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 "federal prisoner" ...
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A Damaged District
For more than a year, Zahira Torres overcame obstacle after obstacle to document one of the worst school cheating scandals in the nation's history. Where other cheating scandals involved altering accountability tests, the El Paso Independent School District gamed the state and federal accountability systems by targeting Mexican immigrant students. In a number of cases, district officials refused to enroll students or pushed out students already enrolled -- denying countless students their constitutional right to an education. In other cases, they arbitrarily reclassified grade levels or altered transcripts, all in an attempt to keep students out of the testing pool. Torres' reporting sparked numerous results. The superintendent who masterminded the scheme went to federal prison. The state education agency removed the school board. And when Torres' reporting documented that the state was aware of details of the cheating in 2010 and cleared the district anyway, the new education commissioner ordered an independent investigation of how the agency missed the cheating.
Tags: schools; scandals; education; school board
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Justice in the Shadows
Although immigration is one of America’s most divisive, visceral, and hotly debated issues, the public rarely gets a close look at the vast law enforcement network that every year detains more than 400,000 suspected illegal immigrants. Courts often operate inside prisons, far from view. Immigration officials play by rules that would not be permitted for the police or the FBI. Here is a system heavily shielded from public scrutiny. Reporting even routine activities is a challenge. Boston Globe reporters Maria Sacchetti and Milton J. Valencia, however, penetrated the wall of secrecy. Their three-part series, “Justice in the Shadows,” revealed a dysfunctional and largely unaccountable system that locks up people who pose little threat while releasing dangerous criminals back to US streets because their home countries won’t take them back. The results, Sacchetti and Valencia showed, at times can be deadly for Americans and foreigners alike. The reporting was anything but quick or easy. Sacchetti and Valencia filed more than 20 Freedom of Information Act requests to federal agencies that comprise the immigration system. Nearly all of them were partially or wholly denied, purportedly to protect the privacy of the immigrants. With the federal government blocking the way, Sacchetti and Valencia found other avenues to document what was happening inside this Byzantine system, investing a year to do so. The effort to shed light on the immigration system continues: The Globe has filed a federal lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security to force the agency to reveal the names of more than 8,000 criminal foreigners released in the US because they couldn’t be deported.
Tags: security; Department of Homeland Security; illegal immigrants; FBI
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Arrested Development
For thousands of youths accused of crimes, punishment preceeds any conviction. The may be held for months or even years in county jails for -- and sometimes with -- adult suspects. Scripps Howard News Service reports on the 7,500 junveiles in adult jails at any time, their conditions of confinement and how a loophole in federal law allows jails in 29 states to house juveniles with adults.
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"Prison Predator"
Overcrowding in California's 33 prisons has led to inmate violence, death and an alarming lack of accountability among prisons workers. In the past year, Lancaster state prison has seen two deaths as a result of inmate violence. In both cases, officials have keep quiet. A federal court ruling has asked California prison officials to relieve the overcrowding by releasing 40,000 inmates, though the ruling has been met by resistance by the governor and other politicians.
Tags: Lancaster; California prisons; inmate violence; jail violence; Greg Thomas; Cayenne Byrd; California Department of Corrections
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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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Hurricane Giveaway
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)kept tens of millions of dollars worth of new household supplies meant for Katrina victims stored in FEMA warehouses for two years. In early 2008, the agency decided the items were no longer needed and declared them surplus, even though agencies that help hurricane victims told CNN they desperately needed those types of items. The supplies ended up with federal and state agencies, but not Katrina victims. The investigation revealed the groups that are helping rehouse Katrina victims did not know these items existed. Furthermore, CNN discovered a serious disconnect between FEMA and the states, as well as within states themselves. Louisiana's surplus agency passed on taking any of the surplus items because the director said he was never told they were still needed. Mississippi, on the other hand, took the supplies and gave them to state prisons and other agencies, but not to non-profits helping Katrina victims. Those non-profits told CNN they never knew these items were available.
Tags: Federal Emergency Management Agency; Hurricane Katrina; non-profit organizations; Louisiana; Mississippi; natural disasters
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Sheriff Joe Arpaio's Jails series
The series examined individuals who have died suspiciously while in the custody of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who proclaims himself to be "America's Toughest Sheriff." Specifically, the stories examined the death of an inmate, Juan Mendoza Farias, who entered the county jail in good health and arrived at the county morgue two days later--covered with bruises and lacerations. The series also covered ongoing federal class-action lawsuit brought by the ACLU against Arpaio. During the process of that lawsuit, Arpaio lost his federal jail accreditation, which is require by Arizona law. Dickerson has been covering the lawsuit since 2007 and broke the story that the county's top lawman was himself breaking a state law by losing the accreditation of his jails. The series also investigated the care of pregnant inmates and their babies in the jail, finding that many women are malnourished and miscarry as a result of the jail conditions and food.
Tags: police misconduct; sheriff's office; pregnant inmates; prisoner abuse; Arizona
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Prison Cover-UP
Hurrican Rita was on her way. But prisoners in the federal penitentiary in Beaumont were not evacuated and lived in some horrendous conditions. Prison officials lied to prisoners' relatives and the news media, first by saying prisoners had been moved to safer quarters and then by saying conditions inside the prison were fine. The prisoners' accounts were later verified by prison guards.
Tags: prison; inmate abuse; hurricane rita; inmates in jeopardy; poor treatment; negligence
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Taking the Cuffs off at Carswell
Fort Worth Weekly reporter Betty Brink has been covering medical and sexual abuse of female inmates at Carswell Federal Medical Center, in Texas, since 1999. As a result of her coverage, and his own investigation, a retired judge, Ross Sears is asking for a Congressional investihgation into the deadly conditions at "the only prison hospital in the country for mentally or chronicallly ill or dying women who have been convicted of a federal crime."
Tags: medical negligence; sexual abuse; Carswell Federal Mediacal Center; medical records; Bureau of Prisons; FOI requests; U.S. Office of Special Counsel; Dr. Roger Guthrie; Ross Sears; retaliation; compassionate release; John Peter Smith Hospital; Tarrant County Medical Examiner; autopsies; prison deaths; women inmates; femaile prisoners; Baylor Regional Transplant Institute; Huguley Memorial Medical Center; brain damage; whistleblower complaints; medical malpractice; sentinel event; rape;
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Captive Victims
KMOV-TV examines prison "staff sexual misconduct" in Missouri and Illinois. In Missouri, prison staffers were having sex with inmates, but even when the misconduct was discovered, there rarely was prosecution. When there was, the sentences were light. Usually the employees were allowed to resign quietly. In Illinois, the offenders were prosecuted, but the state did not report any of the cases to the U.S. Department of Justice, in violation of federal law.
Tags: prisons; sexual misconduct; department of corrections; Illinois; Missouri