Eligibility and Judging

Eligibility

  • Submissions must be from a publication that is edited and managed by currently incarcerated people. 
  • Submissions must have appeared in 2024 or 2025. 
  • Publications that have assistance from an outside person or organization are eligible, as long as writing and editorial direction comes from currently incarcerated contributors. 
  • As the Penal Press Contest is an award for prison newsrooms, creative writing and art publications are not eligible. Examples of these publications include journals or chapbooks that primarily publish memoir, fiction, poetry, or visual art.
  • Works must be original. Works that originally appeared in other media outlets (excluding stories co-published between a prison publication and an outside media outlet) are not eligible.
  • Unpublished drafts are not eligible. 
  • Works can only be entered in a maximum of two relevant categories.
  • Entries for the Best Debut Publication category must have been established between 2022 and the present.
  • Publications or pieces presenting or espousing a religious doctrine are not eligible.
  • Publications or pieces displaying a clear intent of hate speech or harm will be excluded. 
A photocopy of the 1989 best newspaper award plaque. Image courtesy of Special Collections Research Center, Morris Library, Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

Criteria

Each entry will be evaluated by two readers who will be asked to write brief comments. These comments can be shared with applicants who seek feedback for improvement.

Journalistic excellence: Judges will evaluate the excellence of the entry based on its alignment with journalistic practices, awareness and knowledge of the traditions of journalism in prisons, and aesthetic sensibilities.

Impact made on its journalistic community and the public: The entry imparts urgent viewpoints and facts to its readership.

Originality and visibility: Special value may be given to publications that offer critical information that might not otherwise be visible, either within its community or in the broader outside media.

Rigor of research and reporting: Stories should be thoroughly researched, factual, and present as many perspectives as possible. When sources are cited, their credibility should be verified and disclosed when appropriate. (Generally speaking, news that cites no more than a single source may not be good candidates for top prizes.)

Style: Based on experience and aesthetic sensibilities, judges may give weight to writing that achieves a distinctive or especially engaging style.

Ingenuity: Judges should give special weight to entries that exhibit ingenuity in achieving excellent journalism despite the confines and strictures of incarceration. (For example, consider how an entry produces excellence using limited resources or has navigated issues of censorship or institutional power.)

Design: When applicable, consideration can be given to the design and overall presentation of the entry itself.

Transparency

The Penal Press Contest is steered by an advisory board. Members of the board, which includes former and current editors of prison newspapers, as well as experienced journalists and scholars, serve a term of no more than three years. A separate panel of judges evaluates each entrant to the contest. This pool of judges will include both currently and formerly incarcerated journalists, some of whom will have direct experience working on prison newspapers. Advisors may not also serve as judges for individual awards. Both advisors and judges are asked to sign a statement requiring them to disclose any potential conflicts of interest and remove themselves should a conflict of interest arise. No employees or affiliates of the Pollen Initiative, the administrative and organizational host for the contest, participate in the outcome of the awards. The contest also aims to abide by the CLMP Code of Contest Ethics.

Enter the Contest
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