(Radio Iowa) — The Iowa Department of Corrections is rolling out a new policy to identify and address racial disparities in the state’s prison system. Iowa Corrections Director Beth Skinner says all staff are now required to take what’s called implicit bias training, as the department seeks out data to identify racial disparities in discipline, access to treatment, work assignments, and other aspects of incarceration.

“There’s certain things we can’t control,” Skinner says. “There’s certain things we can control, and those things that we can control, we have built a policy around to make sure everyone has equal access to treatment, people are getting treated fairly in our system.” Iowa has one of the nation’s worst records for disproportionate incarceration of African-Americans.

Skinner says it’s important for the whole criminal justice system to address this issue. “If we see there’s a great difference between races, then we kind of look under the hood,” she says. “And we see if a policy or practice is maybe causing this disparity, and if it is, we have an action plan.”

The first batch of this data is scheduled for release in January.

(Reporting by Katarina Sostaric, Iowa Public Radio)

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Trial is set for Feb. 3 for an Iowa woman accused of a hate crimes, including intentionally running over a girl she thought was Mexican. Nicole Marie Poole has pleaded not guilty to the hate crime charge that stems from an incident at a convenience store in a Des Moines suburb. Police have said she went to the store after a hit-and-run in another suburb. Police say she drove onto a sidewalk to hit a 14-year-old girl, telling officers she did it because the girl “is Mexican.”

(Radio Iowa) — The number of fire deaths for 2019 is expected to end up above last year’s total. The spokesman for the State Fire Marshal’s office, Ron Humphrey says the number will end up around 50. “It’s going to be up about ten from last year — but it’s also down six from the year before in 2017,” Humphrey says. “The trend over the last 15 years or so has been slightly up. Back in 2006 our average was just over 30.” He says there is not one factor he can link to the increase. “It’s really hard to say. I know in 2017 when we were at 56 — which was the highest we had been in a long time — we had several multiple fatality fires where we lost three, four, five people in one incident and that threw our numbers way up. I can’t put my finger on one thing,” Humphrey says.

He does say newer types of building materials with composite wood and other products do tend to burn faster. “You do get a fire going and they burn through a lot quicker and they’ve got the glues in them that add to the combustibility and the spread of the fire. And add to the toxic fumes in the structure,” Humphrey says. “So, the lightweight building materials do have something to do with it — but again you can’t really put your finger on it and say that causes X amount of additional fatalities a year.” He says one thing they are trying to do is continue to push everyone to install and maintain smoke detectors. “It seems like over 50 percent of our fires — either the structure didn’t have smoke detectors in it — or had smoke detectors that weren’t working properly,” he says.

Humphrey says the smoke detectors can provide the extra seconds needed to get people safely out of a burning structure. “Still find when we have fatality fires that they either don’t have them or they weren’t properly maintained,” Humphrey says. He says the final number could change in the last days of the year. He says a fire death is not added to the list until there is confirmation from the state medical examiner that fire was the official cause.

NORTHWOOD, Iowa (AP) — An Iowa woman is accused of faking cancer to collect donations. Jennifer Hope Mikesell, of Northwood, is charged with ongoing criminal conduct, theft, fraudulent practices and forgery. The Worth County Sheriff’s Office says Mikesell had said she was diagnosed with cancer and was receiving cancer treatments at Mayo Clinic Health System in Rochester, Minnesota. Iowa court records say Mayo has no record of Mikesell being diagnosed or treated there. The court records say Mikesell received multiple donations of money, food and other supplies, as well as a bedroom makeover.