Special probabtion protects dangerous drivers

Joe Mahr and Gerry Smith of the Chicago Tribune did a computer analysis of state police speeding tickets and driving records. They found that nearly two-thirds of the time, people caught going 100 mph or faster were given a special kind of probation that kept the tickets off their driving records. That included those triple-digit speeders cited for also weaving through traffic and those who wove around the highway that fast while drunk. One chronic speeder, given the deal once for going 100 mph plus, got the deal again after going even faster.

Michelle Breidenbach of The Post-Standard (Syracuse, N.Y.) mined state financial documents to show the abuse of New York State's Dedicated Highway and Bridge Trust Fund. It's not "dedicated" at all. Years of raiding and borrowing have left just 22 percent of the fund to fix the state roads.

Officials at the University of Massachusetts Amherst acknowledge that they allowed a student who confessed to raping a friend on campus last fall, a felony, to remain enrolled and avoid significant discipline, according to a report by the New England Center for Investigative Reporting at Boston University. Newly obtained Justice Department data show that reports of sexual assaults on college campuses rarely lead to serious sanctions. Ten New England universities and colleges provided the data as part of a campus grant program overseen by the Justice Department’s Office of Violence Against Women.

The Education Department is charged with enforcing laws on how schools deal with sexual assault, but its Office of Civil Rights rarely investigates student allegations of botched proceedings. When cases do go forward, the civil rights office rarely rules against the schools, and virtually never issues any sanctions against institutions, according to an investigation by the Center for Public Integrity.

An investigation by The Desert Sun (Palm Springs, Calif.) uncovered problems with the taxpayer-funded Torres-Martinez tribal welfare program."Beneath the surface of rampant poverty and joblessness on one of California's poorest American Indian reservations is nearly a decade of mismanagement and misuse of millions in taxpayer dollars meant for those needing the money most, federal and state documents show."

On January 14, the general manager of Washington D.C.’s Metro system announced he is resigning, bringing to five the number of top executives who are leaving or have been reassigned in response to a Washington Post series on safety lapses in the nation’s second-busiest subway system.

A three-day series by students from Columbia College Chicago, in collaboration with Illinois Statehouse News, examines Illinois' century-old legislative scholarship program. The program doled out $12.5 million during the 2007-2008 academic year. The investigation found there is "virtually no regulation of the scholarship program." The only requirement is that applicants must live in the awarding lawmakers district.

A report by Sandy Hodson of The Augusta Chronicle shows that private probation companies profit while unfairly punishing those who cannot pay their court debts. "Someone who can afford to pay off fines assessed for traffic and other misdemeanor offenses can usually walk out of court a free person. Anyone who can't pay might find himself entangled in the system with a financial debt that keeps growing as he faces the prospect of either paying the court or going to jail."

Lewis Kamb of The News Tribune (Tacoma, Wash) writes that Washington state commerce officials have launched an investigation of the Martin Luther King Housing Development Association. The probe follows News Tribune reports that exposed financial mismanagement and other problems at the nonprofit affordable housing agency.

Reporter Cary Spivak of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported than MLDC Inc., an Idaho company, landed a multiyear, six-figure contract for work at Fort McCoy in Wisconsin last summer, but failed to pay the Oconomowoc company it hired to do the job. The Army's lead contact on the contract was a felon on probation. To date, White Oak Farm LLC of Oconomowoc has been paid $25 of the $116,000 owed for its work as subcontractor. Despite these problems, MLDC Inc. continues to get federal contracts and has collected millions of dollars from government work.