ProPublica won this year’s George Polk Award in Journalism in the justice reporting category for its investigation into a police training program known as 911 call analysis. Administered by Long Island University, the Polk Awards honor intrepid, bold and influential reporting, placing a premium on investigative work that is original, resourceful and thought-provoking. This is ProPublica’s 12th Polk Award.
In “Words of Conviction,” reporter Brett Murphy showed how for more than a decade, the 911 call analysis training program and its methods have quietly spread across the country, burrowing into the justice system. Today, hundreds of police officers, prosecutors, coroners and dispatchers nationwide have taken a course that purports to teach them how to divine guilt and innocence from the word choice, cadence and grammar of people reporting emergencies. His monthslong investigation reveals that this is junk science.
Drawing on thousands of emails and other records, Murphy documented more than 100 cases in 26 states where law enforcement employed these methods. His first story is a gripping narrative about Jessica Logan, a young mother convicted of killing her baby after a detective analyzed her 911 call. Immediately following publication, attorneys from the Exoneration Project and the Center for Integrity in Forensic Sciences offered to represent Logan in her appeal. The second story profiles the architect of 911 call analysis, Tracy Harpster, and the institutions — most notably, the FBI and prosecutors — that enabled him.
Days after publication of our second story, state lawmakers began making inquiries about how 911 call analysis may have penetrated the justice system and what possible legislative steps may be necessary to stem it. A collective of district attorneys has instructed its members to “reject dangerous pseudoscientific ‘evidence’ like this” and open post-conviction reviews. One newly elected district attorney in Maine is looking into whether the methods have been used in her jurisdiction and warning other elected officials across the state against 911 call analysis.
See a list of all this year’s Polk Award in Journalism winners here.
