Tipsheets from the IRE Center

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Title Number Year Panelist Summary
Covering Crime 774 1998/Indianapolis Tim Roche/Jo Craven/Jere Downs This panel discusses how to uncover the real story behind the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports.
Covering Criminal Justice 1156 N/A N/A The handbook from the Center on Crime, Communities and Culture, a project of George Soros' Open Society Institute, has numerous resources, contacts and story ideas in an effort to shift crime coverage from spot reporting to a public policy issue.
Crime and Chaos 224 1994/St. Louis Athelia Knight This tipsheet describes strategies for going beyond incident or statistic specific reporting on crime; outlines how to find central questions that need to be answered, who can help you find them, data to add an authoritative voice to stories, and how to use numbers and to write the story.
Mapping Crime 858 1999/Boston Toni Whitt Why map crime? Readers care more than you know. Crime maps are often among the most popular items given to readers. This tipsheet provides a tutorial for mapping crime in your area.
More Than The Usual Numbers 665 1997/Phoenix Steve Doig This handout contains tips on why and how to do murder projects. The handout includes small samples of frequency tables as well as suggestions for questions to ask yourself when examining the data.
Crime Statistics: How Not To Be Abused 211 1977 David Burnham This is a 12-page handout written for IRE; it describes how various agencies and departments release statistics which can easily be misread by reporters and others; details how to write reliable crime stories when faced with deadline pressure and confusing statistics; includes a bibliography and sample stories.
Crime In-Depth: 857 1999/Boston Carol Napolitano This tipsheet provides tips for obtaining, importing, examining and analyzing data. This tipsheet also includes samples of raw data and Uniform Crime Reports.
Crime In-Depth Part II: 872 1999/Boston Geoff Dougherty Studying police staffing is one of the most critical things you can do in evaluating your local law enforcement agencies. This tipsheet provides a list of the most effective steps to follow.
Furloughs Linked to Crimes 874 1999/Boston Jeffrey Good/Robert Benincasa This is an article from the July 5, 1998, Burlington Free Press showing how 44 percent of the prisoners released in the county face new charges. The article includes graphics and a box showing the methods used to obtain and analyze the prisoner data.
Questioning the Cops 873 1999/Boston Jo Craven This tipsheet consists of a review of the Washington Post's investigative series "Deadly Force" by the Columbia Journalism Review.
Uniform Crime Reports 309 1995/Miami Rich Gordon Includes a two-page tip sheet concerning what data is compiled under the UCR program, where to call for information and examples of stories produced with UCR data.
Untitled Tipsheet 177 1994/St. Louis Craig McCoy Describes the best way to track homicide trends in your city or town using databases or spreadsheets; includes knowing what questions to ask, where to get the information (from the local police, the FBI and other government sources) and in what form, what the information might cost and a list of homicide experts who can be used as sources.
Untitled Tipsheet 634 1997/Nashville Ruberry, Warner, Aoki & Craven This handout looks at using CAR to cover crime. The handout includes information on how to use Uniform Crime Report data from the FBI, where to go for state Uniform Crime Reporting programs, and how to track violence in schools.
Using Crime Statistics 965 1999/Kansas City Craven, Fazlollah, Horwitz & Matza This tipsheet includes uniform crime report from the Michigan state police, a listing of cities with the highest level of reported crime per 100,000, an incident report from the Philadelphia police department and an article detailing a Philadelphia crime web site.
Policing the Police 1196 2000/New York Benson, Fazlollah, Matza, McCoy This tipsheet provides information for reporters interested in researching the police, particularly how to examine how police handle rape cases.
The Ills of Juvenile Crime and Punishment 1193 & 1194 2000/New York Todd Richissin (Baltimore Sun) & Mary Hargrove (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette) Tipsheet 1193 contains information for reporting on juvenile crime and justice, and tipsheet 1994 includes a list of sources for juvenile crime and punishment reporting.
Tracking the Illegal Drug Trade and Deaths 1248 & 1249 2000/New York Wayne Woolley & Rose Ciotta Handout 1248 contains a list of tips to help reporters cover drug problems in their cities using computer assisted reporting. Handout 1249 contains a list of data sources to track illegal drug trends.