John Jay College Of Criminal Justice | The City University of New York

   

Center Tackles Issue of Gun Violence With $79,950 From The Joyce Foundation

May 4, 2010, New York, NY – The Center on Media, Crime and Justice (CMCJ) at John Jay College has garnered $780,956 in research grants during the first half of 2010. These grants will allow the Center to expand its mission of promoting and developing high-quality criminal justice journalism in the United States.

Most recently, the Center received a one-year $79,950 grant from the Joyce Foundation for an innovative project aimed at developing in-depth and data-supported journalism on issues related to gun violence in the Midwest.  The project will support the work of between 5-10 journalists in the Midwest region who will be selected for training and skills assistance based on proposed investigative reporting projects that tackle this key issue.  The funds will also support a special panel discussion on gun issues at the Sixth Annual Harry Frank Guggenheim Symposium on Crime in America, scheduled for January-February, 2011.

"With this grant, John Jay now stands at the forefront of new media initiatives around the country that are intended to broaden and improve investigative and multimedia reporting at a time when the news industry is undergoing profound transformation," said  CMCJ Director Stephen Handelman. "Criminal justice journalism in particular has been deeply affected by the shrinking of newsrooms and the strain on newsroom resources, and as a result public debate on gun violence and other crucial issues has suffered."

The grant will be targeted especially at journalists working in ethnic media, smaller community-based outlets and on the Web, Handelman added.

Additional grants awarded to the Center this year include $163,000 from the Pew Public Safety Performance Project to organize two state seminars for journalists on corrections, re-entry and sentencing, and to support up to seven reporting projects on those issues; $88,000 from the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation for the 5th annual John Jay Symposium on Crime in America and the 2010 Prize for Excellence in Criminal Justice Reporting; and $50,000 from the McCormick Foundation to organize a Specialized Reporting Institute seminar on the coverage of native crime in Albuquerque, New Mexico this June.  

In January, The Center was awarded a three-year $400,00 core grant from the Ford Foundation  for the period 2010-2012, which will be used in part to expand The Crime Report.org, the country's only comprehensive criminal justice news and resource service, operated as a partnership between the CMCJ and Criminal Justice Journalists.

About John Jay College of Criminal Justice: An international leader in educating for justice, John Jay College of Criminal Justice of The City University of New York offers a rich liberal arts and professional studies curriculum to upwards of 14,000 undergraduate and graduate students from more than 135 nations. In teaching, scholarship and research, the College approaches justice as an applied art and science in service to society and as an ongoing conversation about fundamental human desires for fairness, equality and the rule of law. For more information, visit www.jjay.cuny.edu

The Center on Media, Crime and Justice, established at John Jay College in 2006, is the nation's only practice- and research-oriented think tank devoted to encouraging and developing high-quality reporting on criminal justice, and to promoting better-informed public debate on the complex 21st-century challenges of law enforcement, public security and justice in a globalized urban society. For more information, visit http://www.jjay.cuny.edu/cmcj or contact Stephen Handelman, Director, at 646-557-4563; or Cara Tabachnick, deputy director, at 212 484 1175.