Articles
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Misery Funds a Legal Fiefdom
Memphis, Tennessee – Bronze dogs guard the neo-classical facade of the Shelby County Juvenile Court. Mahogany desks and softly-lit oil paintings grace the administration offices. It is immaculate, from the gleam of the main lobby floor to the glare off the bullet-proof glass
Paying for Past Crimes: Uganda’s Murderous Lessons for Rwanda
On a Sunday morning in June in the ravaged Rwandan town of Kabuga, on the outskirts of Kigali, the capital, tens of thousands of hungry and bewildered men, women and children wandered aimlessly amid the wreckage of their lives. In the previous two
A Tale of Weird Drop-Offs and Jump-Ups: Are Computer Vote Counts Honest?
TALLAHASSEE AND SOUTH FLORIDA–Speaking softly, but with an occasional “damn,” the lieutenant governor of Florida, Democrat Buddy McKay, said last spring in his office in the Florida State Capitol that he believed a seat in the U.S. Senate was stolen from him six
Saved by the River
Arno Harden sneaked aboard a boxcar in Great Falls, Montana, in the late summer of 1932. He was twenty-one, fresh out of work, alone, and heading West. Everything he owned he carried with him. He had a bedroll and a pillowcase half-stuffed with
Using Your Rights Means Extra Years in Prison
Vincent Boggan is among the few inmates in the Pontiac Correctional Center–a maximum-security prison in Pontiac, Illinois–who avail themselves of the free classes offered. He has already earned an “Associate of Applied Science”–a vocational degree–and now is working on an “Associate in General
Traveling for a family: The Remittance Economy
According to the inscription on the Statue of Liberty, immigrants are the “tired… poor… the huddled masses yearning to be free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore… the homeless, tempest-tossed.” Unfortunately, those words did not fit when Emma Lazarus wrote them in
Willie Brown: Power, Money and Instinct
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA–Frank Fat’s is the smallest building on its block. Painted garishly pink outside, the Chinese restaurant is sandwiched between a parking garage and an old brick office building a short walk from the California State Capitol. The napkin from Frank Fat’s restaurant
Willie Brown: The Members’ Speaker
SAN FRANCISCO — Willie Brown, his tuxedo glistening in the spotlight, bounced onto a stage in the ornate ballroom of the Fairmont Hotel, the grandiose citadel of San Francisco’s old-moneyed establishment. California’s most powerful politician began introducing his after-dinner entertainment and his guests
Pushing Treatment For Prisoners
CHICAGO–A tale of two junkies: Dwight Walker sat in his cell in the Cook County Jail last September, aching, cramping, and spitting up, and worrying about how much time he’d get for his robberies. Two inmates enrolled in drug treatment in Chicago’s Cook
Gang Life In Los Angeles: The East Side Story
Photos and article by Joseph Rodriguez I see Los Angeles as a post-modern Wild West where everyone has a gun and they use it. It is like an uncontrolled and slightly scary place, a land of dreams and beauty, playing by its own
Houston Dollars Fuel The Human Traffic from Guatemala
One morning in September, 1978 Juan L. Chanax set out from his village in the Guatemalan highlands of Totonicapan and began a voyage with consequences still unfolding in unimaginable ways. A weaver’s son and a good weaver himself, Juan made one of the
Good Intentions Gone Awry: The U.N. Leaves Cambodia
CAMBODIA–Phnom Penh–Micheline LaJoie, a forty-something, brassy blonde former real estate agent from Quebec, eased her hulking white Land Cruiser through curtains of bamboo into the Khmer Rouge village of Chrey Leung. Two weeks before, the Khmer Rouge had taken four United Nations peacekeepers
Bad Comedy at America’s Biggest Environmental Mess
HANFORD, Washington — The mulberries happened to be ripe. They caught the eye of a hell-raising physicist by the name of Norm Buske. He picked a quart and rushed home to make what turned out to be high-anxiety jam. The berries grew here
Sexism in Washington: Breaking the Silence
It’s been almost two years since millions of Americans sat riveted in front of their televisions, witnessing the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill hearings before the Senate Judiciary committee. That’s a long time ago by Washington standards, where big stories can become ancient history within
Jailing Juveniles
A spirit of optimism about children created the nation’s first juvenile court, in Cook County, Illinois, in 1899. Kids who got in trouble were still kids, the prevailing thinking went, and the focus ought to be on reforming instead of punishing them. A
Immigration to the Burn Zone: The Changing Face of the American City
Photos and article by APF Fellow Roberto Suro LOS ANGELES — During Los Angeles’ days of fury in spring,1992, the sounds of gun fire and helicopters reminded Elsa Flores why she had left El Salvador more than a decade earlier and made
Revisiting the Thomas-Hill Hearings
Like the Kennedy assassination, Watergate and the Vietnam war, the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill hearings have become a defining event in history that promises to be be reexamined, replayed and reevaluated for decades to come. Clarence Thomas and Angela Wright Photo courtesy of AP
Peacekeeping in Cambodia: Breathing Space
CAMBODIA–Thmar Pouk–The Khmer Rouge was a no-show. They were supposed to be there for the weekly meeting of the local “Mixed Military Working Group,” a United Nations-run network to police the Cambodian peace accord. Officers from the three other once warring Cambodian factions
Fringe Banking
Banks don’t want her business. So when Pacquin Davis needed to cash her welfare check one recent Tuesday evening, she went to the Shopper’s Market around the corner from her apartment in an Atlanta public housing complex. The grocer charged her $3 to
Willie Brown: The Play for Power
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA — Willie Brown arrived to face the cameras and the questions. A new Speaker had been chosen in a closed-door meeting of Democrats in the California State Assembly and it was time to make the announcement: A liberal Democrat from San
