The Crime Report (https://thecrimereport.org/category/focus/)
This section features the best criminal justice reporting around the nation, produced by our media partners and collaborators, and journalists who have participated in the Criminal Justice Reporting Fellowship programs sponsored by the Center on Media, Crime and Justice at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, TCR’s parent organization. For a more comprehensive list of Fellows’ work, please check out the “programs” section—and monitor this site for information on upcoming programs and how to apply!
In a five-year experiment launched in 2016, Denver found that linking housing with services such as counseling for substance abuse and mental health treatment reduces homeless individuals’ exposure to the justice system.
Corey Glassman, sentenced to life in prison for his part in a 1986 fatal stabbing while he was a teenager, nearly lost hope of seeing freedom. But as society began to rethink life without prison for juveniles, Glassman realized that he would have to earn the right to restart his life.
Despite warnings in 2019, the state has failed to address violence, contraband and homicides, according to the Department of Justice.
Opposed by victims’ advocates, a bill outlawing juvenile Life Without Parole died in the state senate. Reformers said it sent a “we don’t care” message to young people trying to rehabilitate themselves behind bars.
Alabama has the nation’s fifth highest rate of COVID-19 deaths among incarcerated populations, but the vaccine supply is still only a trickle.
Just 26 tests were conducted in suburban and rural juvenile detention facilities during the first six months of the pandemic—a statistic nearly buried because of the state’s lack of transparency, according to an investigation by The Imprint. A health expert called it “a heartbreaking example of children who get lost in systems.”
Veteran St. Louis Officer Lt. Col. Troy Doyle was the favored candidate to become the city’s first Black police chief, but the county’s Board of Police Commissioners picked a white officer. Now Doyle has launched a lawsuit claiming the decision was influenced by corporate donors opposed to appointing an African American.
A state bill introduced last month would establish a pilot program in one California county to require convicted substance abusers to enter “secured residential treatment facilities.” Reformers say it amounts to another form of punishment that doesn’t deal with the root causes of addiction, and cite studies showing it could lead to more opioid-related deaths.
A diagnosis of COVID-19 in Pennsylvania’s Allegheny County Jail brings an automatic sentence to a special isolation unit, where inmates say they are unable to take showers, left in freezing conditions, and are cut off from friends and family.
New York’s Civilian Complaint Review Board is weighing a proposal that would give it the power to probe sexual misconduct complaints against police ranging from verbal harassment to rape. Police unions counter that such complaints should be investigated internally by “trained, experienced” officials.