Social issues
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…
Read MoreDelays, 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…
Read MoreAffluent 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…
Read MoreTexas 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…
Read MoreOhio 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…
Read MoreTraffic 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…
Read MorePoor 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…
Read MoreSex 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…
Read MoreRacist 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…
Read MoreWorking 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
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