In "Behind Bars," reporter and writer Kelly Virella found flaws in state policies for recording, investigating and punishing sexual abuse.
Check in here to read updates on City Limits' investigations, get in-depth information on stories making headlines, and read news from the five boroughs you won't find anywhere else.
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March/April 2012
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Jarrett Murphy
City Limits
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Prison Abuse Investigation Wins National Award
City Limits magazine's May 2011 report on staff sexual abuse of women inmates in New York State prisons won the Sigma Delta Chi Award for Magazine Investigative Reporting (Regional/Local Circulation), the national Society of Professional Journalists announced Tuesday.
Related topic categories: Workforce and Labor, Justice, Sexual Abuse of Female Inmates
City Limits Criminal Justice Reporting Honored
According to city data, 30 percent of New York City's homeless shelter entrants have been incarcerated. According to a Justice Department survey, in 2008 and 2009 Bayview Correctional Facility in Manhattan had the highest inmate-reported rate of staff sexual abuse of any prison or jail in the country that participated in the research.
According to the National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD), City Limits' reporting on both stories was among the best examples in 2011 of reporting that was able to "skillfully bring home to us the critical issues that affect justice and safety in our nation.”
Related topic categories: Homelessness, Workforce and Labor, Justice, Housing Policy, Sexual Abuse of Female Inmates, Corrections
What’s Not to Like About the Cuomo Budget?
For a budget address, Governor Cuomo's speech on Tuesday spent relatively little time on the nuts and bolts of the state's fiscal 2013 spending plan. Seeking to turn a symbolic page from last year's nasty budget fight, the governor argued that closing New York's $2 billion fiscal hole is a simple matter of eliminating waste and cancelling automatic budget increases. The bulk of the gov's talk was about his "reform agenda" of economic development, government streamlining, avoiding future pension obligations and teacher evaluations.
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Related topic categories: Activism and Volunteerism, NYCHA, Albany, Urban Planning and Policy, Workforce and Labor, Housing and Development, Government, The Economy, Andrew Cuomo, Budget
NY Pols Tout Bill Targeting Jobless Youth
From a makeshift stage in Harlem on Tuesday, Representative Charlie Rangel, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Assemblyman Keith Wright, and leaders from the National Urban League, a nonprofit social services provider, touted proposed legislation to combat youth unemployment. Termed the Urban Jobs Act, during its first year the legislation would provide $20 million in grants to national nonprofits like the National Urban League. The funding would be used in targeted areas by local affiliates like the New York Urban League, whose offices hosted the assemblage.
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Related topic categories: The District, Economic Development, Workforce and Labor, Youth, The Economy, Economic Policy, Black Male Unemployment, Disconnected Youth
The Lower Unemployment Rate: Getting Jobs, Or Giving Up?
Between the stock market nosedive and the S&P downgrade (based on a $2 trillion math error), last week wasn't a great one for the U.S. economic outlook. There was, however, one glimmer of hope: U.S. employers reported they added an above-expected 117,000 jobs in July, as the unemployment rate fell from 9.2 percent to 9.1 percent.
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Related topic categories: Workforce and Labor, Workforce Development, The Economy
Recession's Pain Revealed For Hispanics, Artists
The full impact of the Great Recession is still being calculated, and evidence is mounting that its damage was not equally distributed.
A study out today from the Pew Research Center finds that the wealth of the average white family shrank by 16 percent between 2005 and 2009. For black families wealthy was cut in half. For Latino households, only a third of their wealth remains.
Related topic categories: Race and Ethnicity, Workforce and Labor, The Economy, Economic Policy, Black Male Unemployment, Poverty
City Limits' Sex Abuse Investigation Now Available As Podcast
Local radio stations are telling their audiences about City Limits' May investigation into the sexual abuse of female prisoners by New York State prison employees. The recordings of their interviews with us are available online.
Monday, June 20, at 4 pm we are appearing on WBAI 99.5 FM to discuss the investigation more. Please tune in.
Related topic categories: Criminal Justice, Workforce and Labor, Women, Prison Rape Elimination Act, Sexual Abuse of Female Inmates
Group Homes Face Change. Question Is, How Much?
State-operated services used by 126,000 state residents with developmental disabilities — 42,462 of whom are located in New York City — may soon see major reconstruction.
After a March article in The New York Times explored widespread abuse in shelters and group homes for the developmentally disabled, policymakers are mulling over how to best create a safe environment for the vulnerable people who use those services.
The Assembly is considering a bill that would create a statewide registry to allow care-providing agencies to check if job applicants had previously been terminated elsewhere because of abuse or neglect.
But a Read More»
Related topic categories: Workforce and Labor, Social Services, Education
