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 "early release" ...
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Secret early release of Illinois prisoners
The series finds that the Illinois state government had secretly released 1,700 inmates from prison early in an attempt to save money and reduce overcrowding. Many of those released had committed violent crimes or been convicted of driving under the influence.
Tags: prison; state prison; criminals; meritorious good time; Department of Corrections
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"Let out early..."
To make room for new residents, the Arkansas Youth Services Division released 11 offenders from a juvenile detention center before their sentence was complete. Nine of those 11 were discharged despite objections from detention center workers. Only a short time later, one of the boys was arrested and charged with "capital murder, theft of property and fleeing."
Tags: Youth Services; Jacobia Twiggs; Arkansas Juvenile Assessment and Treatment Center; Antonio Terry; Human Services Division of Youth Services
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Agriprocessors and Beyond: Inside the Kosher Meat Industry
This series of articles looked inside the kosher meat industry, a quietly guarded world worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The reporting began two years ago when the Forward's Nathaniel Popper wrote about the working conditions at the nation's largest kosher slaughterhouse, Agriprocessors, in Postville, Iowa, setting off a wide-ranging debate in Jewish community. The paper has continued to follow the problems at Agriprocessors and reported early in 2008 on the debate withing the kosher industry about a widely used but apparently cruel method of kosher slaughter known as shackled and hoist. Then, in the middle of the year, federal agents, citing the Forward's reporting raided the Agriprocessors' plant in Iowa. Since the raid, the Forward has followed each legal development, but has also reported on elements of the story that were being overlooked. The first such article detailed the way in which Agriprocessors had handled immigrants and unions at its Brooklyn warehouse-sparking a case that went to the Supreme Court. The next set of articles investigated the working conditions in the rest of the kosher eat industry, with particular attention paid to the labor battles at Agriprocessors' biggest competitor, Alle Processing, which had been completely ignored. The article and chart on industry-wide conditions were the first effort to systematically set down the relative size and production of the major players in the kosher meat industry. The Forward also wrote a lengthy report on the immigrant workers from Agriprocessors who had been released from prison and ordered to testify in federal court against their supervisors, but were given no means to support themselves before the hearing date. After Agriprocessors declared bankruptcy, the Forward reported on the unnoticed consequences for the town and its inhabitants, from the lowly turkeys to the local bankers.
Tags: meat processing; kosher meat; agriculture; Agriprocessors; meatpacking; immigrant workers
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To Hug a Porcupine
Debbie and Jorge Garcia-Bengoches did not understand why the three little boys they'd adopted were acting so violent. Only years later and by accident did the couple discover that the boys had been horribly abused by a series of adults in early childhood, a fact that the state's foster care system knew but filed to disclose. The technical name for the boys' behavioral ailment is "Reactive Attachment Disorder" but they have been described as sociopaths. The parents successfully sued the state for $10 million but cannot get the money released due to budget cuts and the concept of sovereign immunity.
Tags: reactive attachment disorder; adoption; foster care; budget cuts; mental health; child abuse
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Prisons' Legal Strain
Eight class-action lawsuits won by inmates rights lawyers have led to the state of California mandating "fixes for past failures that have already cost taxpayers more than $1 billion and will cost nearly $8 billion over five years." Included in that bill are improvements in the ways prisoners are treated, like health care and "general confinement conditions." An outbreak of Valley Fever at one prison is included in the coverage of these issues. One of the ways the state seeks to balance the prison budget is a plan to release 22,000 "low-risk offenders" early.
Tags: Prisons; health care; medical conditions; confinement conditions; prison health care; Valley Fever
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The Jasons: The Secret History of Science's Postwar Elite
Author Ann Finkbeiner examines the history and activities of JASON. The JASON Defense Advisory Group is a group of university scientists, mostly physicists, who gather every summer to work on specific problems for the government. These problems are often military, and often classified. The group began in 1960, and counted Manhattan Project alums as some of its early members. Now, they are responsible for such innovations as the electronic battlefield, the laser guide star, a three-dimensional mapping system of the ocean's temperatures, which is used for oceanography studies and to chart global warming, and Star Wars (or Startegic Defense Initiative), the attempt to find a countermeasure for hostile ICBMs. The group is completely independent in its decision-making and in the choosing of its members, though it is funded largely by government organizations.
Tags: JASON; national defense; Manhattan Project; science; physicists; secret goverment organizations; technology; Star Wars; SDI
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Shattered Dreams of Early Release
The investigation uncovered a con- promising early paroles or releases for family members and loved ones serving time in Texas prisons in exchange for money-- between ex-con Robert Andrew Coats and Dallas attorney Jeff Fletcher. The promises were never fulfilled after the money was paid. After its exposure, the con was labelled the "largest illegal parole fraud scheme ever uncovered in Texas."
Tags: prisons; parole; fraud; cons; Texas; early release; early parole; Parole and Probation Services
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Storming the Court: How a Band of Yale Law Students Sued the President -- And Won
This book tells the story of how Yale law students and human rights lawyers teamed up in the early 1990s to take on the U.S. Government. 300 Haitian refugees were being held in secret Guantanamo Bay detention camps because they were HIV positive. The team of students and lawyers sued the government for their release, and won the case. The story is especially relevant in the post- 9/11 world, where Guantanamo Bay is once again a prominent example of government abuse.
Tags: Guantanamo Bay; Yale Law School; Harold Koh; student activism; HIV; AIDS; political asylum; political refugees; Haiti
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Report Lists State's Toxic - Waste Figures
According to the Toxic - Release Inventory, Ohio is the fifth most polluted state in America. Toxic pollution levels actually went up in some counties from 1989 to 1990. In some cases, residents say the pollution is so bad they sometimes don't leave their houses. Other residents blame the pollution for the higher rate of respiratory problems and illness in their children. But in Marysville, where the pollution is at its worst, people don't often complain about it. The reporters speculate that this is because the pollution is caused by Honda of America, which brought thousands of jobs to central Ohio in the early 1980s.
Tags: industrial pollution; chemicals; Toxic Release Inventory; Clean Air Act; EPA. BP Chemicals America
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Locked in :The Price of Truth in Sentencing
This series looks at a state law in Wisonsin that allows hardly any chance for early release of prisoner and how this law has escalated the costs of mainitianing the prisons. The law calls for longer prison terms without parole and longer supervision terms - funds for which comes from the tax payers pockets.
Tags: law in Wisconsin; Wisconsin law; parole; prisons in Wisconsin; truth in sentencing; cost of maintaining prisons CAR