Incarceration doesn’t just take people away, it seeks to erase their stories, too.
Let us help you get the story out.
We can help set you up with:
- Interviews with reliable current and former prisoners
- Local, on-the-ground leads regrading abuse in the criminal-legal system
- Lists of actors in the criminal-legal landscape, from corporations to politicians
- Simple explanations of byzantine prison, jail and other policies
- The hidden histories of specific prisons and other institutions
- Facts and scholarly sources to support your reporting
Types of stories you could do based on our access:
- Local interest – how the criminal-legal system and it’s profiteers are affecting a community
- Human interest – how courageous individuals risk their wellbeing to expose injustices under color of law
- Investigative – how money and power networks shape policy and undermine genuine public safety
- Labor interest – how legalized slavery allows perverse hyper-exploitation that provokes resistance
- Policy interest – how political forces square up to push for and against institutional changes
Examples of groundbreaking stories about incarceration and prison labor:
- My Four Months as a Private Prison Guard
- This is what it’s like to be in prison during coronavirus
- Mike Bloomberg Exploited Prison Labor to make 2020 Presidential Campaign Phone Calls
- Prisoners in the US are part of a hidden workforce linked to hundreds of popular food brands
- US prisoners are being assigned dangerous jobs. But what happens if they are hurt or killed?
- The women trapped in prison with abusive guards: ‘They hold my life in their hands’
- She repeatedly reported a prison guard’s sexual abuse. It took years for officials to believe her
- Colorado banned forced prison labor 5 years ago. Prisoners say it’s still happening
- When US prison healthcare companies went bust, victims’ families kept fighting
- Shackled: The Devastating Reality of Childbirth Behind Bars
- Solidarity from Solitary and Beyond
Essential press resource: The Press in Prison
The Press in Prison is a PEN America + Scalawag Media guidebook for journalists. Illuminating the need for incarcerated voices in journalism, this guide is intended to increase newsroom competency and capacity to work with writers on the inside, integrating reporting from prison into regular reporting cycles.
“If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”
– Malcolm X