🥉 3rd Place: "Bad Watchdog," @marenmachles.bsky.social , Padmini Parthasarathy & @schwellenbach.bsky.social
🏅 Honorable Mention: "Silence in Sikeston," Cara Anthony, Zach Dyer, and Taylor Cook, @kffhealthnews.org @retroreport.org, and WORLD

Read my @pogo.org investigation here to learn more about what contributed to these deaths in custody and why the lack of clear answers around how many there actually were is so disturbing. www.pogo.org/investigatio...

"Several officials involved in the contracting process in BIA and IA failed to identify this potential organizational conflict of interest and evaluate whether the potential organizational conflict of interest could impair The Cruzan Group’s objectivity in conducting the corrections study."

This new report from the DOI OIG found that while "Cruzan did not violate post-Government employment ethics restrictions," the BIA failed to "execute due diligence in this procurement."
www.doioig.gov/reports/inve...

We also found discrepancies between the deaths in custody acknowledged during The Cruzan Group review, and the deaths that the BIA had previously reported to the Justice Department as required for the Death In Custody Reporting Act (DCRA).

In June 2023, POGO published an investigation I wrote about this contract and the resulting report we obtained via FOIA. Our investigation also found that 9 of the 16 deaths under review happened on Darren Cruzan's watch. www.pogo.org/investigatio...

Amey said, "The government has already failed the nation twice, first by failing to prevent the death of individuals in its custody and then by entrusting the review of the investigations into those deaths to a consulting firm founded by the person responsible for the safety the individuals."

POGO's General Counsel Scott Amey sent a letter in June 2022 to then-Inspector General Mark Greenblatt requesting an investigation into the organizational and individual conflicts of interests posed by this award. www.pogo.org/policy-lette...

The Cruzan Group's president and managing partner is Darren Cruzan, who was previously the director of BIA Office of Justice Services which oversees the agency's 90+ detention facilities and law enforcement.

Today, the Interior's Office of Inspector General published a summary of its investigation into the BIA procurement process, and whether or not the agency properly awarded a contract to The Cruzan Group back in 2021 to look at the investigations into deaths in BIA custody from 2016 to 2020.