of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer investigated state records to show the flaws in a state-funded program that pays for-profit companies to supervise dangerous developmentally disabled adults. The program has the state paying for-profit companies to look after developmentally disabled people placed its Community Protection program. "While the program does protect the public in many cases — most of the clients are sex offenders — it has left vulnerable adults at risk of abuse and represents a loss of personal rights for those who don't seem to fit the program's guidelines." The three part series found that the placements are not court-monitored, there are no appeals, and for many families or guardians in desperate situations, the only alternative is losing all state help.
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Mortgage fraud surges in Chicago
David Jackson, with contributions from Ray Gibson, Todd Lighty and John McCormick of the Chicago Tribune, reviewed thousands of pages of land and court records and interviewed more than 100 people to show that a white-collar crime wave is raking Chicago's poorest communities, robbing vulnerable families of their homes and draining billions of dollars from the U.S. economy. During the past five years, mortgage fraud has surged as home loans become easier than ever to get and identity theft has blossomed. The five-part investigation found that blending face-to-face scams with computer forgery, fraud crews typically include home loan executives, appraisers and scouts who troll for victims. "Mortgage swindling has helped drug-dealing gangs, including Chicago's Black Disciples, solidify their control over street corners, launder money and gain safe houses to launch operations. " The story has prompted Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) to call for an investigation into mortgage fraud.
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Calif. conservators profit from vulnerable seniors
Evelyn Larrubia, Jack Leonard and Robin Fields of the Los Angeles Times examined records of more than 2,400 cases handled by California's professional conservators since 1997 to produce a detailed four-part series on the state's failure to protect its senior citizens from those hired to handle their affairs. More than 500 seniors were entrusted to for-profit conservators without their consent at hearings that lasted minutes. Some conservators misuse their near-parental power over fragile adults, ignoring their needs and isolating them from loved ones. One withheld the allowance that a disabled man relied on for food, leaving him to survive on handouts from a church. Another abruptly moved a 95-year-old woman to a care home and for a month refused to tell her daughter where she was. The investigation found that in most cases, evidence of these abuses was in the courts' own files. "An online registry created six years ago to identify and track problem conservators has proved a failure. The reason: Most county courts have ignored it, even though participation is mandatory"
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Problems found in racial profiling study
Jeff Golimowski of KAKE-Wichita checked court records of ticket offenses issues by the Wichita Police to show problems with a racial profiling study done in Wichita, Kan. The 2004 Wichita Stop Study, which cost $20,000, was supposed to be a detailed look at every time a police officer stopped a car or a person in Wichita. The report was part of a broader effort meant to see if Wichita Police were unfairly targeting some people. Wichita police have pointed to the study as evidence that the department's policies are working. It says police issued 18,453 traffic tickets between January and June of 2004. However, KAKE found a difference of close to 13,000 tickets between the study and the court records. "The 2004 study showed that African Americans represent a little more than 11 percent of the population, but close to 19 percent of the stops."
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Blacks excluded from juries in Louisville, Ky.
Jason Riley, Kay Stewart and Mark Schaver of The (Louisville, Ky.) Courier-Journal , analyzed records of 34,000 residents summoned for jury duty in a year's time, to show that people who live in predominantly African-American areas of the county are less likely to serve on juries than those who live in mostly white areas. "The newspaper found that residents of the county's five ZIP codes with black majorities are being disproportionately eliminated in almost every stage of the selection process — from the moment they are called for service through the time lawyers decide whether to seat them on juries. " Black jurors are excluded by prosecutors and defense attorneys in criminal cases, as well as by lawyers for both sides in civil trials.
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Taser use on the rise in Ind.
Richard D. Walton and Mark Nichols of The Indianapolis Star reviewed reports on more than 1,100 instances of Taser use in Marion County, Ind. as part of a broader look at Taser use in Indiana. The investigation found that a pregnant woman, a man in a wheelchair and a 13-year-old girl fleeing police after a rock-throwing incident were shocked with Tasers during a 19-month period. "As the number of the stun guns carried by Indiana Police Department quadrupled to more than 400 in the past two years, use also rose sharply. " Indicriminate use of the stun gun by police officials has lead to 112 unarmed suspects being Tasered while fleeing IPD or sheriff's deputies and at least 87 handcuffed people being shocked while handcuffed. The Star's review also shows that blacks and Hispanics were shocked with Tasers at a far higher rate per number of residents than whites.
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Child abuse fatalities went unreported
Tim Evans of The Indianapolis Star used state records to find that "the deaths of 10 Indiana children from abuse or neglect were not reported in the state's 2004 child fatality report. If included, they would have brought the number to 66, making it the deadliest year on record". The paper compared the state records on child deaths to media accounts and other sources. Deaths discovered by paper that were not in the report include two cases investigated and confirmed as abuse or neglect by child protection workers. At least eight other deaths apparently were not investigated or counted, though their circumstances were similar to others that were scrutinized. See how the story was investigated.
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Hmong girls raped, prostituted by gangs
Pam Louwagie and Dan Browning of the Star Tribune report on the growing problem of young Hmong girls who are raped and prostituted by Hmong gangs. A preliminary analysis found that "these girls were six times more likely than other victims to have been raped by five or more males ". The newspaper used an FBI list of Hmong surnames to extract data on prosecutions of these crimes. The stories explore the clash of cultures that hampers investigation of the crimes and allows them to continue with increasing frequency. See how this story was reported.
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Payday lenders find lucrative home in Ariz.
Craig Harris, Ryan Konig and Matt Dempsey of The Arizona Republic looked at how minimum regulation and a large population of low-income workers has created a thriving market for payday lenders. "In the past four years, the number of payday-loan offices in Arizona has nearly tripled to 610, and there are more of these offices across the state than McDonald's restaurants and Starbucks coffee shops combined. Arizona also has a higher number of payday-loan offices per capita than the national average." The paper projects that Arizonans will pay $165 million dollars in interest on such loans this year.
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Call for entries: Philip Meyer Journalism Award
The National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting, a joint program of IRE and the Missouri School of Journalism; the Knight Chair in Journalism at Arizona State University; and IRE are proud to introduce the Philip Meyer Journalism Award, a contest to recognize the best journalism done using social science research methods. The awards are in honor of Philip Meyer, Knight Chair in Journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Meyer is the author of Precision Journalism, the seminal 1972 book (and subsequent editions) that focused growing numbers of journalists on the idea of using social science methods to do better journalism. He pioneered in using survey research as a reporter for Knight Ridder newspapers to explore the causes of race riots in the 1960s. Three awards will be given annually — a first, second and third place — to recognize the best work using techniques that are part of precision journalism, computer-assisted reporting and social science research.
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Blacks pay higher interest on home loans
Binyamin Appelbaum and Ted Mellnik of The Charlotte Observer used mortgage loan data from 25 top lenders to show that “blacks who bought homes in communities across America last year were four times as likely as whites to get high interest rates for mortgage loans.” The interest rate disparities occurred even when blacks had substantially higher incomes. The paper looked at 2.2 million mortgage applications from 2004 for its study and posted a breakdown of patterns on the Web. (Editor's Note: Others interested in doing similar stories should see Jo Craven McGinty's IRE Beat Book, Home Mortgage Lending: How to detect disparities. In addition, IRE and NICAR offer the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act database to journalists and journalism educators.)
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Low-income residents less likely to appear for jury duty
Hurst Laviana of The Wichita Eagle used local court records to show that "less than half of the Sedgwick County residents summoned report to the courthouse in any given week. And low-income residents — many of them minorities — are far less likely to report for jury duty than residents of white middle-class neighborhoods." Poor address-keeping is a major cause for why some potential jurors either never get their notices or get them too late. The paper combined the juror information with Census data using mapping software.
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Money, debts high in Texas county
Paula Lavigne of The Dallas Morning News used Census and state economic data to show that while residents of Collin County, Texas, are among the wealthiest nationwide, many also have large debts: "On average, Collin County residents have more credit card debt - $4,200 - and a lower net worth - $125,000 - than residents of other high-income counties throughout the country... the county is full of young couples with children who take on excessive debt, in many cases simply to keep up the lifestyle of their friends and neighbors." Lavigne will chat online about the story on Aug. 16.
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Very few hold power in Richmond
Staff at the Richmond Times-Dispatch, along with Aaron Kessler used the social network analysis program UCINET and more than 50 interviews to investigate who really wielded power in Richmond, Va. The series includes a story about the four men central to Richmond's power, a story about minorities and how political influence does not equal power, as well as a sidebar on how the series was done. The series includes an interactive network map detailing the Web of power.
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African-American voter turnout high
Nancy Cook Lauer of the Tallahassee Democrat used local voter data to show that federal oversight of elections in five Florida counties meant to ensure African-American participation seems to have worked: "voting behavior in the five counties under federal scrutiny - Collier, Hardee, Hendry, Hillsborough and Monroe - pretty much reflects voting behavior in the state as a whole." Nearly two-thirds of black voters in those counties went to the polls last November, slightly higher than the turnout for the entire state.
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State provided child counseling contracts to felon
Susan K. Livio and Mary Jo Patterson of The (Newark) Star-Ledger investigated the background of Corey Davis, who got nearly $700,000 in state contracts to provide child counseling services despite the fact that "the budding entrepreneur had a felony drug conviction and owed thousands of dollars in child support to two women. Some of the people he employed also had criminal backgrounds. But the state blindly nurtured Davis until learning one of his mentors had cracked up a car last summer, injuring a 6-year-old boy." The state launched a criminal investigation after the paper began asking about Davis.
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Adoption deal raises concerns over surrogate program
Kevin Corcoran of The Indianapolis Star investigates a child welfare case involving a surrogate mothers program. The program granted an adoption to a 58-year-old, single, schoolteacher who was approved, despite "the absence of a legally required study of [Stephen F.] Melinger's New Jersey home or a period of preadoption supervision by an Indiana-licensed agency, court records show." The investigation includes sidebars further investigating the surrogate mother in the case, the adopted father, and a sidebar about the judge from Indianapolis who tightened the rules to disallow the adoptive father from taking the infants to New Jersey.
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Hospital faces deep problems
Julie Bell of The (Baltimore) Sun reviewed documents on the performance of Maryland General Hospital, finding that "from at least the mid-1990s until spring 2004, the hospital's board and a changing cast of top executives failed to act quickly as oversight systems designed to protect patients failed." Breakdowns at the hospital's laboratory in early 2004 scared away patients, but the paper reports that problems ran deeper than that. "Among the doctors who received and retained practicing privileges were an anesthesiologist who was asked to resign from his previous hospital after the death of a patient, and physicians who had been sued more than a dozen times, including a neurosurgeon who had been sued at least 19 times."
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Kentucky residents' health plagued by bad habits, poverty
Laura Ungar of The (Louisville) Courier-Journal spent a year assessing the health of Kentucky's residents, finding that "Kentucky is one of the sickest states in America, a place where too many people die too soon, and many who live endure decades of illness and pain." Bad health habits ingrained in the state's culture, including high tobacco use, along with poverty, combine to make the state a "perfect storm" for health. "Poverty is at the center, tied to everything from nutrition to health habits to the medical care people receive. Kentucky has 43 of the nation's 340 persistently poor rural counties. Only Mississippi, which ranks neck and neck with Kentucky on an index of health measures, has more." The report includes loads of graphics describing the state's condition.
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Illinois police pull over minorities at higher rate
Ryan Keith of the Associated Press analyzed the results of a state-mandated study on Illinois traffic stops, finding that "black and Hispanic drivers in large downstate cities are pulled over by police at a rate that far exceeds their share of the local population." The state legislature had every police agency turn over data on its 2004 traffic stops to the state, which then compiled more than 2 million records.
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Utah residents use border cities for gambling, lottery
As part of a series on gambling in Utah, Lee Davidson of The Deseret Morning News used Idaho state data to show that "the top six Idaho lottery sales sites are on the Utah border - and they sell up to 27 times as many tickets as the average Idaho lottery site." One store just north of the border sold $2.5 million worth of tickets during fiscal 2004. "The tiny Idaho border towns of Malad, Franklin, Fish Haven, Preston and Weston have a combined population of only 7,900 people. But they sell 8.5 percent of all lottery tickets in Idaho - a state with a population of 1.37 million - thanks to the help of Utahns."
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Increase in upper-income black professionals found in Dallas/Fort Worth
Jennifer LaFleur of The Dallas Morning News used Census data to show that "the number of black households in the metro area that earn at least $100,000 tripled during the 1990s, propelling Dallas-Fort Worth into the ranks of the nation's leading metropolitan areas for upper-income black professionals." Much of the gains came in the area's suburbs. "The D-FW area also posted the fifth-biggest gain in upper-income black households during the 1990s, growing from about 5,300 to more than 16,000 households."
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Hate crimes rise in Los Angeles school district
Naush Boghossian and Lisa M. Sodders of the Los Angeles Daily News use data from the Los Angeles Unified School District police to investigate an increase in hate crimes in the district. "Hate crimes in Los Angeles' public schools have surged more than 300 percent over the past decade..." They found that almost all of the reported hate crimes were racially motivated.
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Minorities face tough discipline
Melissa Jenco of the Daily Herald analyzed Illinois education data to show that "racial disparities in discipline are not just a suburban trend. Statewide, during the 2002-03 school year, the expulsion and suspension rate for black students was three times higher than for white students. There were similar disparities for Latino students, too."
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Street gun dealers go to jail, while licensed dealers get a free pass
Susan Schulman, Lou Michel and Dan Herbeck of The Buffalo News uses public records to investigate gun dealers in a four-day series. The investigation found that while street gun dealers go to jail, licensed gun merchants get a free pass. "Gun shows are a prime source of crime weapons in many states...Despite those concerns, the U.S. Justice Department shies away from gun shows and rarely prosecutes any of the 68,500 dealers licensed to sell firearms in the United States." The series includes an analysis of where the guns are exported from.
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Schools fail to report all crime
An investigation by the Charlotte Observer has found that a lot more violent and threatening behavior takes place in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools than officials disclose in the state's public report on crime. Observer reporters Lisa Hammersly Munn, Liz Chandler, Melissa Manware and Peter Smolowitz, along with database reporter Adam Bell, used school and police records and databases to reveal thousands of incidents of crime, violence and threatening acts that the state doesn't require for its report and that aren't disclosed to parents. Also, the newspaper found that CMS failed to disclose some crimes the state report requires. The investigation includes a downloadable school violence report and school violence charts.
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Section 8 failing to provide adequate housing
Antonio Olivo, John Bebow and Darnell Little of the Chicago Tribune used local data to show that "private landlords are fast taking over government's traditional role of housing Chicago's poor. But these subsidized 'Section 8' landlords have been failing four out of every 10 inspections" during the last five years. "More than 6,000 landlords failed the majority of their inspections. Yet those landlords collectively received a quarter-billion dollars in taxpayer-funded rent subsidies in the last five years." Bebow emails that the paper's reporting "was complicated by the fact that the housing authority refused to release the addresses of any of the thousands of apartments in the Section 8 system. They cited a privacy exemption that completely contradicted the federal government's policy on release of addresses of subsidized buildings."
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Many to blame for social programs mess
Karen Augé of The Denver Post used state records to show that "nearly every agency, contractor and department that touched the state's new $200 million computer benefits system in some way contributed to its debacle." Colorado's new system was a year late when it came online last fall, and the contractor and state officials have blamed each other for its failures.
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Convicted youths escaping custody
Sheila Burke of The Tennessean used state data to show that "children convicted of crimes escaped from state custody more than 4,400 times during the past five years, often by simply walking away from foster homes or other unsecured facilities where they had been placed by the Department of Children's Services." Tennessee's rate of escapes for all kids is about two times the national average.
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Death penalty in Ohio applied unfairly
Andrew Welsh-Huggins of the Associated Press analyzed Ohio death penalty cases since 1981, finding that "Ohio's death penalty has been inconsistently applied since it was enacted in 1981...Race, the extensive use of plea bargains, and where a crime was committed all play a role in who is sentenced to death." Defendants charged with killing a white person were twice as likely to get the death penalty than those accused of killing a black person, and counties with a strong Democratic lean handed out death sentences less often than jurisdictions with a more conservative population.
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Police fail to report missing children
Thomas Hargrove of Scripps Howard News Service analyzed data from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to find that "dozens of police departments across the nation failed to report at least 4,498 runaway, lost and abducted children in apparent violation of the National Child Search Assistance Act passed by Congress in 1990. Seventeen of these unreported children are dead, 131 are still missing." Twelve percent of the more than 37,000 children reported missing to the NCMEC between 2000 and 2004 were not reported to the FBI.
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State spends millions transporting recovering heroin addicts
Chris Halsne of KIRO-Seattle uses receipts for methadone delivery cabs obtained through the Open Records Act to shed light on a system that is spending millions transporting recovering heroin addicts in taxicabs. "Washington taxpayers spend $2.8 million each year for transportation of heroin addicts to treatment clinics that's over and above the cost of serving up counseling and doses of methadone." The story includes links to pdf files detailing the transportation charges by county.
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Immigrant women adapting, are as likely to work as U.S. women
Peggy O'Crowley and Carrie Stetler of The (Newark) Star-Ledger, with assistance from Robert Gebeloff, used Census data to show that "immigrant women, who comprise one of four mothers in New Jersey, are less likely to work outside the home — at least when they first arrive. After 10 years, though, they are as apt to hold jobs as native-born women." The rates varied for different ethnicities, although some immigrants who traditionally stayed at home in their homelands do work in New Jersey.
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Poor care at nursing homes leads to light punishments
Jeffrey Meitrodt, Jan Moller and Steve Ritea of The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune used state data to show that "most of Louisiana's 300 or so nursing homes have been cited since 1999 for mistakes that harmed or endangered residents. But in the sometimes illogical world of nursing home regulation, facilities in Louisiana often pay little or no penalty for fatal errors. In fact, homes that make mistakes resulting in a resident's death or serious injury often pay less than those cited for repeating minor violations." The paper's five-part series has numerous stories about the system, how other states regulate nursing homes and lots of photos.
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Medicare schemes may have cost taxpayers millions
Erin McCormick of the San Francisco Chronicle investigated Medicare scams dealing with elderly immigrants. What the Chronicle discovered were two scams: the first was a sleep clinic, which billed Medicare for tests that were over-billed and unnecessary. The second scam, the electronic wheelchair scam, dealt with Medicare recipients receiving free motorized scooters. In both scams the Medicare recipients were given $100 for going to the clinics and recruiters were given $50 for each person they brought with them to the clinics. The story breaks down each scam, how they worked, and provides examples of what was going on. The second installment in the series explores the ability of the government to crack down on the fraud. The Chronicle found that the scams growth is far outpacing the crackdown, as scammers are becoming more cunning.
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Web site lists day-care violations, not punishments
Robin Farmer of the Richmond Times-Dispatch used the Freedom of Information Act to investigate licensed day-care centers in Virginia. Parents can look-up online if their child's center has violations, but the site does not reveal whether the center has been punished for them. The Times-Dispatch found that "nearly 95 percent of 2,600 centers had at least one violation last year. There are more than 600 standards for centers to meet." The story also includes two sidebars, the first lists the day-care centers appealing their sanctions, and the second lists information that is not available on the state's Web site.
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Faulty oversight put youth at risk
Jonathan D. Rockoff and John B. O'Donnell of The (Baltimore) Sun analyzed spending by 25 companies that run group homes for foster children, finding "a broad failure by the state to protect the interests of 2,700 youths who live in 330 privately run homes in Maryland. The state licenses and funds the facilities but does not routinely hold them accountable for the quality of care they provide - putting children at risk." In some cases, the paper found that deaths of children were not recorded in state files and "unqualified or unfit caregivers are hired because the state does not enforce training requirements and leaves screening to the operators." Also included is a section about how the series was done.
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Hispanic girls lack high school sports participation
MaryJo Sylwester, in her swan song at USA TODAY before joining the St. Paul Pioneer-Press, used federal education data to help illustrate the comparative lack of participation in high school sports by Hispanic girls. "Nationally, about 36% of Hispanic sophomore girls played interscholastic sports, compared with 52% of non-Hispanics for the 2001-02 school year." Money doesn't seem to be a factor, but rather the influences of culture and family that may emphasize home obligations over after-school activities.
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Scout program overstated numbers to entice donors
The investigative team for WAGA-Atlanta investigated claims that Atlanta's inner-city boy scout program grossly overstated their numbers to boost their image, in an attempt to convince potential donors to donate. "Insiders say the way the Boy Scouts account for members and troops inflates its numbers resulting in what insiders call Ghost Scouts and Phantom Troops." They would do this by dispersing scout executives throughout the communities having boys sign flyers saying they were interested in joining the scouts. Then they would take these kids and add them to the list, without checking to see if the boys even took the oath and joined the scouts. The team uncovered many instances where large troop numbers were reported, however in reality the numbers were small or even none.
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City shooting data shows race, location similarities
Nathan Gorenstein, Barbara Boyer and Rose Ciotta of the Philadelphia Inquirer summarized shootings in the city last year: "On average, more than four people a day were struck by bullets. About one in six died. On one day alone - Oct. 22 - 19 people were shot, one fatally. It's a toll of injury and death that falls most heavily on the same few neighborhoods year after year: North Philadelphia. West Philadelphia north of Market Street. The southwestern edge of South Philadelphia." During the past four years, half of all shooting victims were under 25, and most of those were African American males. An interactive graphic displaying shooting victims per square mile is included.
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Special ed students pack troubled schools
In a story produced by Beth Fertig and edited by John Keefe of WNYC-New York, school enrollment data was used to compare special needs enrollment data for the more violent schools compared to the lesser violent schools. Using freedom of information laws, WNYC obtained fall enrollment data for the 278 academic high schools that enroll more than a quarter of a million students. They found that "while special ed kids make up 12 percent of the high school population citywide, they make up 17 percent of students at violent schools. And they're 18 percent at schools the state says are failing." The story includes an in-depth analysis of Special Education and English Language Learners, as well as supplying the radio version of the story.
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Gang leaders control crime, despite incarceration
Michael Montgomery of American Radioworks spent five months investigating following inmates at staff at Pelican Bay State Prison in California. He found that prison gangs are controlling crime "far outside prison walls and across the country." Some of the gang leaders were already serving life sentences and are now facing prosecution for crimes committed outside of the prison walls, while they were incarcerated.
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Delays, inconsistencies plague veteran affairs
Chris Adams and Alison Young of Knight-Ridder Newspapers sued the Veterans Administration to obtain records never before released to the public. They showed that "injured soldiers who petition the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for those payments are often doomed by lengthy delays, hurt by inconsistent rulings and failed by the veterans representatives who try to help them." Knight-Ridder compiled a database comparing VA regional offices, finding "wildly inconsistent results" in providing care to vets. Ted Mellnik of the Charlotte Observer assisted with formatting the database for display on the Web site; here's how the series was done.
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Affluent residents more likely than minorities to show up for jury duty
Andrew Tilghman of the Houston Chronicle analyzed local court data to show that "residents of Harris County's predominantly white, affluent neighborhoods are up to seven times more likely to show up for jury duty than those in the county's lower-income, mostly minority neighborhoods." The paper used the area's more than 140 ZIP codes to divide up juror pools, finding that "the 10 ZIP codes with the lowest turnout, all below 10 percent, have populations that are predominantly Hispanic or black. Those areas had a median income of $29,636."
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Texas hispanics dying at an alarming rate in Iraq
Juan Castillo and Bill Bishop of the Austin American-Statesman studied military deaths from the war in Iraq to find that "Hispanic Texans are dying in Iraq at a rate more than 60 percent higher than the rate for the nation's military-age population as a whole." Texas Hispanics and rural Americans serving in Iraq have some of the highest mortality rates. Statistican Robert Cushing did the analysis for the paper.
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Crime data compares parolee data by ZIP code
Jeremy Finley of WSMV-Nashville compared prison parolee data to ZIP codes in the Nashville area, uncovering a trend that is populating felons together and trapping ZIP codes in a "cycle of violence." He found the highest number of felons living in the 37207 ZIP code. "There are more than 200 convicted criminals in this ZIP code including convicted murderers, rapists, and drug dealers." The report also provides data that lists the number of parolees by ZIP code in Davidson County.
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Traffic stop study raises racial profiling questions
Karisa King and Kelly Guckian of the San Antonio Express-News analyzed 12 months' of traffic and pedestrian police stops, finding that "blacks were more than three times as likely as whites to face certain types of police searches. Yet police found contraband in the searches at about the same rate for both races, a finding that civil rights groups said shows the disparate treatment was unwarranted." The data, from 2002, show that "San Antonio police stop minority and white drivers at rates that are roughly similar to their share of the population."
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Ohio drunk driver program flawed
Sheila McLaughlin of The Cincinnati Enquirer evaluated an Ohio program that requires drunk drivers to put special license plates on their vehicles, finding that "a year after Ohio started requiring the special tags, a sampling of more than 300 local cases and interviews with lawyers, judges, police officers and legislators indicate that the law is unevenly administered, enforced and monitored." Among the problems are that repeat offenders don't always get the plates and that police have no way to track who has them or should.
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Poor districts failing despite recent education reforms
Mc Nelly Torres from the San Antonio Express-News investigated the progress of a Texas public school reform legislation dubbed "Robin Hood". She focused on the Edgewood School District, where the high school has an hispanic population of 97 percent. She found that the "total revenue per student was $8,729 last year, compared with $4,315 in 1994." A vast improvement for the district, however, the school keeps failing from constant changes in leadership, a divided school board and other problems that generally plague a poor school district. Enrollment has also dropped, due to the diminishing population in the district. A spreadsheet that shows the school district expenditures and a slideshow on how the Edgewood school district is shrinking are also provided.
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Sex offenders living in nursing homes
An investigation by KCRA-Sacramento "found that there are currently 52 registered sex offenders living in California nursing homes and not all are elderly men confined to their bed. Fifty-six percent are under 70." An alarming number after reviewing a Nevada case in which a 86-year-old man was convicted of sexual assault against a 78-year-old women with Alzheimer's and dementia. Current law does not require the homes to perform background check on residents.
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Racist covenants still exist
Judy L. Thomas and Gregory S. Reeves of The Kansas City Star studied homeowner association rules in the Kansas City area, finding that "more than 1,200 documents involving thousands of homes still contain racist language banning blacks, Jews and other ethnic groups. For the first half of the 20th century, racially restrictive covenants were routinely recorded in plats and deeds and placed in many homeowner's association documents not only here, but nationwide. Yet many of the covenants never were removed, even after being ruled unenforceable by the U.S. Supreme Court as long ago as 1948 and banned by the Fair Housing Act of 1968. And their vestiges of discrimination - a kind of 'curse of the covenant' - still linger locally."
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Working poor face tough challenges
Heath Foster, Paul Nyhan and Phoung Cat Le of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer have a series on the working poor in King and Snohomish counties, concluding that "nearly half a million people in King and Snohomish counties, about a quarter of them children, are surviving at no more than twice the federal poverty level – less than $38,000 a year for a family of four. They account for a fifth of our region's population. And for the most part, they are not poor because they are unemployed. About 61 percent of them – or nearly 300,000 people – live in families where at least one adult is working full time." One sidebar lists the resources the P-I used to report the project.The series, which includes extensive graphics, made use of 14 years' worth of Census PUMS data.
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Missing Indian campaign contributions leads to lobbyist investigation
Jon Kamman of The Arizona Republic compared tribal records with federal campaign contributions to find that "about $70,000 in political contributions are unaccounted for after a Texas Indian tribe sent them to a since-disgraced lobbyist to distribute." The missing checks, which have been cashed, were meant for the campaign committees or leadership PACs of more than two dozen members of Congress. The former lobbyist, Jack Abramoff, is under federal investigation.
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King Center deteriorating, faces financial crisis
Ernie Suggs and Mae Gentry of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution dug into the finances of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, which said it could not afford many millions of dollars for necessary repairs, to show how it had gotten into such a financial hole. They found that "Martin Luther King III, who took over as the center's CEO in January 2004, was paid a salary of $150,000 last year," while his younger brother "Dexter King, the center's chief operating officer and chairman of the board, is paid the same salary he was paid previously when he was CEO. Tax records show the center paid Dexter King $179,933 when he was CEO in 2003, plus $8,708 in benefits and deferred compensation."
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Roadblocks in fight against domestic violence
In a four-part series, Sarah Huntley of the Rocky Mountain News examines the tactics used to end domestic violence. Among the findings: mandatory-arrest laws put more women in jail and raise concerns that victims won't call police; aggressive prosecution and ''fast-track'' courts may be snagging the wrong people; court-ordered treatment for batterers has not proved effective in studies, but critics say Colorado won't consider changing its approach.
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Food bank honor system attracts questionable charities
Jeff McDonald of The San Diego Union-Tribune spent three months investigating the San Diego Food Bank, finding that "the food bank has no way of making sure all the charitable food program's donations get to the tables and cupboards of hungry families. Instead, the program operates on what amounts to an honor system." Five little-known charities are the largest participants in the program, but they are "run by people whose backgrounds include a felony conviction, bankruptcy, court orders for child support and multiple lawsuits. At least two have operated businesses that sell groceries. Most gave the food bank cell phone numbers as their only means of contact."
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Home-health care problems put patients at risk
Paul Garber and Danielle Deaver of the Winston-Salem Journal investigated home-health care in North Carolina, finding that "fewer than 200 of the 1,200 agencies licensed to provide home-health care in North Carolina are inspected on a regular basis," and there were more than 400 reported cases of abuse, neglect or theft by employees since 2000. In addition, "home-health agencies - unlike nursing homes, adult-care homes and mental-health group homes - are free to hire people listed on a state registry of workers who have committed such offenses against patients." The paper built a database of state inspections and criminal claims that can be browsed.
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College aspirations rise, dropout rate steady for low-income families
Greg Toppo and Anthony DeBarros of USA Today analyzed data from two surveys by the Department of Education, finding that messages urging teenagers to go to college have had an impact: "In 1990, 59% of 10th-graders with educational aspirations expected to get a four-year college degree or higher; by 2002, nearly 80% said the same." That expectation didn't always turn into reality, however. "The number of bachelor's degrees earned annually rose by 18% from 1990 to 2002. But while graduation rates rose at elite colleges, they dropped - sometimes sharply - at many others, especially public colleges."
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Nursing home deaths preventable
Rick Linsk of the St. Paul Pioneer Press used Minnesota death certificate data to show that "hundreds of Minnesotans perish annually from possibly avoidable conditions" while staying in nursing homes. "Nearly 4,000 people died over a 15-year period from pressure sores, dehydration, falls and other injuries."
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California migrants losing jobs to mechanization
The San Diego Union-Times reporter Diane Lindquist found that migrant workers in California are steadily losing their jobs due to mechanization. "Last season, many raisin growers turned to machines to do the work. Although they had long held out, they are now joining growers nationwide in embracing mechanization to fend off global competition." This poses a problem for California's growing migrant population, which has seen an increase in the poverty rate to around 30 percent in areas. Per capita income has been hovering around $5,300 and some have had to live on less than $3,000, which is the average yearly income in Mexico.
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Regional jail ranks amongst highest in state spending
Curtis Johnson of The (Huntingdon) Herald-Dispatch used West Virginia state data to show that "Cabell County spent more money to cover regional jail costs than any other participating county in 2004." The paper reviewed billing records from the state to determine that the county's costs per inmate ranked among the highest in the state, just below Berkeley County. Cabell County also held people longer per capita than at least 52 other counties. A chart showing admissions and costs is also available.
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Homicide victims linked to drug trade
Michael Grabell, Tanya Eiserer and Holly Yan of The Dallas Morning News tracked murders in Dallas in 2004, finding that "most of the 248 people who made Dallas one of the nation's deadliest big cities last year died in obscurity. Many were almost industrial byproducts of the city's drug trade...The drug trade draws customers from every race and economic group. But overwhelmingly the city's homicide victims are young minority men. Four out of five homicide victims in 2004 were black or Latino. And about half of the victims were black and Latino males under the age of 35 - even though that group accounts for only about 22 percent of Dallas' population. The killers are often black and Latino, too." The paper's tally of 248 killings is four more than the city reported and an 11.2 percent jump over 2003 figures.
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Tighter border security leads to more drug busts
Katie N. Johannes of The Bellingham Herald used federal data to report that increased spending on border security since 9/11 has had one side effect for Whatcom County's border with Canada: more smuggled marijuana has been seized outside official ports of entry. "The amount of marijuana seized is down from 7.7 tons in 2003, but still is double what was seized in the years just prior to 9/11. The numbers dropped significantly at the ports of entry in Whatcom County, from 11,590 pounds in 2003 to 4,777 for all but December of 2004. Conversely, Border Patrol agents - who monitor the lands between official ports of entry - seized more than 6,200 pounds of marijuana in the first 11 months of 2004 - up from 3,744 pounds in all of 2003."
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Transportation fatalities overlooked for migrant workers in Florida
Mike Schneider of the Associated Press checked federal and state records, finding "transportation-related accidents to be the leading cause of work-related deaths for Florida's farmworkers, responsible for 83 fatalities and more than 400 injuries since 1992. Only California, which has more farm laborers, has had more such deaths over the past decade." AP used state citations of farmworker vehicles in its story and found that transportation violations are punished less severely than other types of problems.
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Mo. prison population increases, more serving longer sentences
Gregory S. Reeves of the Kansas City Star analyzed federal statistics to show that "more people are behind bars in Missouri based on population than any state outside the South ... Missouri now has the eighth-highest imprisonment rate in the nation." The paper used data from the Department of Justice for its story, reporting that the state's prison population has doubled since 1990, and the average sentence is three months longer than the national average.
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Causes of bankruptcy complex in Utah
Rosemary Winters, Julie DeHerrera, Steve Oberbeck and Tony Semerad of the Salt Lake Tribune analyzed a sample of bankruptcy filings in Utah between 2003 and 2004, finding that "nearly two-thirds of bankruptcy filers have one or more dependent children, making them twice as likely to be supporting children younger than 18 as the average household nationally. Utahns face the financial responsibilities of home-making and supporting a family early in life when they are just embarking on their careers and earn little." The paper described its methodology for the project.
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Calif. uses special projects money for general expenses
Bob Porterfield of The Associated Press used California state records to show that "since 2001, the Legislature has borrowed or transferred $9.5 billion collected for special projects such as highway improvements and telephone access, sending it to the general fund, documents from the Finance Department and the state Legislature show. The money hasn't been repaid." The state has used more than $3 billion in transportation funds to help pay other expenses, often delaying road projects for years.
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Volatile mix at Ore. psychiatric hospital
Alan Gustafson of the Salem, Ore., Statesman Journal investigated Oregon's treatment of the criminally insane, finding that Oregon State Hospital suffers from crowding, sentencing of criminals that don't belong in a mental institution, assaults on employees and significant overtime costs. "New patients are funneling into the forensic program at a record pace. A scant supply of community housing is stalling discharges for dozens of patients deemed ready to go. It's a perfect formula for perpetual overcrowding."
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Ethics gap revealed through privatization
R.G. Ratcliffe of the Houston Chronicle investigated a proposal to privatize Texas' human services system, finding "weaknesses in Texas ethics laws concerning conflicts of interests and cronyism. Their relationships and how they benefited from state business illustrate how Texas law has overlooked the power of lower-level bureaucrats who are often charged with crafting laws." The paper illustrated the ties between Deputy Health and Human Services Commissioner Gregg Phillips and private consultant Chris Britton, who helped author the bill and later joined with a business founded by Phillips to obtain a state contract.
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Traffic enforcement lieutenant wrote majority of tickets to Hispanics
Kevin Krause of The Dallas Morning News used local traffic stop records to show that "the lieutenant over Denton County's traffic enforcement unit wrote 86 percent of his tickets to people with Hispanic surnames during the last two years." Hispanics account for about half of all Texas truckers, and overall Denton County traffic officers issue tickets to people with Hispanic names about half the time.
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Poor districts get inexperienced teachers
Kerrie Frisinger of the Newport News, Va., Daily Press used local data to show that "Hampton and Suffolk, which have some of the highest percentages of black students and students receiving free or reduced-price lunches, also have more inexperienced teachers than other school districts." Hampton pays starting teachers up to $2,000 less than other Virginia districts, but experts said that reputation often was a bigger factor in a school district's ability to retain teachers.
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College apparel still made in sweatshops
Matthew Kauffman and Lisa Chedekel of The Hartford Courant find that college-licensed apparel is produced in sweatshop conditions, despite pledges made by academic leaders five years ago. "But today, the $20 T-shirts and $40 sweat shirts that bear the logos of UConn and other major universities are sewn under conditions that are as dismal as those that prompted the pledges — and rapidly getting worse."
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Poor schools get teachers who failed
Chris Davis and Matthew Doig of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune find that a third of Florida teachers failed the teaching certification test at least once; that schools in poor neighborhoods and those with a high