In New York, padlocked jumpsuits for prison ‘EXPOSERS’
An effective way to curb behavior, or ‘an extreme form of restraint’? PHOTO: Flickr/bronayur
The New York World focuses on producing data-driven investigative projects.
In pursuit of open records
The New York World and MuckRock filed 344 open records requests to 86 local and state agencies subject to New York state’s Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) as part of an effort to assess how effectively different agencies deal with such requests. The results were decidedly mixed, as some agencies quickly provided the requested documents in an easy-to-use format and at no cost, while other requests remain outstanding to this day, eight months after they were filed.
FOIL review methodology
Beginning on Dec. 12, 2014, The New York World and MuckRock filed a total of 344 Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests to 86 separate agencies across New York. Each agency received the same four requests: a list of employees a log of FOIL requests a list of records maintained by the agency (often referred […]
City struggles to protect New Yorkers in need
For years, overloaded caseworkers at APS have struggled and sometimes failed to provide state-mandated services to the city’s most vulnerable adults. In at least two instances over the past several years, city officials determined that those failures contributed to the death of an APS client, according to disciplinary records obtained through an open records request. Illustration: Vincent Panzeca
Summer in the city brings dreaded hot subway cars
Air-conditioning breakdowns on subway cars happened about 10 times a day during June, July and August between 2010 and 2014, according to analysis of Metropolitan Transportation Authority data obtained by The New York World through open records request. In total, there were nearly 6,500 “hot cars” over the five-year period covered by the data. Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of those incidents occurred during the hottest months of the year.
Under intense pressure, young and largely inexperienced staff at CCRB tasked with investigating police misconduct
The agency responsible for investigating complaints of police misconduct relies largely on young investigators with little or no prior investigative experience who often don’t receive formal training for weeks or even months after starting the job. And, in part because of low pay, many investigators leave the job after only a few years.
Access denied: MetroFocus interview
New York World reporter Jie Jenny Zou was interviewed as part of a segment on MetroFocus, a WNET/WLIW public policy program, that focused on New York’s prison nursery programs for female inmates. Photo: Flickr/Thomas Hawk
Easy A: Thousands of NYC restaurants obtain an “A” inspection grade by appealing violations
Between January 2013 and April 2014 restaurants appealed the results of more than 13,000 graded inspections, and more than half of those appeals resulted in an improved letter grade for the restaurant. Photo: AP/Bebeto Matthews
A risky cargo on the Hudson River: WNYC interview
New York World reporter Harry Stevens joined the Leonard Lopate Show on WNYC to discuss the U.S. Coast Guard’s failure to implement new inspection and safety rules to govern the tugboats responsible for transporting barges full of crude oil down the Hudson River, a relatively new and growing industry.
A risky cargo on the Hudson River
While fiery train derailments across the U.S. and Canada have drawn New Yorkers’ attention to the dangers of transporting crude oil by rail, there has been much less focus on the potential dangers of shipping oil down the Hudson River by barge. But some environmentalists worry that a crude oil spill would wreak havoc on a river that has recovered well after enduring decades of industrial pollution that nearly destroyed it.
