{"id":4063,"date":"2015-12-28T11:59:35","date_gmt":"2015-12-28T15:59:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/?p=4063"},"modified":"2015-12-28T11:59:35","modified_gmt":"2015-12-28T15:59:35","slug":"investigative2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/28\/investigative2015\/","title":{"rendered":"Best investigative criminal justice journalism of 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\nAs 2015 winds to a close, the Prison Policy Initiative wanted to recognize eight investigative news stories that brought public attention to key issues in criminal justice reform. In no particular order:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.eff.org\/deeplinks\/2015\/02\/hundreds-south-carolina-inmates-sent-solitary-confinement-over-facebook\">Hundreds of South Carolina Inmates Sent to Solitary Confinement Over Facebook<\/a><br \/> by Dave Maass<br \/>\t<i>Electronic Frontier Foundation<\/i> <br \/>   An expos&eacute; finding that in some states incarcerated people are sent to solitary confinement for <i>years<\/i> for having Facebook accounts, even if family members on the outside are the ones accessing the accounts. In response to the original expos&eacute;, Facebook has taken steps to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eff.org\/deeplinks\/2015\/06\/facebook-reforms-inmate-account-takedown-process\">reform its policy<\/a> of taking down incarcerated people&#8217;s Facebook accounts for state Departments of Corrections.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/magazine\/archive\/2015\/07\/prison-born\/395297\/\">Prison Born<\/a><br \/> by Sarah Yager<br \/> <i>The Atlantic<\/i> <br \/>Shining light on the rarely talked about experience of women in prison, this article focuses on the 1 in 25 women who are pregnant behind bars.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/08\/03\/us\/probation-sounding-light-can-land-hard.html?_r=0\">Probation May Sound Light, but Punishments Can Land Hard<\/a><br \/> by Shaila Dewan<br \/> <i>The New York Times<\/i>  <br \/><a href=\"\/blog\/2015\/08\/11\/probation\/\">Probation<\/a> can sound infinitely better than a jail sentence, but this article describes how too often probation sets people up to fail.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ibtimes.com\/chain-gang-20-if-you-cant-afford-gps-ankle-bracelet-you-get-thrown-jail-2065283\">Chain Gang 2.0: If You Can&#8217;t Afford This GPS Ankle Bracelet, You Get Thrown in Jail<\/a><br \/> by Eric Markowitz<br \/><i>International Business Times<\/i> <br \/>Electronic monitoring is often seen as an &#8220;alternative to incarceration,&#8221; but Markowitz&#8217;s special report finds that for-profit GPS tracking ends up being a perfect recipe for sending people back to jail.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/2015\/08\/24\/432622666\/amid-backlash-against-isolating-inmates-new-mexico-moves-toward-change\">Amid Backlash Against Isolating Inmates, New Mexico Moves Toward Change<\/a> <br \/> by Natasha Haverty<br \/><i>NPR<\/i><br \/>The second in a three-part series on solitary confinement in the U.S., this 6-minute story covers growing interest in curbing the use of isolation in prisons and the challenges that come with implementing reforms.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.themarshallproject.org\/2015\/10\/18\/for-men-in-prison-child-support-becomes-a-crushing-debt#.PgrgDeW3D\">For Men in Prison, Child Support Becomes a Crushing Debt<\/a><br \/> by Eli Hager <br \/> <i>The Marshall Project<\/i> <br \/>Is it reasonable to expect men in prison to pay child support? Is exempting incarcerated fathers fair? This <i>Marshall Project<\/i> feature finds that many incarcerated fathers are racking up hundreds of dollars in child support debt each month.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/fivethirtyeight.com\/features\/prison-reform-risk-assessment\/\">Should Prison Sentences Be Based on Crimes That Haven&#8217;t Been Committed Yet?<\/a><br \/> by Anna Maria Barry-Jester, Ben Casselman and Dana Goldstein <br \/> <i>FiveThirtyEight<\/i> <br \/>It&#8217;s becoming increasingly common to hear talk of &#8220;risk assessments&#8221; and &#8220;evidence-based&#8221; tools in criminal justice. This story and interactive tool unpack how risk assessments work and describe what makes Pennsylvania&#8217;s plans different: it would be the first to use risk assessment in <i>sentencing<\/i> rather than, for example, at the pretrial phase.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/12\/14\/nyregion\/clinton-correctional-facility-inmate-brutality.html\">An Inmate Dies, and No One is Punished<\/a><br \/> by Michael Winerip and Michael Schwirtz <br \/> <i>The New York Times<\/i> <br \/>This article chronicles the brutal death of Leonard Strickland, one in a larger trend of troubling beatings by corrections officers in New York State prisons. This recent <i>New York Times<\/i> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/12\/21\/nyregion\/new-york-state-prisons-take-steps-to-track-complaints-about-guards.html?_r=0\">article<\/a> details the steps New York State prisons are now taking to better track complaints about corrections officers.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><i>Note:  The purpose of this list is to highlight journalists who filled critical gaps in the public&#8217;s knowledge about criminal justice issues. To keep things fair, we excluded from consideration any articles that we are quoted in and articles that we consulted on in any way.<\/i>  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As 2015 winds to a close, the Prison Policy Initiative wanted to recognize eight investigative news stories that brought public attention to key issues in criminal justice reform. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[11,21],"class_list":["post-4063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4063\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4063"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=4063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}