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An investigation of the Louisiana State Police and an exposé of the juvenile justice court docket in a Tennessee county that routinely locked up youngsters as younger as eight years previous are the winners of this 12 months’s John Jay/Harry Frank Guggenheim Awards for Excellence in Prison Justice Reporting.
Jim Mustian and Jake Bleiberg of the Related Press earned the highest honor for revealing a sample of violence and cover-ups on the Louisiana State Police, figuring out at the very least a dozen circumstances during which troopers or their bosses ignored or hid proof of beatings of largely Black motorists.
They are going to share the awards with Meribah Knight of Nashville Public Radio and Ken Armstrong of ProPublica, whose mixed multimedia report on the juvenile justice system of Rutherford County revealed a sample of abuse of authority and misconduct and has prompted requires federal and state investigations.
The celebrated prizes, the one nationwide awards that particularly honor crime journalism, are administered by the Center on Media, Crime and Justice at John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CMCJ). They acknowledge the earlier 12 months’s greatest reporting in a U.S.-based media outlet between November 2020 and October 2021. Successful entries in every of two classes (sequence and single story) obtain a money award of $2,000. Runners-up (see under) are awarded Honorable Point out.
“The Harry Frank Guggenheim Basis congratulates the winners of the 17th annual journalism awards,” stated Basis President Daniel F. Wilhelm.
“This spectacular work illustrates the continued necessary position that journalism can play in figuring out and addressing challenges associated to crime and justice, not solely in america as a complete however on the state and native degree, the place such illumination is critical and more and more endangered.”
“Journalists have a vital position to play in holding authorities accountable, significantly when people or their communities are weak to injustice,” stated Karol V. Mason, John Jay School President.
“As a university that educates fierce advocates for justice, we’re proud to associate with the Harry Frank Guggenheim Basis to honor journalists that shine a light-weight on abuses in the felony justice system and name consideration to the necessity for reform.”
The awards shall be offered at a Webinar occasion on March 4, 2022, held together with the 17th annual Harry Frank Guggenheim Symposium on Crime in America, organized by the CMCJ at John Jay School of Prison Justice. The occasion is open to the general public. Data on register for the Symposium and the Prize Occasion is available here.
“This 12 months’s winners underline the vital position journalists play as watchdogs in our felony justice system,” stated Stephen Handelman, director of the CMCJ. “In a 12 months when the standard of the reporting submitted to our prize judges was already superior, they stood out for his or her exhausting work and unyielding dedication to discovering the reality.”
The 2022 winners:
Collection:
Jake Bleiberg
Jim Mustian and Jake Bleiberg of The Related Press share the 2022 John Jay/Harry Frank Guggenheim Excellence in Prison Justice Reporting Award (Collection Class) for revealing at the very least a dozen circumstances during which Louisiana State Police troopers or their bosses ignored or coated up proof of bodily violence and impeded efforts to root out misconduct. That included the lethal 2019 arrest of Ronald Greene, which troopers blamed on a automotive crash earlier than the AP revealed long-withheld body-camera video displaying white troopers beautiful, punching and dragging the Black motorist by his ankle shackles.
Jim Mustian
Their sequence, “Beatings, Buried Videos and Cover-Ups at the Louisiana State Police,” used movies, textual content messages and interviews with dozens of present and former troopers to doc how such violence was fostered by a tradition of impunity, nepotism and in some circumstances outright racism.
Mustian and Bleiberg discovered that by the state police’s personal depend 67 % of its makes use of of power between 2017 and 2019 have been in opposition to Black individuals.
“AP’s scoops reignited a sprawling federal civil rights investigation that has led to the indictment of 1 trooper thus far, with extra anticipated,” stated James Martinez, AP’s Breaking Information Investigations Editor, in his letter nominating the sequence for the award.
“And it’s added to requires a U.S. Justice Division ‘sample and follow’ probe into attainable racial profiling.”
Single Story:
Meribah Knight
Meribah Knight of Nashville Public Radio (WPLN 90.3) and Ken Armstrong of ProPublica shared the 2022 John Jay/Harry Frank Guggenheim Excellence in Prison Justice Reporting Award (Single Story Class) for “Black Children Jailed for a Crime that Doesn’t Exist,” a searing behind-the-scenes take a look at the juvenile justice system in Tennessee’s Rutherford County.
Knight and Armstrong, working as companions in ProPublica’s Native Reporting Community, uncovered what they referred to as an “ugly and unsettling tradition” that despatched youngsters behind bars on often-spurious prices. In a single case that triggered their probe they discovered a bunch of ladies as younger as eight who have been arrested and handcuffed on faculty grounds for failing to cease a combat between different children. Though juvenile justice data are confidential, the reporters used Freedom of Data requests, knowledge searches, and an examination of a whole bunch of hours of audio and video data to uncover a sample of official conduct that “flouted the legislation by wrongfully arresting and jailing youngsters,” the report stated.
Ken Armstrong
As a direct results of their reporting, 11 members of Congress referred to as on the Division of Justice to open a civil rights investigation, and Tennessee’s governor referred to as for a evaluate of the county juvenile court docket choose. “To report this story, we needed to get inside what is basically a black field,” wrote Charles Ornstein, Managing Editor, Native for ProPublica. “Guidelines about confidentiality envelop the juvenile justice system. This secrecy is meant to guard children…however the beneficiaries of that secrecy too typically turn into adults who misuse their authority.”
The 2022 Runners-up:
KQED, a Nationwide Public Radio (NPR) member station in San Francisco was named Runner-Up within the Collection class for a sequence of seven podcast episodes, entitled “On Our Watch,” investigating police misconduct and extreme use of power throughout the state. Host lead reporter Sukey Lewis and reporter and producer Sandhya Dirks will obtain the award on behalf of their workforce of producers and editorial workers from KQED and NPR.
Utilizing data of inner investigations unsealed by California’s 2019 Transparency Regulation and obtained by a coalition of greater than 40 California information organizations fashioned underneath the management of KQED referred to as the California Reporting Undertaking, the workforce discovered that police have been hardly ever held accountable for allegations of misconduct. “The present fueled new momentum to dismantle some officer protections and uncovered how legislation enforcement violence, corruption and accountability have been dealt with from the within, when the investigations have been by no means anticipated to be public,” stated Nicole Beemsterboer, supervising senior editor for NPR.
Simone Weichselbaum and Sachi McClendon of The Marshall Undertaking, and Uriel Garcia of the Arizona Republic share the Runner-Up award within the Single-Story class for his or her investigation of the U.S. Marshals Service. Utilizing a database they compiled from information articles, police experiences and court docket circumstances, Weichselbaum and McClendon discovered that U.S. Marshals have been being utilized in job forces to complement the strained assets of native police departments, with deadly outcomes.
The database revealed at the very least 177 individuals who have been shot by a task-force participant between 2015 and 2020 (together with 124 fatalities)―extra shootings per 12 months than main police departments like Houston and Philadelphia. On the time of publication, “no marshal ha[d] ever been prosecuted for a capturing,” the reporters wrote.
Their story, “U.S. Marshals Act Like Local Police With More Violence and Less Accountability, revealed collectively by USA TODAY and the Arizona Republic, supplied a uncommon glimpse of a federal company that has acquired little public scrutiny. “Because of the eye on the shootings involving marshals and officers assigned to work with them, the looser guidelines marshals function underneath are altering,” wrote Susan Chira, Editor-in-Chief of The Marshall Undertaking, in her nominating letter, citing a June 7 announcement by the Justice Division that it could require federal officers to put on physique cameras when executing search warrants.
Jurors for the 2022 awards:
- Alexa Capeloto, Affiliate Professor, John Jay School;
- Joe Domanick, Affiliate Director, Heart on Media, Crime and Justice;
- Ted Gest, President, Prison Justice Journalists;
- Ann Charlotte Givens of The Hint;
- Katti Grey, contributing editor, The Crime Report;
- Mark Obbie, a contract journalist specializing in felony justice narratives and the previous govt editor of The American Lawyer;
- Eric Umansky of ProPublica, chief of the reporting workforce that gained the 2021 John Jay Journalism Prize within the Collection class; and
- Anna Wolfe of Mississippi Right this moment, co-winner of the 2021 John Jay Journalism Prize within the Single Story class.
Wren Longno served as Administrator of this 12 months’s awards.
ABOUT JOHN JAY COLLEGE OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE
A global chief in educating for justice, John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York is a Hispanic Serving Establishment and Minority Serving Establishment providing a wealthy liberal arts {and professional} research curriculum to fifteen,000 undergraduate and graduate college students from greater than 135 nations. John Jay is house to school and analysis facilities on the forefront of advancing felony and social justice reform. In instructing, scholarship and analysis, the School engages the theme of justice and explores elementary human wishes for equity, equality and the rule of legislation. For extra data, go to www.jjay.cuny.edu and observe us on Twitter @JohnJayCollege.
THE HARRY FRANK GUGGENHEIM FOUNDATION
The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation is a worldwide chief in creating and disseminating data on the character, penalties, and discount of violence in its many varieties, together with warfare, crime, and human aggression. For extra data, go to HFG.org.
