Lee V. Gaines
Lee V. Gaines is an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Reader, Chicago Magazine, Crain’s, the Pacific Standard and the Marshall Project. She also recently completed a fellowship with Chicago non-profit journalism lab, City Bureau.
Lee has more than six years of experience producing breaking news, magazine-length feature stories and investigative reports on subjects including education, the medical marijuana industry, criminal justice reform, social justice, local and regional politics, in addition to stories about Chicago’s thriving music and arts scene.
A Rhode Island native, Lee began her career as a staff reporter for GateHouse Media New England covering the Boston suburbs.
Lee reports on education from Illinois Public Media as part of the Illinois Newsroom regional journalism collaborative.
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Johnny Page saw something as a child that no young person should ever see. “I witnessed my cousin being killed when I was maybe six, seven-years-old,”...
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Melissa Esparza fled her home in west suburban Chicago two years ago. Then 16, she said her parents became physically violent after years of verbal...
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Last summer, Chantil was forced to leave the townhome she shared with her two daughters and her mother in Des Plaines. (We’re withholding Chantil’s last...
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Why Even Illinois’s Department Of Corrections Wants To Fix The Way The State Does Electronic MonitorNicole Davis said her uncle was diagnosed with late-stage cancer after his release from prison in 2014. He was confined to his home because of an...
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Illinois could save millions of dollars on incarceration costs if the federal ban on Pell Grants for inmates was lifted, according to a new report from...
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Perry Cline’s story is a remarkable one. He’s a formerly incarcerated 51-year-old man who overcame the odds to graduate from the University of Illinois...
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Like many people coming out of prison, Perry Cline never thought he’d get a college degree. “I thought I was just going to be another bum in the streets...
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Last spring, Illinois Newsroom reported that the Illinois Department of Corrections spent less than $300 on books for all of its prisons the prior year....
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Four years ago, Chris Miner decided to apply to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Then 40-years-old, Miner was encouraged to apply by a...
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The push to legalize recreational marijuana in Illinois could get a jump-start early next year. State Sen. Heather Steans, a Chicago Democrat, said this...