Discussions with DPIC Podcast: Shedding Light on Underreported Stories of Incarceration and Death Row — conversation with Keri Blakinger

In this month’s episode of Discussions with DPIC, Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with Keri Blakinger, a jour­nal­ist at the Los Angeles Times and for­mer reporter for the Marshall Project — a non­prof­it news orga­ni­za­tion focused on the U.S. crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. At the Marshall Project, Ms. Blakinger wrote sto­ries about the human beings in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem — a focus that is still a pri­or­i­ty in her report­ing with the Los Angeles Times.

Ms. Blakinger’s per­son­al expe­ri­ence with prison has giv­en her a unique per­spec­tive. In her book, Corrections in Ink: A Memoir (2022), she pow­er­ful­ly tells the sto­ry of her per­son­al jour­ney begin­ning as a young com­pet­i­tive fig­ure skater with an eat­ing dis­or­der, through addic­tion and incar­cer­a­tion, and ulti­mate­ly to her trans­for­ma­tion into jour­nal­ist and advocate. 

Ms. Blakinger explains how and why she tells the untold and under­re­port­ed sto­ries of those in prison and on death row. She pro­vides details in her sto­ries that are usu­al­ly not report­ed in main­stream media, for exam­ple, how some women in prison are forced to exchange sex­u­al favors for basic neces­si­ties like toi­let paper, and how death row pris­on­ers do not have access to prop­er dental care. 

Ms. Blakinger notes that death row is not a tran­sient stop between either exon­er­a­tion or exe­cu­tion— but, for many, remains a per­sis­tent state. For this rea­son, media scruti­ny can reveal fre­quent­ly dys­func­tion­al aspects of death row. Ms. Blakinger recalls report­ing on the exe­cu­tion of a per­son with Parkinson’s dis­ease, who most like­ly suf­fered from exten­sive tremors while being exe­cut­ed, but for some rea­son was unno­ticed in offi­cial report­ing. She also describes her rela­tion­ship with death row pris­on­ers, includ­ing John Henry Ramirez (exe­cut­ed on October 5^th, 2022 in Texas), who became the inspi­ra­tion for her upcom­ing doc­u­men­tary: ​“I am Ready, Warden.” It will pre­miere at the  Big Sky Film Festival in Montana lat­er this year.

In her jour­nal­ism, Ms. Blakinger offers a gen­dered per­spec­tive of impris­on­ment, as she notes that ​“pris­ons are designed most­ly for men,” empha­siz­ing the unique issues for women and those who iden­ti­fy as women , includ­ing the preva­lence of sex­u­al harass­ment and abuse. As Ms. Blakinger says, ​“many women in pris­ons are vic­tims of sex­u­al vio­lence,” and dur­ing their con­fine­ment, they end up in a space pri­mar­i­ly dom­i­nat­ed by male staff, which can per­pet­u­ate or deepen trauma.

Ms. Blakinger describes her role ​“as out­side over­sight.” Her nar­ra­tives present the exam­ples of reha­bil­i­ta­tion, redemp­tion, and hope, for exam­ple, when she describes how incar­cer­at­ed peo­ple play Dungeons and Dragons (a fan­ta­sy table­top role-play­ing game) or orga­nize their own radio shows — show­cas­ing that even behind bars human­i­ty can pre­vail and spur restorative justice.