Despite 10 years of federal oversight, Albuquerque police are killing more people than ever
Joshua Bowling
Joshua Bowling, Searchlight's criminal justice reporter, spent nearly six years covering local government, the environment and other issues at the Arizona Republic. His accountability reporting exposed unsustainable growth, water scarcity, costly forest management and injustice in a historically Black community that was overrun by industrialization. Raised in the Southwest, he graduated from Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
Posted inCriminal Justice
Drive-by shootings: New Mexico’s ‘hidden in plain sight problem’
The drive-bys have killed children and terrorized families amid widening gun violence in New Mexico
Posted inCriminal Justice
How a cry for food sparked Christmas Day trouble in New Mexico’s largest jail for kids
The sun was setting as parents waited for the Christmas Day call from their incarcerated children, unaware of the fraught situation that had broken out hours earlier: a so-called “riot” at New Mexico’s largest jail for kids. The news media were depicting a violent uprising inside the Bernalillo County Youth Services Center, where a 911 […]
Posted inFeatured
Days of wine and roses: State agencies probe lavish spending by university president
Questions abound about luxe purchases and overseas travel of Western New Mexico University President Joseph Shepard.
Posted inCriminal Justice
Letters from juvie
Faced with strip searches, isolation and hourslong waits to use a toilet, three juvenile inmates describe their experiences in New Mexico’s largest jail for children.
Posted inFeatured
‘The finer things in life’: A small state university is spending tens of thousands on international travel and high-end furniture
Western New Mexico University President Joseph Shepard says the expenses are all necessary, even if he hasn’t done the math to back it up.
Posted inCriminal Justice
Two sides of a gun
In a time when kids can buy semi-automatics on Snapchat, two beloved sons start shooting. And two families are torn apart.
Posted inCriminal Justice
Charges filed against a New Mexico police officer for a fatal shooting — for the first time in nearly 10 years
A Las Cruces police officer faces a manslaughter charge for killing an unarmed Black man, allegedly over a stolen beer.
Posted inCriminal Justice
Hundreds of police killings. Two prosecutions. No jail time.
In more than 350 police shootings across New Mexico in the last decade, only two officers were charged with a crime. Why?
Posted inCriminal Justice
At New Mexico’s biggest jail for children, toilets and staff are lacking — but strip searches are common.
The décor inside the Bernalillo County Youth Services Center (YSC) is more in line with the children’s wing of your local library than a jail built for kids. The walls and furniture are painted in bright colors and classrooms line a hallway just a short walk from a common room filled with therapeutic rocking chairs. […]