Justice (courts/crime/law)
Danger lurks in some adult foster care homes
After a staff member at an adult foster care home in the Duluth, Minn., area was left alone with and nearly raped by a resident who had twice been civilly committed for mental illness, the Duluth News Tribune investigated the homes and found numerous incidents of residents with severe mental illness, drug addiction and violent…
Read MorePoor communication allowed gang member to go free
In a federal crackdown on the Latin Kings, a notorious street gang in Milwaukee, federal authorities had a chance to arrest a key gang leader wanted in connection with a homicide when he appeared at the county courthouse on a different case. But an investigation by Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter John Diedrich revealed a startling…
Read MoreAnalysis shows no pattern of racial profiling in Gates’ arrest
The latest investigation from the New England Center for Investigation Reporting challenges the notion that race was a factor in the disorderly conduct arrest of Harvard University scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr., who is black, by a white Cambridge, Mass., police officer last year. “Instead, the analysis…finds that the most common factor linking people who…
Read MoreDebtors ending up in jail
An analysis of state data by Chris Serres and Glenn Howatt, of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, shows that “people are routinely being thrown in jail for failing to pay debts. In Minnesota, which has some of the most creditor-friendly laws in the country, the use of arrest warrants against debtors has jumped 60 percent over…
Read MoreData shows little violence at U.S.-Mexican border
The Associated Press reported that the US-Mexico border is one of the safest parts of America, and getting safer even as politicians say more federal troops are needed to fight rising violence. The top four big cities in America with the lowest rates of violent crime are all in border states: San Diego, Phoenix, El…
Read MoreGun-rental loophole for felons, others
Felons may be prohibited from buying, owning or carrying guns, but a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigation by reporter John Diedrich revealed a loophole in the law allows them to rent guns at gun stores and use them for target practice on indoor ranges. Indeed, gun stores are prohibited from running background checks on those wanting…
Read MoreMexican government seems to favor Sinaloa cartel
An NPR News investigation has found strong evidence of collusion between elements of the Mexican army and the Sinaloa cartel in the violent border city of Juarez. In an effort to find out whether federal forces are favoring the Sinaloa cartel, NPR analyzed thousands of news releases on the federal attorney general’s website announcing arrests…
Read MoreDozens tricked into registering to vote Republican
Brian Joseph of The Orange County Register reports on how petitioners “tricked dozens of young Orange County voters into registering to vote as Republicans.” Written complaints have been filed with state election officials by at least 99 people who have been unwittingly registered to vote Republican. A similar fraud landed eight petitioners in jail in…
Read MoreElder abuse investigations mishandled at state veterans homes
James Drew of The Dallas Morning News found that a criminal investigation into alleged abuse by two workers at a state veterans home in West Texas languished for more than two years because of confusion over who should investigate, cumbersome bureaucracy, and conflicts among local police, state officials, and veterans home administrators. Felony charges were…
Read MoreSpecial probabtion protects dangerous drivers
Joe Mahr and Gerry Smith of the Chicago Tribune did a computer analysis of state police speeding tickets and driving records. They found that nearly two-thirds of the time, people caught going 100 mph or faster were given a special kind of probation that kept the tickets off their driving records. That included those triple-digit…
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