Defending Prison Journalism

No one understands prisons better than the intrepid journalists working inside of them to share their lived reality with the broader public. Of the hundreds of essays published at Inquest since 2021, roughly a quarter have been penned by incarcerated authors. Through these voices—and the related advocacy work of the Institute to End Mass Incarceration (IEMI), which publishes Inquest—we have seen up close the barriers prison journalists regularly confront.

In autumn 2025, IEMI launched a new project aimed at identifying promising legal interventions that would improve conditions for prison journalism—with a broader goal of ushering a series of Prison Journalism Bills of Rights into law. Inquest is pairing that advocacy work with this series, Defending Prison Journalism, where incarcerated journalists across the nation, alongside experts and activists working to support them, will share essential insights into the challenges at hand and the path forward.

New content will continue to be added to the series throughout 2026. Subscribe to our newsletter to make sure you don’t miss anything.

Prison Journalism Is a Disinfecting Light. That’s Why Prisons Suppress It.

A new initiative on prison journalism from IEMI aims to restore prison transparency and First Amendment rights for incarcerated journalists.
Andrew Crespo & Premal Dharia

What Is the Role of the Prison Journalist?

A former editor-in-chief of a prison newspaper examines the responsibility of prison journalists, the constraints they work under, and why reporting from inside matters.
Phillip Vance Smith II

The Prison Spectacle

Reality TV turns suffering in prison into entertainment—and takes up bandwidth for legitimate prison journalism.
Vidal Guzman

When Reporting Is a Crime

States have restricted, surveilled, and punished prison journalism for decades, with dire consequences—for incarcerated people and for democracy.
Corinne Shanahan & Andrew Crespo

A Narrative of Control

Mass incarceration rests on false narratives that carceral institutions themselves control. But some of us are fighting back.
Lyle C. May

Asymmetrical Partners

Activism must involve incarcerated people—but few outside advocates really understand the dangers and limitations that imprisoned organizers face.
Ivan Kilgore, Paula Lehman-Ewing & Glenn E. Martin

What’s in a Name?

Being forced by prison authorities to publish anonymously caused me to reflect on the long history of Black authors choosing names in response to state violence.
Alexander Bolling

_{Image: Giovanni Battista Piranesi, “The Gothic Arch,” plate 14 from Imaginary Prisons. Etching and engraving on heavy ivory laid paper, 1761. In the collection of the Art Institute Chicago (public domain)}