Community Safety

For her three-part series on the health effects of rising violent crime in Merced County, reporter Ana Ibarra interviewed victims and family members struggling with pain and raw emotion. Here she shares a few of the reporting lessons she learned along the way.

In roughly two-thirds of Arkansas counties last year, children went to youth lockups for skipping school, disobeying their parents or running away from home. In the other 27 counties, children who did the same things remained free.

Every year, thousands of kids appear before Arkansas judges, having broke laws that apply only to children. The courts are expected to treat them differently from children who commit adult crimes. Yet hundreds of these kids end up in the same lockups as those who've raped, robbed and murdered.

On August 27, 2015, sheriffs at the Santa Clara County Main Jail found a 31-year-old inmate with a history of mental illness dead in his cell. His body was covered in feces and vomit. The medical examiner concluded that the man, Michael Tyree, died of internal bleeding from blunt force trauma.

Clavo and a few friends were driving from a Del Paso Heights chicken restaurant to a football game at their Sacramento high school, where Clavo, a cornerback, was expected to stride onto the field with his usual swagger. He stopped at a light and gunshots erupted. He would never arrive.

Community groups in Merced County, where ongoing violence has taken a heavy toll, are pursuing a hands-on approach to building safer and healthier neighborhoods. Some host community workshops and resource fairs; others walk the streets late at night in a call for peace.

As Merced County in California's Central Valley grapples with a rising tide of violence over the past few years, local behavioral health clinicians are paying closer attention to PTSD. The county has recorded homicides in record numbers over the past two years.

In 2013, Desiree Parreira lived a parent’s worst nightmare when her 16-year-old daughter, Samantha, was shot and killed at a house party near Merced in California's Central Valley. The ensuing grief was unbearable. But in a county wracked by violence, she's not alone.

Violence is a part of daily life in the most segregated elementary schools in Pinellas County, Florida. Five elementary schools had more violence than all 17 high schools combined.

"As a journalist and as a person, there’s something therapeutic about being entrusted with someone’s personal rock bottom, and being a vessel for their story," writes journalist Jazelle Hunt. "There’s something therapeutic and powerful about standing with someone in his or her pain."