Graduate students from the School of Communication’s practicum at The Washington Post contributed to the Post’s “Murder with Impunity” series, which was named a 2019 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting. They are Matt Bernardini, Orion Donovan-Smith, Kristen Griffith, Shelby Hanssen, Kristian Hernandez, Erin Logan, Samuel Northrop and Liz Weber.
Orion-Smith, Griffith, Logan and Northrop are also former or current graduate interns at the Investigative Reporting Workshop, our nonprofit newsroom at SOC.
As reported in the story published on Dec. 28, 2018, by Kimbriell Kelly and Steven Rich:
“The Washington Post examination of 8,000 homicide arrests across 25 major U.S. cities since 2007 found that in half of the cases, an arrest was made in 10 days or fewer.
“The analysis underscores what police leaders and homicide experts have said about the passage of time working against detectives. But it also dispels the notion of a “48-hour rule” that most cases, if solved, are wrapped up in two days. Only 30 percent of the cases led to an arrest within that time frame, the analysis found. Two-thirds of arrests were made within one month. For cases that remained unsolved after one year, 5 percent ultimately led to an arrest.”
