Oliver Laughland, ‘This is human trafficking’: After Maria, Puerto Rico to move 3,200 inmates to Arizona

After Hurricane Maria, reconstruction in Puerto Rico stalled in the wake of federal government failures, and officials moved to privatize a number of public services. Last year, Guardian reporter Oliver Laughland was granted extensive access to the island’s prison network to examine a little reported plan to partly privatize services. The Puerto Rican government had quietly announced its intent to transfer 3,200 prisoners – a third of the prison population – to private facilities on the U.S. mainland. Laughland’s reporting exposed the civil and human rights consequences of the plan, brought voices rarely heard in Puerto Rico into the public arena and featured accountability interviews with officials. The article was the result of months of research and negotiations with government officials to gain access to the prison network, and to visit facilities rarely seen by reporters. It examined issues of consent among prisoners and exposed conditions in private prisons. The Puerto Rican government to indefinitely postponed the plan, which had been due to go into effect days after the article appeared. The reporting was followed up by numerous national and international media outlets and was read by hundreds of thousands of readers. It was also cited by civil liberties campaigners in Puerto Rico during their campaign against the plan and was shared on social media extensively on the island.