Policing is often a big challenge in communities that face concentrated child poverty. Those communities often have anemic tax bases, making it hard to pay police, and high public safety demands.
Community Safety
April Xu wrote this story while participating in the 2018 National Data Fellowship.
Just 74 boys remain at the nation’s oldest reform school as multiple agencies probe abuse allegations.
"One of the first lessons we learned was the need for patience with survivors. We were often asking people to relive their trauma when we interviewed them and that carried a high emotional cost for families."
How a reporting team overcame countless hurdles to tell a new story of how children are affected by the family violence they experience, from the time they are in utero through childhood and after.
A dynamic team blended traditional street reporting with innovative scientific testing for a hard-hitting series on how the city's schoolchildren are being poisoned by lead.
"They come in welled up with emotion, they’re crying and there’s no way they can concentrate on the lesson at hand," says a teacher at Dymally High School in South Los Angeles.
Jodi Cohen had never heard of researcher Dr. Mani Pavuluri before she got a tip in January 2018 to look into her work. What she found was deeply troubling.
Journalists seeking to include the voices of survivors in their stories should start with the most important maxim: Do no harm.
Sonali Kohli worked on this project while participating in the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism's 2018 California Fellowship.