Bail bonds agent Nidia Diaz and her employees stand on an apartment building catwalk reviewing paperwork for a man they believe lives in the building. (Photo by Colby Katz/FCIR.)
Florida Center for Investigative Reporting Contributing Editor Tristram Korten’s public radio report “Fugitives on the Run, Bondsmen on the Hunt” is a finalist in the public affairs category of the 2012 Florida Associated Press Broadcasters Contest. Winners will be announced at a banquet in Orlando on April 21.
A collaboration between FCIR and WLRN-Miami Herald News, Korten’s story reported how Florida’s state attorney’s offices are not extraditing absconders due to budget cuts, creating an implicit public policy that means those who skip bond in Florida will not be followed.
Print stories in English and Spanish — which were published in the Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald, respectively — accompanied the radio report.