Shane Bauer, investigative journalist

In 2014, Shane Bauer was hired for $9 an hour to work as an entry-level prison guard at a private prison in Winnfield, Louisiana. An award-winning investigative journalist for Mother Jones, he used his real name; there was no meaningful background check. Bauer applied for the job because he wanted an unconstrained look at the inner workings of an industry that holds some 130,000 of our nation’s 1.5 million prisoners and is deliberately unaccountable to public scrutiny. Four months later, his employment came to an abrupt end. But he had seen enough, and in the summer of 2016, Mother Jones published Bauer’s blockbuster cover feature about his experiences at Winn Correctional Center. It won a National Magazine Award and became the most-read feature in the history of the magazine.

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