ProPublica corrected stories published in the last year with the Malheur Enterprise about Oregon’s handling of people found “guilty except for insanity.” The stories were prompted by the case of Anthony Montwheeler, who was charged in 2017 with killing two people soon after his release by Oregon’s Psychiatric Security Review Board. The stories triggered calls for reform by state officials. A reader’s inquiry from a reader prompted ProPublica to review the stories’ underlying data and assertions. ProPublica now says, “We found errors of fact and analysis that need to be corrected.” One of these stories was summarized in The Crime Report.
One key assertion in the series was that insanity defendants are charged with crimes after they are freed more frequently than people freed after serving prison sentences. Data provided in the stories were inaccurate, as is the assertion that insanity defendants have a higher recidivism rate than those released from prison. ProPublica says that, “In some instances, we incorrectly tallied misdemeanor charges as felonies. In others, we mistakenly included people charged with felonies outside the three-year window. We also misstated the recidivism rate among people released from Oregon’s prisons. The state does not track the number of people charged with felonies after they are freed. The rate we cited in the story — 16 percent — arose from a misreading of state records.” ProPublica recounted a number of other errors in its reporting.