Public Safety Archives

A Chicago Police Department community alert bulletin displays missing persons Tionda and Diamond Bradley in the lobby of the Chicago apartment building where live in 2001.

The Lawmakers Fighting the Epidemic of Missing and Murdered Black People

by Christina Carrega October 24, 2023October 25, 2023

Four years ago, as the six members of Minnesota’s United Black Legislative Caucus gathered for one of their first meetings, Ruth Richardson proposed a novel idea to create a task force to investigate the root causes of violence against Black women. Richardson said she was in her first term as a state representative when she […]

Carlee Russell May Have Lied, But These Black Women and Girls Are Still Missing

by Capital B Staff July 25, 2023December 4, 2023

The case of Carlethia “Carlee” Russell has taken an even more unsettling turn as she apologized through her attorney and admitted that she was not kidnapped in a hoax that flooded social media and dominated national news. Police poked holes through her story last week and couldn’t verify her initial account of seeing an unaccompanied […]

Nearly half of Black women in the U.S. have experienced rape, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime, but Black girls and women are more than likely than white women and girls to be criminalized for defending themselves during sexual violence. (Stephen Zenner/Getty Images)

Criminal Justice, Public Safety

The Criminal Legal System Continues to Fail Pieper Lewis, a Survivor of Sex Trafficking

by Christina Carrega March 23, 2023November 30, 2023

Pieper Lewis’ harrowing experience as a sex trafficking victim and her entrance into the criminal legal system underscore the ripple effects of sexual violence on Black girls and young women. This week, the 18-year-old is facing up to a year in jail after pleading guilty earlier this month to escaping custody. She also faces additional […]

Criminal Justice, Public Safety

Kansas City Police Dismissed a Black News Site’s Reports of Missing Women. Then One Showed Up.

by Christina Carrega January 13, 2023November 30, 2023

For more than a month, a 22-year-old Black woman was allegedly held hostage inside a makeshift room in the basement of an Excelsior Springs, Missouri, home. Bound with handcuffs, gagged by duct tape and a metal collar with a padlock around her neck, she was repeatedly raped and whipped by her kidnapper, according to court […]

Criminal Justice, Public Safety

New Laws Protecting Sexual Assault Survivors Don’t Bring Justice for All

by Christina Carrega December 7, 2022September 6, 2023

There has been a gradual wave of reform efforts across the country granting sexual assault survivors more time to sue their alleged abusers. With New York’s Adult Survivor Act taking effect last month, about half of states have either eliminated or expanded their statute of limitations on sexual offenses, including five states just this year. […]