Each year, The New York Public Library gives the Helen Bernstein Award for Excellence in Journalism to a journalist whose work brings clarity and public attention to important issues, events, or policies. As a member of the Library Review Committee, I spend the year reading the best that investigative journalism has to offer and undertake the difficult job of choosing five finalists. This year, I was inspired and moved by Emily Bazelon’s Charged: The New Movement to Transform American Prosecution and End Mass Incarceration.

Charged was written before New York State’s bail reform law was enacted on April 1st, 2019 but the book’s importance has only increased as debates about the implementation and outcomes of that law have intensified. While many news stories about the bail reform law are partisan in either their support or rejection of the law, what the majority of these journalistic pieces are missing is a holistic view of the myriad issues that plague the criminal justice and carceral systems, Bazelon’s book is where we find the answers and context that is missing from these pieces. 

Charged follows the stories of two young people, Kevin and Noura, as they wind their way from arrest through the criminal justice system. Through Bazelon’s excellent investigative reporting and legal analysis we see how the historic roles of prosecutors, defense attorneys, and judges have been changed dramatically by everything from political reforms involving mandatory minimums to the cash for bail industry that has massive influence on the pre-trial incarceration rate and post-trial health of the people and communities that interact with these systems. As we follow Kevin and Noura navigating the system we see how the change in these roles has increased the power of prosecutors, tied the hands of judges, and limited the impact and efficacy of defense attorneys. On the periphery of this process we read about the impact of bail bondsmen, private correctional companies, and politicians working to keep the system as is, and community advocacy groups for formerly incarcerated peoples, and the reform-minded District Attorneys in New York City’s boroughs and places like Philadelphia working to change the system and restore balance. The culmination of Kevin and Noura’s stories is a thorough and compelling look at the way our justice system has changed and an in-depth examination of the facts related to those changes that should be part of any serious debate about bail reform and mass incarceration. 

For more information and to see the journalistic work that Emily Bazelon has done since the publication of Charged there are articles, podcasts, and links to her work for The New York Times Magazine on her website. 

And for more outstanding investigative journalism, learn about the other Bernstein Award finalists for 2020.

More about the Helen Bernstein Award for Excellence in Journalism

The Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism was established in 1987 through a gift from Joseph Frank Bernstein in honor of journalist Helen Bernstein Fealy. Each year, finalists are selected by a nine-member Library Review Committee, and winners are then chosen by the Bernstein Selection Committee. Authors must be working as journalists, or have worked in journalism for a significant portion of their careers, whether as reporters or commentators in newspapers, magazines, or broadcasting. A book's subject matter must be journalistic in nature, with potential for influencing public opinion or policy and drawing public attention to important current issues or events of global/national significance.