Cindy Chang discusses her award-winning series "Louisiana Incarcerated," written with a team of reporters during her time at New Orleans' The Times-Picayune. The Center for Court Innovation's Aubrey Fox caught up recently with Cindy, who is now working for the Los Angeles Times, to ask her about the experience of writing and researching the series and more generally about the ability of the media to educate the public on criminal justice.
Q: Where did the idea for a series on Louisiana as the "world's prison capital" come from? Whose idea was it?
A: The idea came from our statehouse bureau, who watched reform legislation being defeated year after year and wondered what was going on behind the scenes. Louisiana's status as the world's incarceration leader prompted us to ask: "Why?"
Q. How long did it take you and your team to report on the story? It's an impressive piece of work.
A: The bulk of the reporting took about eight months, with another few months in the production phase.
Q: How would you characterize the reaction to the series, which ran in the New Orleans Times-Picayune in May 2012? I'm thinking both about the reaction of the general public and people working in the criminal justice system, especially the rural sheriffs running local jails who get a lot of attention in the articles.
A: The reaction was overwhelming and gratifying. People who work in criminal justice said they weren’t award of the full extent of the problem. Because the Louisiana prison system is so decentralized, most people only see a piece and don't get a sense of the overall picture. Even the head of the Department of Corrections said he was trying to get a handle on all the "horsetrading" among the sheriffs.
As far as the general public, a lot of people thanked us for informing them about something they had absolutely no idea existed. We got a lot of national and international attention, too.
I didn't hear from any rural sheriffs, except for the now-retired Richland Parish sheriff featured in one of the articles. He had no problem with the story, though he did give me some grief about my physical description of him!
Q: Did anything surprise you in how people reacted? I'm wondering, for example, if there's a kind of "criminal justice fatigue" in New Orleans and Louisiana - people resigned or enured to bad news stories about government.
A: I was surprised at the extent of the reaction, and that very little of it was about criminals “deserving what they get.” Southerners are pretty unshockable, but people were genuinely shocked by the moneymaking aspect. Corrupt government officials stealing from the public coffers are old hat in Louisiana, but this one seemed to hit a nerve, maybe because of the nexus of poor black people and profit.
Q: Do you feel like anything changed in response to the articles?
We raised awareness, which is the prerequisite to change. But it's really difficult to dismantle an economy where powerful people have a huge financial stake.
Q: I know you've moved on to the Los Angeles Times, but I'm curious to hear if you've followed recent developments in Louisiana, including Governor Jindal's recent reform proposals, which he announced in February 2013. Do you see anything significant coming out of these proposed reforms?
A: I don't know enough about the recent reforms to comment. I'd expect there will be more bills chipping away at the incarceration rate, starting with the low-hanging fruit. But as long as the sheriffs have a financial stake in keeping prison beds full, there's only so far any reforms can go. Jimmy LeBlanc, the DOC head, talks about housing fewer inmates while paying the sheriffs more per inmate. I haven't seen any sign of movement in that direction, and LeBlanc’s proposal acknowledges that the sheriffs will remain at the center of the system.
Q: I understand that the Times-Picayune went through some significant changes, and that many of the people who worked on the series were let go by the paper. Can you describe what happened?
A: I'll refer you to Ryan Chittum's excellent article in the Columbia Journalism Review. He captures what most media accounts have missed.
The bad news came down just a few days after the last installment of our series. People started referring to the prison series as the Times-Picayune’s “swan song.” A month later, the layoffs came down. Much of the team, including managing editors Peter Kovacs and Dan Shea, lost their jobs. It was a slap in the face, considering that these people had put in many extra hours to produce the series on top of their regular jobs.
Q: Looking back on the series a year later, what do you think it says about the ability of the press to hold the criminal justice system to account? Has this kind of in-depth reporting on criminal justice become a thing of the past, or is just harder to find?
A: I've been surprised at how well-attended the Investigative Reporters and Editors conference is, and how many excellent entries still compete for journalism prizes. Large newspapers are still investing resources in investigative reporting. Smaller ones are producing good work with determined staffers who put in overtime on top of their daily responsibilities. But there are certainly stories that are not being written or that are only covered superficially.
In February 2012, I became the Times-Picayune's special projects writer. This job was revived after several years where we hadn't produced any major projects. Louisiana Incarcerated would not have happened if I were covering a beat on top of trying to research the series.