The Ridgeway Reporting Project

Investigative Reporting by Incarcerated Journalists, Supported by Solitary Watch

Ridgeway Reporting Project Call for Proposals: Solitary Watch is now accepting proposals for grants to incarcerated and formerly incarcerated journalists through the Ridgeway Reporting Project. The grants, ranging from $500 to $2,500, will fund reported stories that have yet to be told about all aspects of solitary confinement, for publication in news outlets nationwide. Full application instructions an be found here. To request that instructions be sent to an incarcerated person, please email valerie@solitarywatch.org or write to Ridgeway Reporting Project, Solitary Watch, PO Box 11374, Washington, DC 20008. Please do not send proposals without first reviewing the full application instructions. The current deadline for receiving proposals has been extended to December 31, 2025. The next call for proposals will be issued in the spring of 2026; please check this page for updates.

In 2023, Solitary Watch launched the Ridgeway Reporting Project, designed to award grants and provide technical support to incarcerated and formerly incarcerated journalists. The project funds work in all media for publication in outlets nationwide, with the goal of expanding public awareness and understanding of solitary confinement and other dangerous or inhumane conditions of confinement in U.S. federal and state prisons, local and tribal jails, immigration detention centers, and juvenile facilities. It is made possible through the generosity of the Vital Projects Fund, the Jacob and Valeria Langeloth Foundation, and donors to the James Ridgeway Memorial Fund.

While it contains more than two million people—a population larger than all but four U.S. cities—the American carceral system has been kept largely off-limits to the public and the press. Barbaric and unconstitutional living conditions, deadly neglect, and routine brutality are widespread, yet receive minimal attention. Solitary confinement, which functions as a prison within a prison, has been particularly difficult to access. The Ridgeway Reporting Project aims to expose this world from the inside out, and honors the late James Ridgeway (1936-2021), veteran investigative journalist and founder of Solitary Watch.

Projects are selected for support by Solitary Watch Editor-in-Chief Juan Moreno Haines, an award-winning prison journalist who is currently incarcerated at San Quentin. “The goal of the Ridgeway Reporting Project is to give voice to incarcerated people, who are uniquely positioned to show where prison policies are failing our society,” said Haines. “The RRP turns up the volume of these brave, yet vulnerable voices. Listening to them will help us take the next steps toward change.”

Selected projects expose prison policies and practices related to solitary confinement and other harsh prison conditions from the inside out, exploring their impact on incarcerated people, the criminal legal system, and the larger society that permits and pays for them. In addition to funding, the Ridgeway Reporting Project provides assistance to incarcerated journalists in shaping their stories, conducting research, and placing their work with publications.

2025 Recipients
  • Christopher Blackwell, in collaboration with Professor Deborah Zalesne and Dr. Terry Kupers, will investigate the brutal physical torture that people experience in solitary across the country, including the use of pepper spray, violent cell extractions, tasing, five-point restraint chairs, and sexual assault.
  • Antoine Davis will explore the excruciating job of incarcerated hazmat workers in Washington Corrections Center, who clean blood, bodily fluids, and contaminated waste out of the cells on the solitary confinement block for little to no pay.
  • Sara Kielly will write about the isolation of domestic violence survivors transferred to the Special Housing Unit (SHU) in Albion Correctional Facility in New York, while awaiting their resentencing hearing under the Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act (DVSJA).
  • Lyle C. May, writing from death row in North Carolina, will report on the conditions and experiences of the 37 incarcerated men facing imminent transfer to the notorious federal supermax ADX, under the decree of President Donald Trump, after receiving clemency from former President Joe Biden.
  • Kevin Light Roth will cover the impact of solitary confinement on family members, children, and loved ones, highlighting the emotional toll, the financial burden, and the personal trauma they endure.
  • Dwayne Staats, writing from solitary confinement in Delaware, will investigate the devastating impacts of excessive body cavity and strip searches in solitary as an abuse of power and a violation of bodily integrity. 
  • Joshua Strange will assess Governor Gavin Newsom’s “California Model” in comparison to its inspiration, the Scandinavian penal system, especially in regards to solitary confinement.
  • Lanae Tipton will examine the denial of education and programming for people in solitary confinement and the detrimental impact this has on recidivism, healing, growth, and liberation.
2023 Recipients
  • Christopher Blackwell reported on how Victim Services is being misused to block the free expression of incarcerated voices in Washington State prisons. (Published by The Appeal, December 2024.)
  • William Blake is writing about suicides in solitary in New York State prisons, emphasizing their impact on other incarcerated people.
  • Nicholas Brooks explored how the “slave wages” paid to individuals in New York’s prisons lead to rule-breaking and solitary confinement, as incarcerated people struggle to provide for their basic needs. (Published by Hell Gate, January 2025.)
  • Steve Brooks documented how California’s drought conditions are affecting incarcerated people, and how water shortages are being handled by the state’s prison system. (Forhtcoming in Truthout.)
  • Jeremy Busby investigated a Texas prison’s use of telephone-booth-sized holding cages to house suicidal individuals, and the lack of oversight that allows such practices to take place. (Published by Slate, October 2024.)
  • Kwaneta Harris reported on the “adolescent-to-adult sexual violence pipeline” experienced by women and girls in Texas carceral facilities. (Published by Scalawag, May 2024.)
  • Elizabeth Hawes wrote about forced strip searches and public urination for drug tests in a Minnesota women’s prison, and the use of solitary to punish non-compliance. (Published by Lux, October 2024.)
  • Sara Kielly looked at changes made in New York’s largest women’s prison since the passage of the HALT Solitary Confinement Law, as well as resistance to its implementation. (Published by New York Focus, September 2024.)
  • Abraham Santiago wrote about the failures of prison healthcare in Connecticut, from the viewpoint of an incarcerated Certified Nursing Assistant. (Published in STAT, March 2025.)
  • Kevin Sawyer is drawing on public records requests to investigate the fate of California’s “seven-up lifers,” who have been permanently trapped in prison by politics.
  • Felix Sitthivong reported on new policies in the Washington state prison system that undermine cultural awareness groups, which have historically challenged racism, discrimination, and inhumane conditions. (Published by Prism, August 2024.)
  • J. Strange wrote about the collateral consequences of poor food quality in fueling the high rate of diabetes in San Quentin State Prison and in threatening the health and well-being of every incarcerated Californian. (Published in Prism, June 2025.)
  • Shaun Traywick documented the reality of forced labor in Alabama prisons and retaliation against incarcerated people who resist it, against the background of a 2022 statewide vote banning slavery in Alabama (Published in Truthout, June 2025.)
  • Thomas Whitaker, writing from solitary confinement, is reporting on the religion-based courses that are the only in-cell programs available to people in solitary in Texas.
  • Xandan documented the treatment of transgender men in Texas women’s prisons, based on his own experience and interviews with others. (Published by The Advocate, March 2024.)
  • An additional grant recipient is not being announced in order to protect them from obstruction and retaliation. Their work has been published anonymously.
2019 Recipients

In 2019, a group of journalists received grants in a previous iteration of this project, then called the Solitary Confinement Reporting Project. The grants supported projects in a variety of media that examined the use of solitary confinement across the U.S. carceral landscape, from prisons and jails to immigrant detention facilities. Projects were chosen from dozens of submissions by the team of Wilbert Rideau, a renowned prison journalist who edited The Angolite and received the George Polk, Sidney Hillman, and Robert F. Kennedy Awards, and Solitary Watch’s James Ridgeway. The ten recipients included six incarcerated writers as well as one recently released from prison.

A Note to Readers: Our late founder, James Ridgeway (1936-2021), was at the heart of Solitary Watch’s dedication to the voices of incarcerated people—as sources, as writers in our Voices from Solitary series, and most recently, as journalists reporting from inside prison walls. After Jim’s unexpected passing, Solitary Watch created the James Ridgeway Memorial Fund. 

To support this work, which was so close to Jim’s heart, please consider donating to the fund. To make an online donation, please go to solitarywatch.org/donate. To donate by check, please make your check payable to Social & Environmental Entrepreneurs and indicate “Solitary Watch” in the memo. Send to: SEE, 23564 Calabasas Road, Suite 201, Calabasas, CA 91302. All donations are fully tax-deductible. Thank you for your caring and generosity. 

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