host: How a criminal justice
reporter is using her own
background to build trust with
men and women behind bars and to
highlight conditions inside
prisons.
Special correspondent
Christopher booker reports from
Texas as part of our ongoing
series "Searching for justice."
Reporter: In Austin, Texas, it
is a night to celebrate
investigative journalism.
>> They are the only meaningful
oversight that exists.
Reporter: And a chance to hear
from a rising star.
Carrie Blake injure.
>> Four Texas prisoners have
died in fires in the last year
and we would know of none of
them if not for investigative
journalism and grape sources
that come forward taking
risks.
Reporter: She covers prisons for
the Marshall project.
Her reporting has led to real
change for people serving time.
In 2019 her examination of the
conditions inside women's
prisons help the Washington post
win an award and this 2018
investigation into dental care
for the Houston chronicle
spurred Texas officials to start
providing dentures to
incarcerated people.
>> I did not think my reporting
would have that much impact.
Reporter: But in 2010 it was her
own story taking headlines.
While a senior at Cornell
university she was arrested in
ethical, New York with six
ounces of heroin.
>> If you like that day was a
different person.
I remember it in the first
person but at this point it does
not feel like it was still me
anymore.
Reporter: Like a character
almost.
She was kicked out of Cornell
and convicted of criminal
possession of a controlled
substance.
Did the threat of arrest or
prison and to your mind while
you were using?
>> Fundamentally, in order to do
something as dangerous as
shooting up heroin every day you
have to believe that odds do not
apply to you.
You are not the person that will
get arrested or overdose and
die.
In order to maintain an
addiction, you have to believe
that these events while at her
not going to happen.
Reporter: She says she first
began using drugs as a teenager.
Growing up in Lancaster,
Pennsylvania where she excelled
at school and was a competitive
figure skater.
>> I had an intense personality
and I still do but a sport like
skating can draw it out of
someone.
Reporter: How so?
>> The persistence that
competitive skating requires is
mind blowing.
I started working on a double
axle in sixth grade so every day
I was failing hundreds of times
at the scene thank your eye
think about how that amount of
failure every day through all of
middle school must shape your
personality.
Reporter: By high school she
says she was struggling with
depression and an eating
disorder.
At 17 she split with her skating
partner and started to unravel.
>> When I did not have this one
thing to pour my soul into, I
went from being depressed to
very actively wanting to die.
I went -- I think I smelled pot
once, did ecstasy once and went
straight to heroin.
Reporter: She became homeless.
After her arrest in 2010 she
spent two years behind bars.
She details this in her brutally
honest memoir which was
published earlier this year.
>> I realized that if I was
telling the story first I could
tell it on my own terms.
Reporter: Throughout the book
you make reference to how your
circumstances behind bars could
have been worse.
How so?
>> I think my entire reaction
with the criminal legal system
would've gone differently if I
was a person of color.
You could see that at almost
every stage of the process.
I think I would've gone into the
initial arrest with probably a
longer criminal record even for
the same behaviors.
But then when you get in,
statistically, people of color
are more likely to be put into
solitary which makes it harder
to maintain ties with your
family which can help you
reintegrate when you get out.
And then when you do get out
after being sentenced for more
time and doing more of that
time, if you are a person of
color, you are going back into
dealing with the systemic racism
that already exists in the world
outside of prison.
Reporter: While locked up she
was able to kick her addiction
but she said it was not because
she was in prison.
>> When I got to prison I had
someone tell me they could get
me heroin and a needle if I
wanted.
But when I was arrested I was
ready to do something different
and that did not have anything
to do with prison.
Reporter: In 2012 she was
released and shortly after
started writing for the local
the co-paper.
Two years later she graduated
from Cornell with a major in
English but her break came when
she was hired by the Houston
chronicle.
>> She was the hardest working
person in the newsroom probably
because she wanted to prove
herself.
Reporter: Nancy burns is the
executive editor.
She said she soon began to cover
the Texas prison system.
>> She understood what it felt
like to live in that world.
Reporter: That personal
experience remains a central
focus of her work says Susan,
the editor in chief of the
Marshall project.
>> To give one example in early
March of 2020 before the
lockdowns in New York City, she
said, you cannot socially
isolate in prison or jail.
On March 6 she and a colleague
wrote a piece about this that I
think was a first to make the
point that covid would be
particularly disruptive for
incarcerated people.
>> I have to think about this
last sentence.
Reporter: Her good friend and
former colleague Chris Tomlinson
says because of her past her
work is often under intense
scrutiny.
>> People are going to try to
dismiss her and say, we cannot
believe her because she is a
felon and for her, that means
doubling down on accuracy, she
over reports everything.
>> It does not matter if the
judge withdraws the date and no
one appeals it.
Reporter: Today she often visits
prisons across the country and
she has done dozens of
interviews with men on death
row.
>> This was a man that was
executed in Texas and he sent
this to me a year or two ago.
Reporter: She is constantly
receiving mail usually from
grateful prisoners.
>> Not every story I write will
have impact or make a difference
but I can tell their stories at
a bare minimum and that means
something to people behind bars.
Reporter: For the pbs newshour,
I am Christopher booker in
Austin, Texas.