Reuters reporters Peter Eisler and Grant Smith recently joined MuckRock to share what they learned building a nationwide database of local jail deaths. Here’s how you follow up with your own investigations.

After years of reporting, Reuters has released a first-of-its-kind national database of deaths in local jails, offering a unique resource for news organizations looking to examine inmate mortality in the facilities they cover. Next Wednesday, Peter Eisler and Grant Smith share how they gathered and cleaned the data and how you can use it for your own reporting and analysis.

Idaho is one step closer to becoming the first state to make pretrial risk assessment algorithms more transparent and open to public scrutiny, addressing long festering concerns about the risk to civil rights of automated pretrial tools in criminal justice.

MuckRock has asked hundreds of local correctional facilities for information related to their prison phone services. However, the terms of their agreements only provide part of the story. The more important elements come from you.

Despite efforts by the Bureau of Justice Statistics and others, a clear picture of American detention deaths remains blurred by reporting gaps.