The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. Add to that more than 3,000 tipsheets from our national conferences on how to cover specific beats or do specific stories and you have a resource that no reporter or editor should be without. These stories and tipsheets 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. Logged-in members can view the tipsheets free online:
Search results for "justice system" ...
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Justice: From Arrests to Death Row
Clarke lists resources for finding criminal records, such as defense attorneys and local law enforcement agencies. She also includes advice for building a database of criminal records; she includes tips like "keep a paper record" and "do spot checks."
Tags: justice system; criminal records data; building databases; data analysis
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Data for Criminal Justice Stories
Roberts discusses where to find data for every stage of the criminal justice system. She begins with sources for incident-level and arrest data, such as jail bookings and blood-alcohol test results. Roberts then discusses where to find data about courts and sentencing; she includes sources like PACER, state criminal justice statistics centers and the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data. The tipsheet ends with sources for data about imprisonment and probation, such as the National Corrections Reporting Program.
Tags: state government; court data; justice statistics; online research; state and national statistics; crime; criminals
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Strong Coffee: Using Databases to Investigate Drunken Driving
Branan explores the value of pursuing a story on drunk driving, including what databases are helpful in such an investigation, and how to verify and analyze the information.
Tags: drunk driving; drunken driving; databases; CAR; computer-assisted reporting; FARS (Fatality Analysis Reporting Systems); FBI Age, Race, Sex table, Justice data;
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Arizona Department of Corrections
A brief outline of what the Arizona Department of Corrections does and what goals they have.
Tags: prison; criminal justice; state; Arizona; criminal justice track
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Finding racial disparities in juvenile arrest data
To get closer towards understanding why crime happens, Moore examined the "racial composition of the children arrested in Columbia,"Missouri. This tipsheet offers advice for gathering information on the subject.
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Getting started on the cops beat
Ploheski's tipsheet is a guide for new crime reporters who want to excel immediately. It contains advice for cultivating sources, establishing your presence, obtaining records, and being thorough. It also includes one of Plohetski's crime stories for the Austin-American Statesman.
Tags: crime; police; law enforcement; justice system; criminals; jail; prison; victims; murder; cops
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Investigating forensics
Mejia comprehensively explains crime lab investigations. She suggests what questions to start with, what types of tests to examine, online resources, sources to interview, and documents to find.
Tags: crime labs; law enforcement; forensics; science; criminal justice system; courts; FBI; police
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Policing the Police
Sward explains how she and other colleagues at the San Francisco Chronicle reported on the unnecessary force used by some members of the San Francisco Police Department. They ultimately exposed that one of the officers, the son of an assistant chief of police, was still on probation and had amassed a long string of incidents in which he used force on suspects, when he was accused of getting into a brawl with two civilians over a bag of steak fajitas. She explains what records they obtained, how their database was built and what they would do differently next time.
Tags: law enforcement; crime; police officers; FOI; public records; criminal justice system
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Investigating conflicts of interest of federal judges
Evans's tipsheet is a step-by-step manual for investigating federal judges' financial conflicts of interest. It includes research methods, key sources, useful web sites and suggestions for communicating with judges.
Tags: criminal justice system; judicial system; judiciary; federal judges; conflict of interest; financial disclosure; corruption; databases; CAR; web sites; interviewing
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Walking the graveyards: caring about victims and the powerless so that we drive closer to the truth
This succinct tipsheet offers advice on conducting investigations of unsolved murders. Suggestions range from interview techniques to coping skills for the emotional weight that comes with immersion in murder stories to motivational techniques.
Tags: murder; justice; crime; victims; investigations; criminal justice system; killings; law enforcement; interviewing; immersion journalism