Long Island University Journalism Graduate Wins Soros Fellowship
--Curtis Stephen to Investigate Problem of Wrongful Imprisonment--

Brooklyn, N.Y. – Curtis Stephen became determined to investigate the pitfalls of the criminal justice system after reporting about a Brooklyn man imprisoned 21 years for a crime he did not commit.

"There are so many cases of wrongfully convicted prisoners and so few resources to help them," says the recent journalism graduate from Long Island University’s Brooklyn Campus.

Now, thanks to a Justice Media Fellowship from the Soros Foundation, Stephen, 25, will write a series of articles examining how the criminal justice system wrongfully jails people like Colin Warner, whose horrific experiences Stephen recounted in the newsmonthly, City Limits.

His series will explore how grassroots investigators have come to the fore – digging up DNA evidence and tracking down key eyewitnesses – succeeding, in many instances, in getting innocent inmates out of prison. "Court-assigned lawyers for the indigent don’t have the resources to conduct investigations. They have extremely limited access to evidence such as police reports and grand jury minutes – a constraint that also makes it difficult to get a conviction overturned," Stephen says.

He intends to examine the role of the news media and the criteria reporters use to decide to re-investigate cases. He will also document the difficulties faced by victims in trying to win financial compensation for their wrongful incarceration.

The Soros Foundation has awarded Stephen $36,000 through its Criminal Justice

LIU Graduste Wins Soros Fellowship 2/2/2/

Initiative, which seeks "to improve the quality of media coverage of incarceration and criminal justice issues" in order to further its mission of "reducing the over-reliance on policies of punishment and incarceration in the United States."

Publications, including The Nation, City Limits and the Columbia Journalism Review, have indicated interest in the series.

"Curtis was one of our most gifted and enterprising students," says professor Donald Bird, chair of the Brooklyn Campus’s Journalism Department. "Throughout his four years of college he was a reporter on the student newspaper, Seawanhaka, and eventually became its senior news editor."

Stephen graduated cum laude in 1999 with a Bachelor’s degree in journalism and political science. A resident of the East Flatbush section of Brooklyn, Stephen is a member of the New York Association of Black Journalists. His family is originally from the twin republic of Trinidad and Tobago.