U Visa Reporting Network

Congress created the U visa in 2000 to protect immigrant victims of crime, in particular those who are undocumented and fear deportation, and help police solve crimes. The visa can help victims get immigration status and ensure that criminals don’t operate with impunity.

But our analysis of policies from more than 100 agencies serving large immigrant communities found that nearly 1 of every 4 create barriers never envisioned under the U visa program. A review based on hundreds of police records and nearly 60 interviews found that victims are at the mercy of whatever internal rules police choose.

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Case Cleared Reporting Network

In November 2018, we teamed up with Newsy and ProPublica to investigate rape clearance rates at police departments across the U.S. We found that dozens of law enforcement agencies are making it appear as though they have solved a significant share of their rape cases when they simply have closed them. Using our data and training materials, local reporters continued pursuing the story in their communities.

Localizations:

To Protect and Slur Reporting Network

We wanted to know whether police officers nationwide were members of extremist groups.

That’s not a simple task, but we found one way to do it. We learned that on Facebook – at the time – you could download the membership rolls of private groups. So, we downloaded the names of members of two different kinds of groups we identified on Facebook: extremist groups and police groups. Then we shared what we found with local reporters.

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