Bringing Systemic Injustices to Light, One Long Read (or Listen) at a Time

This Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation was the culmination of more than five years of reporting on the Mississippi welfare agency. When reporter Anna Wolfe found in 2017 that only a fraction of Mississippians who applied for direct cash assistance were receiving it, she wondered what the state was doing with the hundreds of millions in federal grants designed to help those people.

Would you confess to a crime you didn’t commit? It’s hard to imagine. But what if the police told you they had proof of your involvement in a decade-old cold case? And what if they suggested you just didn’t remember committing the crime?

"We need real, actual system change. We need legislation,” says Buffalo resident Jillian Hanesworth. “We need to be mindful about how it’s written and how it’s enforced, and unfortunately, a lot of people don’t really have a lot of faith that will happen.”

Despite efforts to divert people from state jails into mental health treatment, our investigation shows the death toll of inmates with documented symptoms has exponentially grown since 2012. This story is the second in a broader series, “Deadly Detention,” investigating jails across Texas.

Five “serious and disturbing incidents” include a case THE CITY surfaced of an incarcerated man so badly hurt he went on a ventilator — and is now paralyzed.

This five-part investigative project goes deep into the Internal Affairs Division of the Baton Rouge Police Department, exploring how they delayed, denied and dismissed complaints without telling the citizens who made them.

The mental health care system in North Carolina has been failing for years. Perhaps nowhere is that more evident than those who get caught up in the criminal justice system, out of sight, therefore out of mind for the general public and policymakers. But their plight—and the brokenness of the mental health system—affects everyone in the state.

The culture of gender discrimination goes beyond overt harassment within the ranks. It also can impact how El Paso police respond to violence against women, experts say—resulting in an insensitive, disbelieving or blaming attitude that affects how officers treat women in the community.

“Although it was a coincidence, I knew it wasn’t a mistake. What Louisiana was doing to men like my brother Elvis and my son Cedric was intentional.”

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