Brian Howey, Mukta Joshi, Jerry Mitchell, Steph Quinn, Nate Rosenfield, Mississippi Today/The New York Times

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When reporters from Mississippi Today set out to investigate the culture of violence in a county jail run by a notorious sheriff’s department, they knew most of their sources would not speak on the record for fear of retribution from law enforcement officials. So, in order to confirm disturbing accounts of guards not only assaulting prisoners but also enlisting favored inmates to join in on the beatings, Mississippi Today journalists, working with an investigative editor from The New York Times, spoke to more than 70 sources – former prisoners, guards, and deputies – and corroborated their stories, whenever possible, with medical records, photographs, incident reports, and other video and documentary evidence.

The Rankin County sheriff’s office made extraordinary efforts to squelch the story. One formerly incarcerated man was pressured to recount his on-the-record revelations, and a lawyer for the sheriff’s office wrongly accused a Mississippi Today journalist of offering to pay former prisoners for negative information. Mississippi Today refused to back down. Its investigation prompted state officials to announce a review of the news site’s allegations about the Rankin County jail.