Mark Obbie's Blog, page 27
May 21, 2014
Birth of a series: the founding principles
In an earlier post describing the work I will do for my Soros Justice Fellowship, I alluded to the research I have done to background myself in this field. Today’s post goes into more detail about the evidence and arguments that have influenced me as I do my reporting and eventually write the narratives that […]
May 19, 2014
On the nightstand: Monday, 5/19/14
Today’s good reads and reporting coups in criminal-justice journalism: Marisol Bello tells the story of the heroic police and other investigators who view child porn to identify children who have been raped and then race to find them and protect them from further abuse. It’s hard to imagine police work any tougher, and any more […]
May 18, 2014
The long shadow
Mass shootings produce a standard and curious set of responses in many of us. First, fear and resentment at the perception that they’re happening with increasing frequency in a world spinning more quickly out of control (not true). Second, amnesia: With a handful of notorious exceptions, most mass shootings fade so quickly from our collective […]
May 17, 2014
An unfair smear
There’s much to admire about this new report by Joaquin Sapien of ProPublica explaining the delays, dodges, and complications that have bogged down the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act’s effectiveness. The story details some of the latest procedural tricks that have been used to avoid putting Congress’ mandate into full effect. But I call bullshit […]
May 16, 2014
On the nightstand: Friday, 5/16/14
Today’s good reads and reporting coups in criminal-justice journalism: Syracuse Post Standard‘s Julie McMahon wrote this heartbreaking story about a family reeling from two sons’ homicides within seven months. On her Facebook page, she wrote, “It was really important to give this young man a story beyond the headline announcing that he’d been shot. ” She […]
Victim Mentality: a series’ working thesis
The Soros Justice Fellowship I’ve been awarded will pay me to work full time for 12 months on a series of stories for Slate, which I hope then to build on in book form. I promised when it was announced to explain more about my focus. Under the working title “Victim Mentality: Crime, punishment, and […]
May 14, 2014
On the nightstand: Wednesday, 5/14/14
Today’s good reads and reporting coups in criminal-justice journalism: ProPublica’s Lois Beckett sorts through a tangle of studies and numbers to arrive at a scary conclusion: not only do we not know with certainty why violence trends this way or that; we don’t even know the direction in which nonfatal shootings are moving. By the end […]
My new gig
The news is finally out and official: I am proud to have been chosen as a 2014-15 Soros Justice Fellow. This one-year program allows me to pursue the kind of work I am most passionate about — a series of reported narratives providing the crime-victim perspective on criminal justice reform — with the luxury of exclusive […]
May 12, 2014
On the nightstand: Monday, 5/12/14
Today’s good reads and reporting coups in criminal-justice journalism: WNYC’s Kathleen Horan effectively tells a story about how the research of criminologist David Kennedy, of John Jay College, might play out on the streets of Brooklyn. One mother’s distrust of police, and fears for her son, provide a jumping-off point for a discussion about ways […]
The champions of Camden
After Bryan Morton spent eight years in prison for robbery, he gave up the drugs, and the thieving that paid for the drugs, and set himself on a positive course: jobs, family, college. And now, in a poignant story told so well by Kathy Dobie in the May issue of GQ (yes, I’m behind in […]
