Two books on criminal justice subjects won Pulitzer Prizes awarded by Columbia University. In "His Name is George Floyd: One Man's Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice," Washington Post reporters Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa write what the judges called an "intimate, riveting portrait of an ordinary man whose fatal encounter with police officers in 2020 sparked an international movement for social change, but whose humanity and complicated personal story were unknown."
In "G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century," Beverly Gage wrote what judges called "A deeply researched and nuanced look at one of the most polarizing figures in U.S. history that depicts the longtime FBI director in all his complexity, with monumental achievements and crippling flaws." Caitlin Dickerson of The Atlantic won a Pulitzer for "deeply reported and compelling accounting of the Trump administration policy that forcefully separated migrant children from their parents, resulting in abuses that have persisted under the current administration." The Austin American-Statesman and USA Today Network were finalists in "unflinching coverage of local law enforcement's flawed response to the massacre of 19 school children and two teachers in Uvalde, Tex." The Washington Post was a finalist in two categories for its reporting on the fentanyl crisis and audio reporting on no-knock warrants.