Martin Kaste
Martin Kaste is a correspondent on NPR's National Desk. He covers law enforcement and privacy. He has been focused on police and use of force since before the 2014 protests in Ferguson, and that coverage led to the creation of NPR's Criminal Justice Collaborative.
In addition to criminal justice reporting, Kaste has contributed to NPR News coverage of major world events, including the 2010 earthquake in Haiti and the 2011 uprising in Libya.
Kaste has reported on the government's warrant-less wiretapping practices as well as the data collection and analysis that go on behind the scenes in social media and other new media. His privacy reporting was cited in the U.S. Supreme Court's 2012 United States v. Jones ruling concerning GPS tracking.
Before moving to the West Coast, Kaste spent five years as NPR's reporter in South America. He covered the drug wars in Colombia, the financial meltdown in Argentina, the rise of Brazilian president Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, and the fall of Haiti's president Jean Bertrand Aristide. Throughout this assignment, Kaste covered the overthrow of five presidents in five years.
Prior to joining NPR in 2000, Kaste was a political reporter for Minnesota Public Radio in St. Paul for seven years.
Kaste is a graduate of Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota.
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Unreliable federal gang data and a heavy reliance on tattoos and clothing styles can skew the picture of this Venezuelan gang's operations in America. -
Federal agents have been filmed wearing masks while making arrests in public. When is it legal for police and the public to conceal their faces in an age of digital facial recognition and doxxing? -
Some local police are eagerly signing up to help ICE, but others are shying away, worried about the legal risks. NPR compares two neighboring counties on New York's Long Island. -
The state of New York was short on corrections officers before a strike among their ranks. The governor is now barring 2,000 strikers from returning to work.
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In the flurry of first-day executive orders, President Trump revoked a 2022 police accountability package, including a system to flag misconduct. -
Trump's border czar Tom Homan is urging more local law enforcement agencies to support ICE's immigration efforts. -
Congress has passed the Laken Riley Act, facilitating the detention and deportation of people in the country illegally when they've been charged with crimes. What remains to be seen is how much local police and jails will do to help this effort.
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In the LA fire zones, law enforcement is promising to crack down on looting, fraud and other crimes. Some residents have hired security or are staying in their houses to watch the neighborhood.
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Crime has been dropping, nationally -- but car jackings remain higher than before the pandemic. A new study analyzes the data on this crime, which may have finally peaked in 2024.
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The pandemic crime spike has largely subsided — with the exception of carjacking and car thefts. Those crimes remain significantly higher than pre-pandemic levels.
