Why does the U.S. lead the world in youth imprisonment? What should a truly effective juvenile justice system look like? How can the media stay ahead of the story?
On April 23-24, 2012, 30 journalists from around the nation joined some of the country's most prominent juvenile justice experts, practitioners and advocates to explore those questions at a special symposium at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, organized by John Jay's Center on Media, Crime and Justice with the support of the Tow Foundation and in cooperation with John Jay's Center for Research and Evaluation.
The 30 journalists, selected as Reporting Fellows, examined current sentencing and detention practices, the impact of race, treatment of mental health and substance abuse, and the role of police, courts, schools (and parents) in the so-called "school to prison pipeline." The year-long fellowship also includes the establishment of a "juvenile justice news network" for reporters to assist them in following trends in this area, and new research--with the aim of providing the tools that can help foster informed public debate at local and national levels in 2012 and beyond.
The symposium entitled Kids Behind Bars: Where's the Justice in America's Juvenile Justice System, Covering the Juvenile Justice Reform Debate in 2012 featured keynote speeches from Gail Garinger, The Child Advocate of the State of Massachusetts; attorney Bryan Stevenson who argued the Supreme Court case related to juvenile Life Without Parole; and Mike Bocian, Pollster & Founding Partner, GBA Strategies.
Panelists included: Vincent N. Schiraldi, Commissioner, New York City Department of Probation, James Bell, Founder and Executive Director, W. Haywood Burns Institute, C. Jama Adams, Professor and Chair of John Jay College's Africana Studies Department and Joseph Gaudett, Chief of Police, Bridgeport, Connecticut.
Proceedings of the conference, including podcasts, research materials provided by speakers, are covered below. For a full list of speakers, panelists and the agenda click here.
NOTE: this page will be updated regularly with articles by Fellows and other information as it becomes available.
Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy led a blue-ribbon list of speakers from the White House, leading police departments, think tanks, and universities for two days of discussions and briefings at the 7th Annual Harry Frank. Guggenheim foundation Symposium on Crime in America, on Feb. 6th and 7th, 2012 at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.
Twenty journalists from around the nation joined participants from the criminal justice community to explore his year's topic,""The Problem That Won't Go Away: How Drugs, Race and Mass Incarceration Have Distorted American Justice (and What To Do About It)."
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Gina Barton of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Trevor Aaronson of Mother Jones magazine are the winners of the John Jay College/Harry Frank Guggenheim 2012 Excellence in Criminal Justice Reporting Awards.
Trevor Aaronson of Mother Jones magazine won the 2012 Excellence in Criminal Justice Reporting Award (single-story category) for his investigation into the Federal Bureau of Investigation's 15,000 nationwide informants charged with spying on Muslim-American communities.
Read the Mother Jones magazine story,"The Informants" here.
Gina Barton of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel won the 2012 Excellence in Criminal Justice Reporting Award (series category) for "Both Sides of the Law," a multi-part series about lawbreakers on the Milwaukee police force. During an investigation that spanned over two years, Barton identified 93 officers on the force—from street cop to captain—who had been disciplined by the department for violating the laws and ordinances they were sworn to uphold.
Read the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story,"Both Sides of the Law" here.
Runner-up in the single-entry category was awarded to Kelly Virella of City Limits Investigates for "Behind Bars: Love, Sex, Rape and New York's Women Prisoners," which investigated intimacy between prisoners and correction officers in New York State. Marisa Taylor and Michael Doyle of the McClatchy Newspapers Washington bureau, were runners-up in the series category for "Military Injustice," which revealed troubling flaws in the military justice system.
Read the City Limits Investigates "Behind Bars: Love, Sex, Rape and New York's Women Prisoners" story here.
Read the McClatchy Newspapers Washington bureau story "Military Injustice," here.
The prize recipients were recognized at a special dinner in their honor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City, Feb 6,2012, hosted by college president Jeremy Travis. Former New York Times Supreme Court reporter Linda Greenhouse, now at Yale University, delivered keynote remarks.
Jurors for the John Jay Prize for Excellence in Criminal Justice Reporting are Ted Gest, President, Criminal Justice Journalists; Joe Domanick, Associate Director, Center on Media, Crime and Justice; Alexa Capeloto, Associate Professor, Journalism, John Jay College of Criminal Justice; Mansfield Frazier, Columnist, The Crime Report; and Jordan Smith, Reporter, Austin Chronicle.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Mother Jones Magazine Win 2012 John Jay College/H.F. Guggenheim Excellence in Criminal Justice Reporting Awards
New York, NY, January 17, 2012 – Jeremy Travis, President of John Jay College of Criminal Justice, today announced that Gina Barton of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Trevor Aaronson of Mother Jones magazine are the winners of the John Jay College/Harry Frank Guggenheim 2012 Excellence in Criminal Justice Reporting Awards.
“The Mother Jones and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel stories were very impressive pieces of investigative journalism that drew attention to issues of critical importance in criminal justice," said President Travis. “We are proud to recognize the winners’ contributions to the national dialogue on these issues.”
The awards presentation will take place on February 6th at an awards dinner in New York City, held in conjunction with the 7th annual Harry Frank Guggenheim Symposium: The Problem That Won't Go Away: How Drugs, Race and Politics Distort US Criminal Justice, hosted by John Jay’s Center on Media, Crime and Justice (CMCJ).
Trevor Aaronson of Mother Jones magazine won the 2012 Excellence in Criminal Justice Reporting Award (single-story category) for his investigation into the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s 15,000 nationwide informants charged with spying on Muslim-American communities. During a one–year reporting journey in partnership with Lowell Bergman’s Investigative Reporting Program at the University of California-Berkeley, Aaronson found that the FBI is infiltrating Muslim communities and drawing people into “terrorist plots” that are actually conceived and financed by the FBI. The previously unreported story received national attention.
One of our judges said the Mother Jones investigation "helps renew my faith in the future of investigative journalism." The judge called it "a critically serious subject packaged and presented as a smooth, suspenseful read—I hope we see more partnerships like the one that yielded this.”
Read the Mother Jones story here.
Runner-up for the single story category was awarded to Kelly Virella of City Limits Investigates for “Behind Bars: Love, Sex, Rape and New York's Women Prisoners,” which investigated intimacy between prisoners and correction officers in New York State.
Read the City Limits Investigates story here.
Gina Barton of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel won the 2012 Excellence in Criminal Justice Reporting Award (series category) for "Both Sides of the Law," a multi-part series about lawbreakers on the Milwaukee police force. During an investigation that spanned over two years, Barton found that 93 officers on the force—from street cop to captain—had been disciplined by the department for violating the laws and ordinances they were sworn to uphold.
Read the Journal Sentinel story here.
Marisa Taylor and Michael Doyle of the McClatchy Newspapers Washington DC bureau, were runners-up in the series category for "Military Injustice," which revealed troubling flaws in the military justice system.
Read the McClatchy Newspapers story here.
“We’re proud once again to honor the best in criminal justice reporting this year,” said CMCJ Director Stephen Handelman. “The impressive variety of entries submitted to our judges underline the continuing importance of journalism’s watchdog role in a fast-changing and complex criminal justice system.”
This year’s Excellence in Criminal Justice Reporting Awards, presented annually by the John Jay College Center on Media, Crime and Justice, recognizes work published between November 2010 and October 2011. Established to honor journalists whose reporting informs and enhances the public’s understanding of issues related to crime in America, the awards are open to U.S.-based print and online journalists. The prize comes with a cash award of $1,000 in each category and a plaque. Runners-up receive a certificate of Honorable Mention.
The distinguished panel of five judges for the 2012 awards included: Alexa Capeloto, assistant professor of journalism at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a former Enterprise Editor at the San Diego Union-Tribune; Joe Domanick, veteran Los Angeles-based crime author and reporter and associate director at the CMCJ; Ted Gest, president, Criminal Justice Journalists; Jordan Smith, reporter for the Austin Chronicle and 2009 John Jay Prize Winner; and Mansfield Frazier, a contributing columnist for The Crime Report, Newsweek/Daily Beast and Cool Cleveland.
The award is supported by a grant from the H.F. Guggenheim Foundation, a private grant-making foundation that aims to shape and support research on violence, aggression, and dominance. The winning entries will be posted on the John Jay Center on Media, Crime and Justice web site, http://www.jjay.cuny.edu/cmcj/.
About John Jay College of Criminal Justice: An international leader in educating for justice, John Jay College of Criminal Justice of The City University of New York offers a rich liberal arts and professional studies curriculum to upwards of 15,000 undergraduate and graduate students from more than 135 nations. In teaching, scholarship and research, the College approaches justice as an applied art and science in service to society and as an ongoing conversation about fundamental human desires for fairness, equality and the rule of law. For more information, visit www.jjay.cuny.edu.
The Center on Media, Crime and Justice, established at John Jay College in 2006, is the nation's only practice- and research-oriented think tank devoted to encouraging and developing high-quality reporting on criminal justice, and to promoting better-informed public debate on the complex 21st century challenges of law enforcement, public security and justice in a globalized urban society. For more information, visit http://www.jjay.cuny.edu/cmcj or www.thecrimereport.org
The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation sponsors scholarly research on problems of violence, aggression, and dominance. The foundation provides both research grants to established scholars and dissertation fellowships to graduate students during the dissertation-writing year. For more information, visit http://www.hfg.org.
For More Information, Call
Doreen Vinas, 212.237.8645
Cara Tabachnick, 212-484-1175
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Nearly 1,300 U.S. police agencies now use Facebook, and more than 600 are on Twitter.
Increasingly, the ability to reach the public directly—rather than through the media’s prism—has empowered police. At times, it has nettled journalists. How have social media networking tools changed policing? And are they worsening or improving the relationship between law enforcement and the media?
To explore these questions, more than 40 New Jersey police chiefs, senior law enforcement managers, PIOs and journalists gathered for a unique roundtable at John Jay College of Criminal Justice on May 18, 2011.
Panelists at the half-day event included: Capt. Mike Parker of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department; Nancy Kolb of the International Association of Chiefs of Police; Capt. Jeff Paul of the Morris County Prosecutors Office; and Steve Johnson, New Jersey Regional Editor of Patch.com.
The roundtable was co-sponsored by the Center on Media, Crime and Justice at John Jay, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI), and American Police Beat Magazine.
For the roundtable agenda and resources prepared for the conference , please see below.
Access the full agenda here.
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On May 2 and 3, 2011, twenty-five California journalists met with state and local officials and a range of criminal justice experts on the campus of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, to examine California’s so-called “Three Strikes Law” and its impact on the state’s criminal justice system, in advance of a possible referendum for repeal in 2012.
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In order to spur further public debate and greater knowledge about gun violence, media outlets in the Midwestern region were asked to submit proposals for original investigative reporting.
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Twenty-six journalists from across the nation gathered at John Jay College of Criminal Justice on Jan. 31st and Feb 1st, 2011 for the 6th Annual Harry Frank Guggenheim Symposium on Crime in America to discuss the conference theme: “Law & Disorder: Facing the Legal and Economic Challenges to American Criminal Justice.”
The journalists were joined by criminal justice professionals and speakers including New York State Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman, Hon. Sue Bell Cobb, Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court; Hon. Andre Davis, United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit; and Hon. Robert T. Russell, Associate Judge for Buffalo City Court and a pioneer of the nation’s Veterans Courts. They were joined by ACLU president Susan Herman; John T. Chisholm, District Attorney, Milwaukee County, Wisconsin; Daniel F. Conley, District Attorney, Suffolk County, Massachusetts; and George Gascon, newly appointed DA in San Francisco and the city’s former Police Chief.
Panels included:THE COURTS, PUBLIC SAFETY AND CIVIL LIBERTIES: CHALLENGES IN 2011, THE COURTS ON TRIAL: IS THE SYSTEM FAILING US?,TECHNO-CRIME FIGHTING: LAW ENFORCEMENT, CIVIL LIBERTIES, PUBLIC SAFETY AND THE WEB.
See the symposium agenda here.
Fellows ask colleagues follow-up questions in a closed forum.
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New York Magazine and The Philadelphia Inquirer Investigative Team won the 2011 John Jay/H.F. Guggenheim Excellence in Criminal Justice Reporting Awards.
Read the New York Magazine story, "I Did It," by Robert Kolker here.
Read the Philadelphia Inquirer Investigative team story, "Justice: Delayed, Dismissed, Denied" here.
Honorable mention in the single-entry category went to Jim Schaefer of the Detroit Free Press, for his article, "Overdue Justice," an investigation of victim restitutions still held in state coffers years later. Two entries tied for second place in the series category: Charles Piller of The Sacramento Bee for his series, "The Public Eye," focusing on prison reforms; and "Law and Disorder," an investigation of the New Orleans police force after Katrina by the ProPublica, New Orleans Times Picayune and PBS Frontline Investigative Teams.
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On June 25 and 26th 2010, 18 journalists from across the country gathered with preeminent experts in tribal justice at The University of New Mexico School Of Law for a specialized reporting institute. The Institute, one of a series of advanced journalism workshops on pressing topics supported annually by the Chicago-based McCormick Foundation, is co-sponsored by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice on Media, Crime and Justice (CMCJ), the Department of Communication &Journalism at University of New Mexico, the School of Law at the University of New Mexico and the Native American Journalists Association.
Topics discussed included: jurisdictional issues on and off reservation, violence against women, substance abuse use among native population, and the theft of native art and cultural artifacts. Speakers included: Brendan Johnson, U.S. Attorney, District of South Dakota, Bernadine Martin, Chief Prosecutor, Navajo Nation, Everett Little Whiteman, Director of Public Safety, Oglala Sioux Tribe, Marcus MacCaskill, Special Agent, FBI, and Tracy Toulou, Director of the Office of Tribal Justice, Department of Justice.
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