A combination of beat work and investigative reporting led Washington,D.C.’s Mike Balsamo and New York’s Mike Sisak to a pair of scoops on inmate deaths in Texas and sexual assaults in California,revealing continued problems inside what is supposed to be the flagship model of corrections: the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
The AP pair,who virtually own the federal prisons beat, have investigated BOP’s operations since billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein was found hanging in his cell at a federal lockup in New York City in 2019.
NEW: The federal prison system has been put on a nationwide lockdown after 2 inmates were killed and 2 others injured in an altercation involving MS-13 gang members at a BOP prison in Texas today. (w/ @mikesisak) https://t.co/iSFcmy3UNs
— Mike Balsamo (@MikeBalsamo1) February 1, 2022
This time they received a tip that a major fight inside a federal prison in Beaumont,Texas, had left inmates dead and wounded. Throughout the day they worked sources until they could alert a story that two inmates were dead and two more were wounded in an altercation involving members of the violent MS-13 street gang — and that the federal corrections system had gone into a nationwide lockdown.
The story won widespread play and credit by news outlets from The New York Times to CBS News.
Many reporters would have been satisfied with a scoop that tens of thousands of inmates had been locked down in scores of facilities, but Balsamo and Sisak had more.
Within days they completed a monthslong investigation into allegations of sexual assault and mistreatment at the federal women’s prison in Dublin,California. The work included internal documents, statements and recordings from inmates. Their reporting also included interviews with current and former prison employees and a review of thousands of pages of court records from criminal and civil cases involving Dublin prison staff.
NEW: AP investigation uncovers toxic culture of sexual abuse and cover ups at federal women's prison in California. Staff assaulted inmates for years, using threats and punishment to keep victims quiet while officials ignored complaints. w/@MikeBalsamo1 ⁰https://t.co/Tn8cI8FBRR
— Mike Sisak (@mikesisak) February 6, 2022
Together,they detailed how inmates’ allegations against members of the mostly male staff were ignored or set aside, how prisoners could be sent to solitary confinement for reporting abuse and how officials in charge of preventing and investigating sexual misconduct were themselves accused of abusing inmates or neglecting their concerns.
For keeping the troubled agency under scrutiny and showing that the departures of top officials alone won’t solve BOP’s issues — or stop AP’s investigation — Balsamo and Sisak are AP’s Best of the Week — Second Winners.
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