An effective way to curb behavior, or ‘an extreme form of restraint’? PHOTO: Flickr/bronayur
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.
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
Clusters of sex offenders living in boarding houses, cheap motels, and homeless shelters have become all too common in the decade since New York first implemented statewide residency restrictions for many sex offenders under parole supervision. These clusters can place additional burdens on low-income communities already struggling with high unemployment and poverty rates. And many don’t provide the stable, safe environments research has shown to be critical for successful reentry.
New York State corrections officials reversed course and released more than 200 pages of documents detailing operations at a prison nursery program after claiming earlier that only a single page could in located in response to a New York World records request.
A review by the New York World found the commission often does not remove judges even when they’ve violated the constitutionally guaranteed right to due process or manipulated the outcome of cases. In addition, much of the commission’s work is conducted in secret. New York is one of only 15 states that conduct judicial disciplinary hearings in private. And in many cases, the name of the sanctioned judge and the nature of the misconduct are never made public. Photo: Flickr/ssalonso
New York State correction officials don’t maintain basic information on the state’s own landmark prison nursery, including how many women have applied to the program or how long it took staff to review those applications.
More than 22,000 medical and religious exemptions were granted to students for the 2013-14 school year, up 27 percent from 2010-11, according to the state Health Department. Public and private enrollment over the same period remained largely flat.
The New York City Department of Correction has released data confirming that the Rikers Island jail nursery is little used and that upward of half of all applicants are denied entry.
Like many pregnant teens, Arisleida Duarte found herself struggling to figure out child care and parenting—but unlike most, she did it behind bars.
