The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "political prisoners" ...
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Investigative Reporting Finalists
The Goldsmith Prize awards a $25,000 annual prize for reporting that best promotes more effective and ethical conduct of government, the making of public policy, or the practice of politics. The five finalists for 1996 were "The F.A.A., USAir and the ATR Turbo Prop Planes," "Military Secrets," "Prisoners On Payroll," "Honduras," "Who Owns The Law? West Publishing and the Courts," and "Profits From Pain." The stories come from the New York Times, Dayton Daily News, Baltimore Sun, Minneapolis Star Tribune and Sun-Sentinel.
Tags: Goldsmith Prize; Federal Aviation Administration; airplane safety; air traffic control; airplane inspection; airplane accidents; military secrets; sexual assault; military judicial system; Tailhook; military pay; Honduras; CIA; West Publishing; judicial bribes; Supreme Court; judicial ethics; HMOs
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The other election scandal
Rolling Stone questions the laws of Florida and eleven other states that have prohibited residents convicted of felony from casting votes until the end of their lives. The author looks at this issue as "the worst violation of the democratic process," since 5 million free U.S. citizens are disenfranchised. The analysis points out that more than half of the legally prevented form casting their votes are black or Latino, and finds that since 1865 forbidding ex-felons to vote has been "one device to limit the political power of African Americans." The story sheds light on a class-action lawsuit in Florida, which can make disenfranchisement an issue in the 2002 gubernatorial election.
Tags: African-Americans; black men; minorities; crime; elections; politics; Democrats; Republicans; voting; prisoners; black-voter participation
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Model Prisoner: Was an Aspiring Actress Wrongly Implicated In Murder of TV Host
The Wall Street Journal looks at the circumstances surrounding the apprehension of Paola Durante, a 23-year-old aspiring actress, in Mexico city. Durante has been accused of complicity in the killing of the popular Mexican TV host Francisco "Paco" Stanley. The story reveals that Mexico City police arrested the actress on the basis of an inconsistent description, and points out that politics might be one possible explanation for the prosecutors' persistence with the case against Durante. The reporter finds that "due process of law remains a missing link as Mexico evolves into a democracy."
Tags: Mario Bezares; Paola Durante; Fransisco "Paco" Stanley; Mexican President Vicente Fox; crime; courts; Luis Gabriel Valencia; human rights
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Crimes of Punishment
In this three-part series the Globe conducted an extensive investigation into the Suffolk County corrections department after allegations arose of widespread abuse of power and misconduct among correctional officers. Four officers were fired from the county's South Bay correctional facility after current and former female inmates brought up charges that guards exchanged privileges for sexual favors. The county officially recognized the allegations after a former female inmate's 1999 pregnancy showed a corrections officer was the father. The department is also facing charges of brutality from prison guards, largely stemming from a 1999 case when an inmate died in the custody of the sheriff's department. The Globe finds that at the heart of all of the problems is the county sheriff. Sheriff Richard Rouse has had a long history inside Boston politics, but some say "his grasp of corrections is minimal and his response to scandals has been mostly cosmetic." Moreover the Globe finds that Rouse spends very little time in the department, relying heavily on assistants while being paid a $104,000 salary and using a department vehicle illegally.
Tags: Law Enforcement; corrections; criminal justice; Suffolk County; Massachusetts
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How the GOP Gamed the System in Florida
Lantigua takes a look at the disfranchisement of minority voters in Florida in the 2000 presidential election. . He writes, " disfranchisement 2000-style did not depend on intimidation...Instead Florida state election officials and hired data crunchers used computers to target thousands of voters, many of whom were then purged from the voter rolls without reason." State officials deny racist intent in their creation of laws that remove a felon's right to vote; Florida's prison population is 54 percent black while its state population is only 15 percent.. State officials also cannot explain why thousands of other Floridians who have no criminal record, also had their right to vote taken away. Lantigua investigates how legislation and election underfunding may have cost 200,000 Floridians their votes.
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The Prison Explosion
"This three-part series documented the role of the 1970s-era drug laws in the huge growth of prisons in New York State, and its questionable results: the incarceration of thousands of low level offenders who are almost exclusively black or Hispanic. The series further found that sentencing and parole trends have kept prisons full in the 1990s despite a huge drop in crime, questioning whether the economic and political muscle of the prison lobby had begun to influence sentence policy. And it outlined the declining opportunities for rehabilitation within prison walls, couple with the increasingly punitive atmosphere there."
Tags: prisons; drug laws; minorities; rehabilitation
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The Informant
The Informant is "the inside story of the groundbreaking price-fixing investigation involving Archer Daniels Midland Company. The book provides a unique inside look at both the rampant corruption inside the politically powerful corporation, as well as perhaps the most detailed and realistic portrayal ever of the personalities, pettiness and bureaucratic infighting involved in a federal criminal investigation."
Tags: BOOK; FBI; investigations; government; corporations whistleblowers felony prisoner Mark Whitacre conspiracy corporate espionage
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False Counts: Bogus names jam Indiana's voter list
The Indianapolis Star investigates the seemingly overnight growth of Indiana's voter registration rolls. Theobald discovered that since Congress passed the National Voter Registration Act, the Indiana voter registration roll grew by one million names. However, close examination of the rolls revealed that hundreds of thousands of those names -- up to 20 percent -- are invalid. Those people have died, moved or gone to prison.
Tags: voter registration; National Voter Registration Act; fraud; voting; politics; Congress; Indiana; voters
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Walls of Silence
Newly elected democrat Governor Gray Davis will not lift the 1995 measure which bars prisonors from one-on-one interviews with reporters and prohibits confidential mail from prisoners to reporters. The measure was initially imposed to curb the cult status of some prisoners, but now supporters, including the ACLU and the CA Correctional Peace Officers Assn., feel the post OJ political climate has abaited and public scrutiny would be a good idea considering some recent revelations from CA prisons
Tags: prison; interviews; California; ACLU; Correctional Officers
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Locked Up: The Greying of America's Prisons
The population of the U.S. prison system is aging, and could lead to costly treatment for some people no longer dangerous to society. This series explores the economic, political and human aspects of the emerging crisis in corrections.