The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "correctional systems" ...
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The Price of Prisons
This series of stories, reported over the course of six months, examined four aspects of the Arizona Department of Corrections' management of the state prison system.
Tags: Arizon Deparment of Corrections; Prisons; Arizona; Mismanagement
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Young Kids, Hard Time
A documentary on the lives of convicted juveniles - some as young as 12 - serving decades in the adult correctional system.
Tags: juvenile; crime; adult; correctional; system; sentencing; prison
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Scandal in Illinois Workers' Compensation System
More than 230 guards at the Menard Correctional Center, a maximum security Illinois prison, claimed to have acquired carpal tunnel syndrome of the wrist by turning keys or operating cell locking mechanisms. These claims resulted in in taxpayer-funded partial disability payments totaling more than $10 million paid to guards who returned to work full-time operating the same locks.
Tags: Menard Correctional Center; prison; carpal tunnel syndrome
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Scales of Justice
Many known criminals in Linn County walk the streets freely. Among many problems with the local justice system, the largest is that criminal cases are dismissed without prosecution. Without charges on a drug dealer's, child pornographer's, or girlfriend beater's records, it's as if they never committed a crime. The lack of corrective action is leaving local police with low morale and an overwhelming job of arresting repeat offenders only to see the justice system release them back on the public.
Tags: justice system; police; prosecution; charges; arrests; morale; criminals; streets; Linn County; CBS 2; attorney; public safety;
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"Prison Medical Series"
In this investigation, Charles Piller reveals that cost to improve medical care in California's prisons was grossly "overstated." In 2006, a court-ordered receiver took control of the prisons' health care system and "fundamentally" miscalculated the $8 million estimate. Further investigation shows "fraud and waste" within the receiver's "staffing programs."
Tags: Matthew Cate; Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation; J. Clark Kelso; John Hagar; California state prisons
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Escaping Justice
This story found that failures in Tennessee's justice system allowed more than 150 prison escapees to roam free, and even break the law again. More than one-third of the escapees had no warrants identifying them as fugitives. Many were stopped by police, given traffic tickets and even arrested without ever being returned to Tennessee prisons. State corrections officials and local sheriffs disagreed over whose responsibility it is to track down escaped inmates.
Tags: prison; inmates; jail; law enforcement; FOIA; state government
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Maryland Corrections Reforms Yield Mixed Results
"This story covers problems with violence in the Maryland corrections system, which saw four inmates and two officers killed in 2006 and three inmates killed in 2007. An analysis of state records showed that despite a pledge by Gov. Martin O'Malley to reform the system and the closing of a notorious prison, violence was still rampant in many prisons. Overall, serious attacks on officers declined in 2007, but the rate of inmate-on-inmate violence was similar to that of 2006, considered one of the worst in Maryland history."
Tags: prisons; violence; corrections system; inmate violence; prison reform
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Prisoners Best Friend
Reporters Todd Bensman and Robert Riggs from CBS-11 News, Dallas, investigated tips that State Representative Terri Hodge solicited campaign contributions from inmates families in return for intervening in their loved ones' cases. Not all those campaign contributions were reported. Bensman and Riggs found over 60 instances where Rep. Hodge obtained confidential prison files under a legislative privilege designed to assist in law-making. "As a legislator, Hodge served on the Criminal Jurisprudence Committee and frequently sat in on hearings before the COrrections COmmittee, which oversees the Texas Prison system. In her role, Hodge had power over budgets and prison jobs."
Tags: Terri Hodge; campaign contributions; parole board; disciplinary refractions; influence; victims rights groups; Texas Public Information Act; Texas Inmate Families Association; TIFA; legislative privilege; campaign finance reports; Texas Criminal Jurisprudence Committee; Texas Department of Criminal Justice; TDCJ; Texas Corrections Committee; Justice for All; Texas Ethics Commission
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Mission Unaccomplished
The juvenile corrections systems of the state of Ohio and Missouri are compared and contrasted, with the Missouri system serving as an example of what is right, and the Ohio system the opposite. The Ohio system is presented as one which favors punishment, while Missouri's goal is "nurturing" and counseling.
Tags: juvenile justice; Hillsboro Treatment Center; Marion Juvenile Correctional Facility
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Head Games
Alan Pendergast, staffwriter for Denver's Westword reports that in 2004, 20% of Colorado's jail population was diagnosed with severe mental illness, and "the true number may be much higher, since some inmates' illnesses are never properly diagnosed." The story compares cost of psychiatric lock-up versus community mental health care. Pendergast advises other journalists doing similar stories should "insist that someone in the accontable chain of command review and comment on the records, even if the actual treatment providers are refusing to be interviewed."
Tags: prison mental illness; correctional systems; lockdown; supermax prison; ADHD; Department of Corrections; forensic psychiatry; head cases; administrative segregation; HIPPA; San Carlos Correctional Facility; Offenders WIth Serious Mental Illness; OSMI; National Institute on Drug Abuse; Mental Health Occupations Grievance Board