September 25th, 2006 | by Derek Willis | published in DIY, Local Data
Jeff Parrott of the South Bend Tribune has a two-part series on sentencing by two judges in the neighboring Indiana counties of St. Joseph and Elkhart, finding that “the price one pays for committing a crime in Michiana can depend on where it occurs.” The paper built its own database of sentences by St. Joseph [...]
July 21st, 2006 | by Derek Willis | published in DIY, NonGov Data
Justin A. Cohn of the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette used attendance figures from local sports teams to find that the numbers “are a loosely based gauge of how many tickets are distributed, not how many people pass through the gates and not necessarily how many tickets were purchased. Whether those tickets were used is inconsequential [...]
July 6th, 2006 | by Derek Willis | published in DIY, Fed Data
Eric D. Williams of the Kitsap Sun used Washington state high school sports records to show that in 10 sports, “public schools in the wealthiest neighborhoods won titles at 112 times the rate of schools in less wealthy neighborhoods.” In addition, “schools in the wealthiest neighborhoods also seem to benefit from booster clubs that help [...]
June 28th, 2006 | by Derek Willis | published in DIY, Online, Paper Trail
The good news is that the Center for Public Integrity (my former employer) has released its database of privately-sponsored congressional travel for web searchers. It’s a great complement to the bundle of strong stories that CPI has done from this dataset. But unlike some other databases from the Center, this one is deliberately designed to [...]
June 26th, 2006 | by Derek Willis | published in DIY, Paper Trail
Melvin Claxton of the Nashville Tennessean has a three-part series on the price of murder in Tennessee, finding that “homicides cost state and local governments more than $110 million each year. The bill for Nashville alone, which has accounted for 17 percent of the state’s homicides over the past two decades, exceeds $18.7 million annually.” [...]