Joseph Shapiro
Joseph Shapiro is a NPR News Investigations correspondent.
Shapiro's major investigative stories include his reports on the way rising court fines and fees create an unequal system of justice for the poor and the rise of "modern day debtors' prisons," the failure of colleges and universities to punish for on-campus sexual assaults, the epidemic of sexual assault of people with intellectual disabilities, the problems with solitary confinement, the inadequacy of civil rights laws designed to get the elderly and people with disabilities out of nursing homes, and the little-known profits involved in the production of medical products from donated human cadavers.
His "Child Cases" series, reported with PBS Frontline and ProPublica, found two dozen cases in the U.S. and Canada where parents and caregivers were charged with killing children, but the charges were later reversed or dropped. Since that series, a Texas man who was the focus of one story was released from prison. And in California, a woman who was the subject of another story had her sentence commuted.
Shapiro joined NPR in November 2001 and spent eight years covering health, aging, disability, and children's and family issues on the Science Desk. He reported on the health issues of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and helped start NPR's 2005 Impact of Warseries with reporting from Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the National Naval Medical Center. He covered stories from Hurricane Katrina to the debate over overhauling the nation's health care system.
Before coming to NPR, Shapiro spent 19 years at U.S. News & World Report, as a Senior Writer on social policy and served as the magazine's Rome bureau chief, White House correspondent, and congressional reporter.
Among honors for his investigative journalism, Shapiro has received an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award, George Foster Peabody Award, George Polk Award, Robert F. Kennedy Award, Edward R. Murrow Award, Sigma Delta Chi, IRE, Dart, Ruderman, and Gracie awards, and was a finalist for the Goldsmith Award.
Shapiro is the author of the award-winning book NO PITY: People with Disabilities Forging a New Civil Rights Movement (Random House/Three Rivers Press), which is widely read in disability studies classes.
Shapiro studied long-term care and end-of-life issues as a participant in the yearlong 1997 Kaiser Media Fellowship in Health program. In 1990, he explored the changing world of people with disabilities as an Alicia Patterson Foundation fellow.
Shapiro attended the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and Carleton College. He's a native of Washington, DC, and lives there now with his family.
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At least 12 states, including Kansas, allow children to be removed from their parents if they fail to pay the cost of foster care. But that can be hundreds of dollars a month, and it's often the poorest families who must pay. -
States are preparing guidelines for when there's not enough care to go around. Disability groups are worried that those standards will allow rationing that excludes people with disabilities. -
People with disabilities are asking the federal government to stop state and hospital policies that they fear will ration care in favor of younger and healthier people. -
Prisons often give disproportionately harsher punishments for minor offenses to women than to men, according to a new federal report that backs up the findings of an earlier NPR investigation. -
NPR reported on Friday that the ticket for a two-hour ride between Chicago and Bloomington-Normal, Ill., stations usually costs $16. Amtrak had based the higher price on adjustments to train cars. -
Data from 15 states reveal that female inmates are disciplined at higher rates than men for smaller infractions of prison rules — often with harsh consequences. -
Prison rules created to control men often don't work well for women, who come with different histories and experiences. "Gender-responsive corrections" aims to treat women based on these differences.
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A nationwide program helps parents of children with developmental disabilities — and people with disabilities themselves — advocate for their rights, from the school yard to Congress. -
An NPR investigation found people with intellectual disabilities have one of the nation's highest rates of sexual assault. Now states, communities and advocates are proposing changes to prevent abuse. -
A controversial practice to tie, hold down or seclude agitated students mostly impacts kids with disabilities. Schools say it's for safety, but opponents say it's dangerous and a civil rights issue.
