New York Times reporter Sam Dolnick has won the 2012 Worth Bingham Prize for Investigative Journalism for his three-part series Unlocked: Inside New Jersey’s Halfway Houses.
During an exhaustive 10-month investigation of New Jersey’s privately run halfway houses, Dolnick discovered a broken and horribly flawed correctional system in which gang activity, drug use, sexual assaults and other violent behavior were commonplace and where lax security led to hundreds of annual escapes. While at large, some fugitives committed violent crimes, including murder, yet the state failed to punish the halfway house operators responsible for the runaways. Read more
