A reporter’s guide to reporting guides around incarceration

Resources for honing reporting skills, working with incarcerated writers, and framing your coverage well.

by Wanda Bertram, October 1, 2026

For journalists — both early-career and seasoned — who are reporting on issues behind bars, there are now a wealth of guides out there. Here, we curate some of the best ones by topic. We hope this is a page journalists can bookmark for referring to helpful resources.

This isn’t a comprehensive list, and we recognize that more great resources for reporters will come out over time. If you know of a resource that isn’t listed here, we welcome further suggestions in the comments.

Nuts-and-bolts guides

Here are some of the best guides for honing your reporting skills when it comes to covering issues in prisons and jails.

Getting data and records from the criminal legal system

Prisons, jails, and other criminal legal agencies are notoriously “black boxes.” These resources offer tips on what information is available publicly and how to dig up what isn’t.

• Freedom of the Press Foundation, Covering the Mass Incarceration System: Overcoming Barriers to Information — A quick read to ground your understanding of why criminal legal system data sources are so sparse, with tips for getting information via legal databases and public records requests.
• Center for Just Journalism, For the Record: A Transparency Toolkit for Criminal Legal Reporters — This very thorough resource explains what data is likely to be collected by different agencies in the criminal legal system, and where it is being published; the different types of court documents created during legal cases and tools for accessing them; and what types of information may be obtained through public records requests (and how to structure those requests).
• Our Guide to public records requests in the criminal legal system — This guide is specific to filing public records requests. While we designed it for advocates, journalists may find it useful in understanding public records laws in their state.

Investigating specific topics around incarceration

Here’s where to go for advice on investigating specific issues in the criminal legal system, from journalists and others with direct experience:

• The Marshall Project has leveraged its own investigations into a resource series called Investigate This! Most of these guides are related to specific issues, like prison staffing and heat behind bars, while a few, like their public records tip sheet, are more technical.
• The Center for Just Journalism has two in-depth topical guides. Selling Safety: A Journalist’s Guide to Covering Police Technology reviews the major questions journalists should ask about police contracts with private surveillance companies, and suggests avenues and tips for reporting. The “Child Welfare” System: What to Know and Where to Go for More curates a lot of research about child welfare agencies and their outcomes, and points reporters toward opportunities for critical coverage of these systems.
• Our own Journalist Toolkit includes our guides to specific research topics, including overcoming HIPAA-related barriers to requests for information, pushing back on prison “gag rules” for staff, and investigating prison discipline policies.
• The Poynter Institute has a number of courses on topics related to incarceration. Their Investigating Jails course covers three topics relevant to covering jails — mental illness, mistreatment, and financial injustice — discussing the substance of these topics as well as tips for reporting on them in your local jail.

Contacting and interviewing incarcerated people

People behind bars (or under correctional supervision) are invaluable, but uniquely vulnerable, sources. These resources discuss how to cultivate incarcerated sources while looking out for their safety:

• Freedom of the Press Foundation, Covering the Mass Incarceration System: Interviewing Incarcerated People — This guide offers a foundation for knowing the risks incarcerated people face in speaking with the press, how to minimize those risks, and how to prepare for common barriers to interviewing incarcerated sources.
• Prison Journalism Project, Contacting People Inside by State — A handbook for contacting people in every state prison system (and the federal system) by mail, phone, and e-messaging. While DOCs sometimes change their rules about communication abruptly, this guide is mostly up to date.
• Prison Journalism Project, A Reporter’s Glossary of Prison Jargon — Compiled by 17 incarcerated and formerly incarcerated contributors across 11 states, this is a useful index of terms you may come across when reporting on prisons and interviewing incarcerated people.

Working with incarcerated writers

We strongly encourage news outlets to engage incarcerated writers as partners in their work, and recommend the following guides for newsrooms interested in doing so.

• The Appeal, How to Work With Incarcerated Writers — This guide offers some foundational tips for publishing incarcerated writers, including tapping into local resources, forming relationships, and adapting the editing process.
• Scalawag Magazine, The Press In Prison — This free-to-download book authored by journalists inside and outside prison offers guidance for newsrooms on working with incarcerated writers, protecting them from retaliation, sourcing and paying your writers, and more.
• We published a review of state restrictions on prison journalism, including a 50-state table with links to the relevant state statutes. For more context on these legal restrictions, see the Prison Journalism Project’s Laws Around Prison Journalism.

Framing your story

For reporters who want to make sure their coverage of the criminal legal system is nuanced and balanced, and treats people in the system with respect, we also suggest the resources below.

• The Sentencing Project, 10 Crime Coverage Do’s and Don’ts — A primer on avoiding sensationalism when covering crime, and how to avoid stigmatizing framing and language that promote inaccurate views of crime.
• Interrupting Criminalization, Don’t Be a Copagandist! — This resource explains how to avoid repeating police talking points uncritically, why to avoid publishing mugshots, and more. Also see Interrupting Criminalization’s other media guides.
• The Marshall Project, What words we use — and avoid — when covering people and incarceration — Offers lessons from the Marshall Project’s reporting and suggestions for using person-first language when writing about issues in prisons and jails.
• Health In Justice Action Lab, Changing the Narrative series — This webcast designed for journalists covering drugs and drug enforcement breaks down reductive narratives about addiction, and helps reporters avoid harmful tropes.