In the last few years, the Investigative Reporting Workshop has undertaken major stories on immigration, police shootings, and sexual assault and sex-offender registries. Our updated site design gives a chance to tout previous coverage you may have missed:
Immigration
We’ve been tracking the federal administration’s changes in policy and guidelines for new immigrants. We’ve done this through blog posts, such as How Trump is shaping immigration policy and 30,000 across from White House demand ‘families belong together.’
We’ve also published a timeline to track these policy changes.
Other stories of interest on immigration:
“The New Americans” looked at the San Diego school system, which has taken in thousands of immigrants and refugees over the last few years, and helped them thrive in school. But not all schools and school budgets were created equal, and other questions, such as the high cost of housing, has hurt the transition to a new country for many people.
Five years ago, we published “The Hole,” a project produced with The New York Times about the use of solitary confinement in immigration detention centers around the country. The program, stories and videos led to several policy reviews:
- ICE directive says solitary should be ‘last resort’ for immigrant detainees
- DHS to review use of solitary
- Immigration advocates call for limits on solitary confinement
- New rules to help immigrants
We also previously co-produced a PBS FRONTLINE documentary, “Lost in Detention.”
Our reporting revealed sex abuse of detained immigrants.
Police shootings
The Washington Post has been tracking police shootings nationwide and won a Pulitzer Prize in 2016 for its work. IRW graduate students and fellows, under the direction of Senior Editor John Sullivan, have been helping to maintain the national database, and also to continue to research shootings in order to develop new story ideas.
Sullivan also has been keeping up with the numbers:
- Nationwide, police shot and killed 1,000 people in 2017
- Fatal police shootings of unarmed people have significantly declined, experts say
- And he and other Post reporters, as well as students in The Washington Post practicum — a graduate class Sullivan teaches inside the newsroom — reported on fired cops are back on the streets.
- We also looked at transparency: In fatal shootings by police, 1 in 5 officers’ names go undisclosed
- Discrepancies in court decisions: Some get millions; others get nothing
- And how many people are killed by officers who mistake toys or replicas for the real thing
Sex-offender registries
IRW has produced and co-produced several investigations on sexual assault, including, most recently, “The Boy on the Bus,” which traced the story of a troubled teen in Iowa to his predatory actions over decades in several states.
We worked with Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting to produce a written story and an audio documentary in which one journalist told of her own journey tracking down the gymnastics coach who abused her many years ago.
