Monthly Journalism Award
The Washington Monthly Journalism Award DECEMBER 1997 WILL ENGLUND AND GARY COHN "The Shipbreakers" The Baltimore Sun When the Navy began selling off obsolete ships at the end of the Cold...
...Yet neither the Navy nor the Department of Defense makes a serious effort to oversee the scrappers...
...In 1997,firearms were responsible for over 31,000 homicides and suicides in the United States...
...But Fricker finds that the charges were exaggerated, and that the system: real and continuing injustice lies in its unfairness to workers...
...The Washington Monthly Journalism Award DECEMBER 1997 WILL ENGLUND AND GARY COHN "The Shipbreakers" The Baltimore Sun When the Navy began selling off obsolete ships at the end of the Cold War, a new industry was born: shipbreaking...
...The answer: legal hassles, delayed benejts, and despair...
...With greater firepower than those issued to police, theguns have beenfinding their way into the hands of the American public through such low-regulation means as private shops, gun shows, the internet, and even the government-sponsored Civilian Marksmanship Program...
...MARY FRICKER "Insult to Injury: Workers Compensation" The Santa Rosa (Cal...
...workers compensation laws were last overhauled in 1993 in response to widespread allegations thatfraudulent claims were pushing costs for employers and insurers through the ceiling...
...Focusing on three individuals - a foster child in New York, a caseworker in Cleveland, and a longtime drug addict in Maryland - Russakoff describes the heartbreaking troubles they face and the rising pressures on the nation's fastest-growing entitlement program...
...Many of these weapons are military surplus, dating as far back as W W . or constructedfiomparts found in military scrap yards...
...Claxton and Gaines conclude that despite our nation's 22,000-plus firearms laws and ordinances, Congress wilI have to write tougher legislation to stem the current increase in gun-related violence...
...The state...
...Fricker reviews the weaknesses of the new system in her comprehensive series and argues that the first step towards reform lies in an efective system for monitoring claims...
...MELVIN CLAXTON AND WILLIAM GAINES "Loopholes Give Weapons New Life" The Washington Times Claxton and Gaines bring to light the loopholes in federal law that keep criminals just beyond the reach of law enforcement agencies...
...The men who do it - mostly migrant workers or illegalaliens -have little protection against toxic sludge, asbestosjbers, lead, and collapsing hulls...
...DALE RUSSAKOFF "When the Bough Breaks: One Child's Chaotic Bounce In Mother Government's Lap" The Washington Post Horror stories of child abuse and neglect have made the fontpage with increasingf?equency in recentyears, but we rarely hear much about tbeir context: the rapidly expanding child welfare system...
...As Englund and Cohn report in their series, the pay is meager, the hours are bad, and the work is dangerous...
...And though the most dangerous work is done abroad, the authors make it clear that conditions in a number ofports throughout the US., including Baltimore, are abysmal...
...Press Democrat Fricker spent a yearjnding out what happens to Calyornia workers wbo are injured on the job...
...Injuredpeople often vend days or weeks just trying to reach a claims adj,ter, only to be treated rudely and forced to settle for drastically reduced compensation pay...
...The contractors who hire them often have dismal records of exploiting workers and dumping dangerous pollutants...
...Russakoffs three-part series provides a comprehensive look at what happens to poor children whose parents cannot or will not care for them...
...Many have died, and many more have been permanently injured...
Vol. 30 • March 1998 • No. 3
