Our Reporting

May 21, 2021

Sequel confronts more abuse allegations amid concerns about its finances

The embattled youth treatment company will soon shutter its Northern Illinois Academy, the 13th closure since 2019, while creditors doubt it can repay its debts.

April 17, 2021

The Jail Tapes in the Dumpster

A murder conviction sent Myon Burrell to prison for life when he was a teenager. An investigative reporter dug into what seemed a hopeless case. What she found helped free him.

April 2, 2021

Former residents of troubled youth facility receive settlement money

The families of 17 kids settled their lawsuit against the owner of Mesabi Academy for $1.495 million, even as more treatment centers closed, forcing youth with mental health needs to wait months for care.

March 26, 2021

How Utah has let its many youth treatment centers off the hook

Utah has become a national center for youth treatment, and it goes easy on the industry. At one facility, teen girls were forced to sit in a horse trough as punishment, and state regulators chose not to punish the people who did it.

March 10, 2021

New data underscores Utah's lax oversight of youth treatment programs

Over the course of hundreds of inspections, regulators marked the programs as “compliant” 98 percent of the time. And in recent years, the state noted even fewer violations than before.

March 2, 2021

Mississippi to pay Curtis Flowers $500,000 for his decades behind bars

Judge orders state to give Flowers the maximum compensation for his wrongful conviction.

February 10, 2021

Embattled Sequel closes three more facilities

Following abuse reports, the company has now shuttered a dozen youth treatment centers in the past two years, including its flagship academy.

January 13, 2021

Thousands of public housing residents live near the most polluted places in the nation — and the government has done little to protect them

An investigation reveals that more than 9,000 federally subsidized housing properties sit within a mile of a Superfund site, and the government has failed to inform many residents of the potential threats they face. As a result, low-income renters are paying for government inaction with their health.

December 14, 2020

California hands Sequel a major setback

The state’s decision to no longer send children to out-of-state youth treatment facilities capped two difficult weeks for the embattled company.

December 9, 2020

Washington becomes latest state to ditch Sequel

State officials decided to no longer place foster children with the company following an APM Reports investigation and reports of abuse.

December 7, 2020

How private money helped save the election

After Congress failed to aid local election offices, a nonprofit provided critical funds — including $350 million from Mark Zuckerberg — that paid for staff, ballot-scanning machines, protective gear, and rental space that helped the presidential election run surprisingly smoothly.

October 30, 2020

The last days of Wisconsin's pandemic election

The critical swing state that had a disastrous April primary endures a divisive election with long lines at the polls and battles in the courts — all amid a raging coronavirus outbreak. Yet voter turnout has been surging.

October 19, 2020

Postal data shows hundreds of complaints about election mail problems

Election officials in cities across the country had ballots delayed or go missing in the mail.

October 16, 2020

Influential literacy expert Lucy Calkins is changing her views

In a major shift, the controversial figure in the fight over how to teach reading now says that beginning readers should focus on sounding out words, according to a document obtained by APM Reports.

October 14, 2020

Will Doug Evans face accountability?

Prosecutors across the country rarely face consequences for misconduct.

October 14, 2020

S2 E20: Curtis Flowers

During three years investigating the Curtis Flowers case, we’d talked to nearly everyone involved: lawyers, witnesses, jurors, family members, investigators, politicians, and many, many people around town. But there was one person we hadn’t yet interviewed — Curtis Flowers. That is, until one day in early October, a few weeks after he’d been cleared of all charges. For the final episode of Season 2, we at long last talk to the man at the center of it all.

September 28, 2020

More than 40 states have sent their most vulnerable kids to facilities run by a for-profit company named Sequel. Many of those kids were abused there

A yearlong investigation led by APM Reports finds the company took in some of the most difficult-to-treat children while keeping costs low in pursuit of profit and expansion. The result was dozens of cases of physical violence, sexual assault and improper restraints. Despite repeated scandals, many states and counties continue to send kids to Sequel for one central reason: They have little choice.

September 28, 2020

How Sequel wins business from California

Nonprofit operations in Utah and Wyoming allow the company to earn money treating its kids.

September 11, 2020

Judge dismisses lawsuit against DA Doug Evans

The suit had asked a federal court to prevent Evans’ office from dismissing jurors because of their race.

September 4, 2020

Charges against Curtis Flowers are dropped

The Mississippi man who was tried six times for the same crime and whose case was the subject of Season 2 of the APM Reports podcast In the Dark sees his two-decade saga come to an end.

August 14, 2020

How the post office is performing in key battleground states

Explore first-class mail on-time performance in battleground states.

August 12, 2020

Postal delivery scores in five battleground states are missing targets as mail voting increases

Large cities in key states — Philadelphia, Detroit, Milwaukee — have sub-par delivery records; a former deputy postmaster general estimates tens of thousands of mailed ballots will be at risk for late delivery.

August 6, 2020

Many kids struggle with reading – and children of color are far less likely to get the help they need

A false assumption about what it takes to be a skilled reader has created deep inequalities among U.S. children, putting many on a difficult path in life.

July 29, 2020

On the Navajo Nation, college students navigate a curfew and digital dead zones

The pandemic is making getting through college harder for students on the wrong side of the digital divide. In rural Arizona, when campuses closed, some students couldn’t log on from home, because they had no access to the internet. A local sheriff flew laptops and hotspots to community college students on the Navajo Nation.

July 29, 2020

Some colleges that weathered the Great Depression and two world wars won't survive Covid-19

The long tradition of students attending small, residential liberal arts colleges around the country was already shaky before the pandemic. Students are choosing less expensive options and more practical degrees. Experts warn that 10 percent of American colleges — about 200 or more institutions — are on the verge of going under. The pandemic is accelerating that trend.

« Previous Page