Frederick Reese

Frederick Reese is lead staff writer for Mint Press specializing in race, poverty, congressional oversight and technology. An award winning data journalist and creative writer for over 15 years, Frederick has written about and worked for social advocacy projects and personal awareness efforts. Frederick is a jack-of-all-trades, with work experience as a teacher, a pastry chef and a story writer. Frederick has publication credits with Yahoo!, B. Couleur, and more. A native New Yorker, Frederick graduated from Colgate University in 1999 and Johnson & Wales University in 2003. Frederick started his journalistic career writing for his university’s newspaper, “The Colgate Maroon-News,” before starting and heading his own magazine, “The Idealist.” Most recently, Frederick received a data journalism award from the International Center for Journalists for his minimum wage coverage for MintPress. Follow Frederick on Twitter: @frederickreese

Migration Patterns Show An Immigration System Beset By Biases, Misperceptions

“Immigration is now a Heartland issue, it’s a Southern issue. It’s no longer just about border communities and New York and San Francisco anymore,” a human rights advocate tells MintPress.

Frederick Reese
By Frederick Reese
Immigration Overload Flashpoint

The question of immigration reform has become the most volatile hot potato in Washington this electoral cycle. With the divide widening between those who seek to draw Hispanic and immigrant votes and those desperate to ingratiate themselves with the anti-immigration community, the current situation -- which includes both unescorted children and

Read Full Article

Call To Demilitarize Police Grows, Gains New Supporters

The far left, the far right and what seems like everyone in between are coming together on one particular issue: demilitarizing U.S. police forces.

Frederick Reese
By Frederick Reese
NATO SUMMIT DEMONSTRATION IN CHICAGO

On Monday, over 100 progressive leaders -- including Reps. Marcia Fudge, Barbara Lee and John Lewis; AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream Co-Founder Ben Cohen and ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero -- signed a letter to President Obama imploring the president to sponsor drastic nationwide changes to the country’s police

Read Full Article

Louisiana Prisoners Sue State For Failing To Provide Mental Health Care

Six people found not guilty by reason of insanity are being held in parish jails. Their class action lawsuit reflects a broader national problem: far too many mentally ill people are being held in prison and not receiving the care they need.

Frederick Reese
By Frederick Reese
A prison guard on horseback watches inmates return from a farm work detail at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, La.

On Aug. 14, a class action lawsuit was filed against the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, alleging that six mentally ill prisoners had been denied access to psychiatric care despite being found not guilty by reason of insanity. The plaintiffs in the case claim that this denial of health care is a violation of their 14th Amendment right

Read Full Article

“Re-Fracking” Concerns Prompt Questions On Politics’ Role In Fracking Debate

Fracking regulation is generally weak and unenforced across the country. A new technology, “re-fracking,” brings with it even more potential harm, and it’s going ahead — all in the name of energy security.

Frederick Reese
By Frederick Reese

The energy surplus created by hydraulic fracturing has had a wide-reaching ripple effect. With shale gas expected to reach 65 percent of the natural gas supply within the next two decades -- up from 2 percent in 2000 -- crude oil prices are forecast to drop by 30 percent, according to some analysts. Drops in well yields, however, threaten to make

Read Full Article

Who Benefits From Police Militarization? (INFO-GRAPHIC)

Local and state police are more than happy to take the military’s materiel cast-offs, but the people they’ve vowed to serve and protect aren’t the ones benefitting most from increasingly armored and heavily armed police — just ask the people of Ferguson.

Frederick Reese
By Frederick Reese
Police Missouri

It started with the best of intentions: In an attempt to find productive uses for military surplus that would be otherwise mothballed, sold to other nations or scrapped for parts, the federal government created a program to pass outmoded equipment to state and local law enforcement agencies at little or no cost. Equipment -- such as the

Read Full Article

Demonstrators Rally Against Wisconsin’s Broken Prison System

Members of a faith-based coalition rally in Milwaukee, urging the governor to “use the authority granted by the people of Wisconsin to reform this cruel, unjust, inefficient and dangerous system NOW.”

Frederick Reese
By Frederick Reese

More than 100 religious leaders and prison reform advocates gathered outside the Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility on Wednesday to urge the state to correct flaws in the parole system, which some estimates claim costs the state $140 million per year. The protesters were members of WISDOM, which seeks to reduce the state’s prison population to

Read Full Article

Questions About Race, Profit Surround Private Youth Prisons

Over 40 percent of Americans under 23 have been arrested. What kind of care or treatment do juveniles in the private prison system receive? And does race matter?

Frederick Reese
By Frederick Reese
NYC Jails Federal Investigation

According to a 2011 study, at least a quarter of all Americans and as many as 41 percent of the population have been arrested at least once for an offense more serious than a traffic violation by the age of 23. While youth incarceration rates for the United States have been on the decline since 1995, the U.S. still holds the highest population of

Read Full Article