Justice (courts/crime/law)
Police chases up in Nashville
Ian Demsky of The (Nashville) Tennessean used local police data to show that “a record number of police pursuits zipped through Nashville streets last year, even as beefed-up safety measures caused officers to cancel more of the dangerous car chases than ever before.” A third of the 269 police chases in 2004 led to some…
Read MoreFelony, not petty criminals fill jail
Karen E. Crummy of The Denver Post analyzed county data to find that “most of the inmates crammed into the Denver County Jail are accused of robbery, burglary, selling drugs and even violent assaults. Relatively few of them are the drunken drivers and petty drug users whom people often associate with county jail.” Local residents…
Read MoreParolees living in state nursing homes
Chris Fusco and Lori Rackl of the Chicago Sun-Times used state documents to show that sixty-one criminals on parole from the state’s prison system are living in 37 nursing homes alongside vulnerable people who have virtually no way of knowing they’re there. “The Sun-Times found an example of this in southwest suburban Bridgeview at Midway…
Read MorePolice use of steriods a growing problem
CNN investigative correspondent Drew Griffin reports on police officers who use steriods. Griffin reports this is a growing problem across the country as police feel they need to bulk up to gain an advantage over criminals. In an interview with Al Geoit, a former officer in rural Michigan who was fired for poor job performance,…
Read MoreSchool accountability reports flawed
David Olinger and Jeffrey A. Roberts of The Denver Post examined reports of violent incidents in Colorado schools, finding that “disclosures of school violence vary wildly from one district to another. Some schools report every punch thrown on the playground. Others did not include assaults that police classified as felonies.” The state requires districts to…
Read MorePolice failing to notify schools about sex offenders
Ofelia Casillas of the Chicago Tribune investigated juvenile sex offenders in schools, specifically looking into school knowledge of the sex offender(s) in their school. They found that “some principals were not told that young sex offenders had enrolled in their schools, because the state system designed to notify them is mired in confusion.” They found…
Read MoreInmates awating trial drive up costs
Curtis Johnson of The (Huntingdon) Herald-Dispatch used Cabell County court and jail records to show that .”inmates facing felony charges, most of whom were awaiting trial, accounted for 62 percent of the month’s bill. That’s important, because if convicted, the state takes over the cost of their imprisonment.” The records show that “reducing the jail…
Read MoreCounty jails outdated fail to meet standards
Leon Alligood of The Tennessean reviewed state data to report on overcrowding in county jails. He found that “a total of 26 of the 129 jails statewide have been ‘decertified’,” because of varying reasons, ranging from unhealthy living conditions, to out-dated facilities. Of the 26 jails that were decertified, the average age of the facilities…
Read MoreCity 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…
Read MoreFOI requests improve, but some agencies still lag
Colleen Krantz of The Des Moines Register and Janet Rorholm of The (Cedar Rapids) Gazette report that a newspaper audit of public records in Iowa shows that “law enforcement agencies in Iowa provided greater access to their public documents during a recent investigation by Iowa newspapers than the agencies did five years ago, yet police…
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