The Crime Report (https://thecrimereport.org/category/tcr-special-report/)
Stories by The Crime Report staff and nationwide network of contributors.
In the 1960s, NYPD detective Frank Serpico, played by Al Pacino in a 1973 film, risked his life to expose police corruption and misconduct. Modern-day Serpicos are still largely unprotected, exacerbating the “culture of silence” in American policing, policing experts and former cops tell The Crime Report.
Behind the outrage on the streets of America’s cities this week, there were genuine efforts to find common ground between police and demonstrators. It was not always comfortable, but it was real, a TCR reporter who joined thousands of marchers in New York City discovered one evening this week.
In the last three months, the coronavirus pandemic has heightened concerns about one of the country’s most notorious penal complexes. Through their lawyer, inmates told The Crime Report that even though the city has freed hundreds of inmates and adopted health measures, the New York City jail is still dangerously cramped and unsanitary.
Nearly 300 migrants in the sprawling network of federal detention facilities have so far tested positive for COVID-19. But detainees and advocates say the crowded conditions and already inadequate medical care will lead to an “exponential” growth in coronavirus cases.
As schoolwork shifts online and more kids stay home during the coronavirus pandemic, the risk of abuse has grown. But it’s also harder to track.
Prison riots in Italy and France. Spreading infections and shortages of masks and protective equipment in the United Kingdom, Spain and elsewhere. TCR looks at COVID-19’s impact on European corrections, offering a foretaste of what could be in store for American facilities.
Sexual abuse or harassment by police is slowly beginning to receive attention from training academies and state legislatures. But in many agencies, the issue is often swept under the rug, a TCR investigation shows.
Speaking at the Harry Frank Guggenheim Symposium on Crime in America, Jim McGreevey, who now chairs the New Jersey Reentry Corporation, argued that most community supervision programs lack the resources to offer the practical skills needed to help individuals navigate the complex transition from prison to civil society once they have completed their sentence.
Jeremiah Bourgeois was convicted of murder at age 14, with every expectation he would spend the remainder of his life in prison. A collection of his writings for The Crime Report, published by Amazon this month, tells an extraordinary story of how one man found a path back to redemption—and freedom— after spending 27 years inside America’s carceral state.
Victims of revenge porn have few rights, even under laws that treat the public, nonconsensual distribution of intimate images as a crime against privacy or public decency—and they are hobbled by laws that protect websites from liability. Some jurisdictions are turning to restorative justice as a solution.