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 "state institutions" ...
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Wage Theft In the Fields
American farmworkers have often experienced egregious abuses, but nothing is more pervasive, nor harder to ferret out, than the wage theft that results from a practice called farm-labor contracting. Found in the fields of every handpicked crop in the country, farm-labor contractors not only provide growers with crews, but also handle wages and manage everything from verifying immigration status to providing workers' compensation. The problem is, the contractors systematically underpay the workers. “Farm labor contractors,” says writer Tracie McMillan, “give American produce growers what companies like China's Foxconn offer to Apple: a way to outsource a costly and complicated part of the business, often saving money in the process and creating a firewall between the brand and the working conditions under which its products are made.” And yet McMillan — a fellow with both the Knight-Wallace program at University of Michigan, and the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University — found that enforcement is rare: In 2008, inspectors visited only 1,499 of the more than 2 million farms nationwide; in 2011, California inspectors found just seven minimum wage violations on the state’s 86,000 farms. Fines are minimal: “It's cheaper to violate the law than to follow the law,” says one farmworker advocate. And wage theft is tedious to prove, requiring inspectors to interview workers, analyze time cards, and collect payroll records. That's why workers and their advocates in California are counting on a lawsuit brought earlier this year on behalf of two farmworkers against the contractors who hired them—as well as the growers who outsourced the work. The suit alleges that the contractors routinely undercounted the hours worked, failed to pay minimum wage or overtime, failed to provide safe or sanitary working conditions, and housed the workers in unsafe and unsanitary living quarters. The “collective action” suit—open to anyone who can prove he or she experienced the same treatment—may cover thousands of workers and deliver awards substantial enough to deter other employers from the same practices.
Tags: Labor; farms; working conditions; wage
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Broken Shield: Police force fails to protect state’s most vulnerable residents
Decades ago, California created a special police force to investigate crimes and unexplained injuries inflicted upon some of society’s most vulnerable citizens – men and women with severe autism and cerebral palsy living in taxpayer-funded institutions. This police force, the Office of Protective Services, works exclusively at state developmental centers that have been the scene of horrific abuses. We sought to bring this story to readers in many forms, from working on all platforms, distributing condensed versions and delivering broadcast video stories to our partners, to creating a graphic novel video on one particularly human story -- a woman who was raped, apparently by a janitor. We also created an ebook of the series of stories and an interactive tracker that detailed key milestones of legislation drafted and signed into law. Producing this work on every platform helped to maximize audience reach and heighten the impact.
Tags: Autism; cerebral palsy; taxes; taxpayers; Office of Protective Services; abuse
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Broken Shield
Decades ago, California created a special police force to patrol exclusively at its five state developmental centers – taxpayer-funded institutions where patients with severe autism and cerebral palsy have been beaten, tortured and raped by staff members. But California Watch found that this state force, the Office of Protective Services, does an abysmal job bringing perpetrators to justice. Reporter Ryan Gabrielson, a Pulitzer Prize winner, exposed the depths of the abuse inside these developmental centers while showing how sworn officers and detectives wait too long to start investigations, fail to collect evidence and ignore key witnesses – leading to an alarming inability to solve crimes inflicted upon some of society’s most vulnerable citizens. Dozens of women were sexually assaulted inside state centers, but police investigators didn’t order “rape kits” to collect evidence, a standard law enforcement tool. Police waited so long to investigate one sexual assault that the staff janitor accused of rape fled the country, leaving behind a pregnant patient incapable of caring for a child. The police force’s inaction also allowed abusive caregivers to continue molesting patients – even after the department had evidence that could have stopped future assaults. Many of the victims chronicled by California Watch are so disabled they cannot utter a word. Gabrielson gave them a resounding voice. Our Broken Shield series prompted far-reaching change, including a criminal investigation, staff retraining and new laws – all intended to bring greater safeguards and accountability.
Tags: California; police; autism; cerebral palsy; abuse; children
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The Mafia of Public Job Competitions
The story shows that investigations for fraud in public job competitions have been carried out in every Brazilian state. Required to join municipal, state and federal institutions, the competitions should be meant to choose the best applicants. However, only those appointed by politicians, and people who pay for a given position, are approved. Making use of a hidden camera, the reporter caught off-guard seven companies that fraud competitions and still approve only applicants appointed by mayors and other officials. Some sell the positions directly to the applicants.
Tags: international; job; fraud; Brazil; politicians; mayors
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"Deaths at the State Hospital"
This ongoing investigation reveals major misconduct by the Colorado Mental Health Institute in Pueblo, the largest public psychiatric hospital in the state. The investigative team exposed and detailed the deaths of four patients that resulted from the "mistakes, lack of training, incompetence and possible criminal neglect" carried out by hospital employees. The series also reveals the attempt of state human services officials to cover up the mistakes.
Tags: mental health; patients; grand jury; DA; Pueblo; Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment; database; Pueblo State Hospital; Nexis-Lexis; 441.com; CoCourts.com; Colorado Bureau of Investigation
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Secrecy 101
"Universities hide information about their athletics departments behind a student-privacy law designed to keep grades private." Further, it hides athletes, who have done a number of unethical and some illegal activities. Also, coaches are using the law to hide their own bad behavior. All this information stunned the senator who created the law and he believes the "institutions are putting their own meaning into the law."
Tags: education; college; Senator James L. Buckley; NCAA; Ohio State; FOIA; Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA); federal; sports; public records; censor; academics
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"Hidden Mistakes"
In Connecticut, the "adverse-event" law is supposed to ensure that hospitals report medical accidents that cause harm or death to patients to the state Department of Public Health. The law was revised in 2004 and since then the number of reported adverse-event cases has dropped "dramatically," suggesting that the medical mishaps are not being shared with the public and the state.
Tags: Bridgeport Hospital; Connecticut Center for Patient Safety; Connecticut Department of Public Health; Wendy Furniss; malpractice; Hartford Hospital; Terri Schiavo; Institute of Medicine
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Goldman Sachs: Low Road to High Finance
After the collapse of the financial market in the United States, there were many key components which played a large role in the devastation to many Americans. These key components mainly focus on major financial institutions, which played a large role in manipulating the mortgage and mortgage security markets. Furthermore, the institutions that should be keeping them honest, failed to do so.
Tags: Nation's financial sector; financial institutions; mortgage; market; American International Group (AIG); Federal Reserve Bank of New York; Moody's; Securities and Exchange Commission; Citigroup, Inc.; Bank of America Corp.
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"Scrutinizing Scholarships"
"Each member of the Illinois General Assembly, the state’s legislative body, can give up to eight one-year scholarships away to any Illinois public university student." When deciding on the scholarship recipients, lawmakers can pick any rubric they want to choose them. In fact, "lawmakers awarded 196 scholarships to relatives of campaign contributors." These scholarships affect the universities because the scholarships are like tuition waivers, which leave the bill for the universities. Further, "university officials note the GA scholarship program costs their institutions about $12 million per year."
Tags: Illinois; FOIA; General Assembly; University
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Politics, scholarship and the Armenian Genocide
The first story in the series documented the resignation of Donald Quataert, a distinguished American scholar, who stepped down from the chair of the Georgetown University-based Institute of Turkish Studies. Quataert said he had been forced out by a defunding threat from the Government of Turkey. Several board members also resigned and said political infringement of academic freedom was the reason. The second story in the series looks at evidence of a deliberate attempt to maintain Turkish state control of the U.S. nonprofit. Present and former Turkish ambassadors controlled the endowment that provided almost all the funding for the scholarly institute at the time of Quataert's resignation. Also, founding members of the institute as well as endowment trustees had been party to Ankara's decades-long campaign to suppress international recognition of the Armenian Genocide.
Tags: Armenian Genocide; Institute of Turkish Studies; Turkish scholars; improper financial control; Middle East Studies Association; public denial; politics versus academics