Paris Hilton: The true Hollywood CAR story

The Los Angeles Times found that, if hotel heiress Paris Hilton serves 23 days out of a 45 day sentence for her DUI-related charges, she'll do more time than 80 percent of people convicted of similar offenses. In L.A. County, such offenders are routinely released early due to overcrowded jails. "Because of the high media interest, Hilton was one of only a few inmates whose premature release received publicity — and the judge who originally sentenced her noticed. She is believed to be the first inmate in years who actually was sent back to jail to serve more of her term," the Times reports.

An analysis by Doug Smith and Sandra Poindexter looked at similar cases in county booking and release records from 1999-2005. "The Times analyzed 2 million jail releases and found 1,500 cases since July 2002 that — like Hilton's — involved defendants who had been arrested for drunk driving and later sentenced to jail after a probation violation or driving without a license."

Will Carless of voiceofsandiego.org reports that San Diego's Chief of Police delivered misinformation in his report to the City Council. "The chief's statements were made at the height of contract negotiations between the police department and the city. While the chief was painting a rosy picture of crime rates before four city councilmen, the police union was busy trying to convince the city that it was in dire straits."

While alcohol-related accidents and deaths may receive more attention, speed-related accidents kill more people — about 10 each week — in North Carolina, according to a The News & Observer report by Pat Stith, Mandy Locke and David Raynor."But while state legislators and court officials have gotten tough on drunken drivers, they have eased up on speeders." Database editor Raynor analyzed 3.4 million speeding cases from the state court system, plus a decade of highway patrol citations and state motor vehicle data.

Los Angeles Daily News staff writer Troy Anderson reports that Eurasian crime syndicates have continued to scam the government since the 1970's. The crime syndicates, which come from a dozen republics in the former Soviet Union as well as Eastern and Central Europe, systematically exploit government funded programs for personal gain. "A recent report by the California Attorney General's Office estimated that 5,000 to 10,000 criminals - including former inmates of KGB prisons - were among the immigrants."

Leisa Zigman of KSDK-St. Louis reports on sex offenders living near schools in the St. Louis metro area. KSDK's investigation found that, despite stringent laws, more than 100 sex offenders were living within 1,000 feet of schools because of failure to enforce existing laws. "According to the Missouri State Highway Patrol, from 2004 through 2006, only 12 sex offenders were prosecuted and found guilty for the violation of living within 1,000 feet of a school. Not one of those cases originated from the St. Louis region."

IRE and NICAR performed the data analysis and mapping for this story.

Brent Schrotenboer of The San Diego Union-Tribune reports on an investigation into hundreds of news reports and public records since 2000 to compile an unofficial list of 308 arrests and citations involving NFL players for all offenses except speeding tickets. The paper "found that the league's biggest problems with the law are in many ways just as ordinary: drunken driving, traffic stops and repeat offenders. In addition, contrary to public perception, the arrest rate among NFL players is less than that of the general population, and fueled by many of the same dynamics, analysts say."

Brendan J. Lyons of the Times Union in Albany, N.Y., obtained documents from an internal investigation revealing parole managers had incorrectly allowed convicted felons to remain free and commit new crimes. Despite these findings, the state agency's leaders took no action against those found responsible for parole errors and instead pursued charges against the people they suspected of leaking information to the paper. The whole affair unfolded after a July 2005 Times Union report revealed how parolees who violated the terms of their release remained free and went on to commit crimes such as rape and murder.

Mark Flatten of the East Valley Tribune in Phoenix completed a series on Jim Rhodes who has become in the most influential developer in Arizona's East Valley. In December of 2006, he purchased over 1,000 acres of state trust land. The $58.6 million purchase gave him the right to "master-plan 7,700 acres in the area and set the tone for development of 275 square miles of state land extending from the eastern edge of Maricopa County to Florence." State officials claim they did not know of Rhodes' checkered past, which includes charges of fraud and theft, prior to the land purchase. The entire series can be viewed here.

Dan Horn of The Cincinnati Enquirer analyzed the 6th Circuit court's death-penalty decisions since 2000 to show that 6th Circuit judges consistently voted along partisan lines, and that "a federal death-penalty appeal can be a game of chance." A review of every 6th circuit death penalty decision since 2000 found that judges appointed by Republican presidents vote to deny inmate appeals 85 percent of the time, and judges appointed by Democrats vote to grant at least some relief 75 percent of the time. That means life-and-death decisions often hinge on the luck of the draw: A panel with a liberal majority gives the inmate a far greater chance of avoiding execution than one with a conservative majority.

A story by Paul Shukovsky, Tracy Johnson and Daniel Lathrop of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports on a profound shift in the FBI's mission. Due to a shift in focus to national security following 9/11, the FBI has failed to pursue thousands of white-collar crimes. "Five-and-a-half years later, the White House and the Justice Department have failed to replace at least 2,400 agents transferred to counterterrorism squads, leaving far fewer agents on the trial of identity thieves, con artists, hatemongers and other criminals." Lathrop built a database from the records the P-I collected for their investigation and "the newspaper was able for the first time to fully measure the dramatic decline in the number of cases and convictions resulting from the FBI moving resources to terrorism and walking away from areas of criminal enforcement. Copies of the analysis were given to federal officials in Seattle and in Washington, D.C., who did not dispute the newspaper's findings but wouldn't make database experts available to discuss the analysis."