Newhouse Students, Faculty Help Conduct Investigation Into Secretive U.S. Prison Units  

A new data journalism project involving Newhouse students and faculty investigates the expansion of secretive units in the federal prison system and incarceration rates at those facilities.  

The comprehensive project is the result of a collaboration between the Newhouse contingent led by Nausheen Husain, an assistant professor of magazine, news and digital journalism (MND), and the news sites The Appeal and The Nation.  

Using data from Federal Bureau of Prisons documents and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, the project analyzes prison units called Communication Management Units (CMUs). Use of CMUs have expanded beyond their original purpose of housing those “the federal government alleged had connections to international terrorism” to units being used to also punish those who oppose certain U.S. government policies, according to the reporting project’s first story published in August 2024. 

In covering CMUs since 2019, Husain has gathered documents, collected data and analyzed how CMUs function, as well as who is held in those units. She and her team also spoke to several people who were formerly incarcerated in the units, who explained the harsh conditions within them, as well as the lack of due process in trying to get out of them, particularly for those who are Muslim. 

“When my co-reporter, Aly Panjwani, came on board last year, we were able to talk through the documents and data we had obtained so far and what kind of story we could shape out of what we had found—essentially that these restrictive units were quietly expanding,” Husain said. 

Also brought on board for the project were several Newhouse students from the magazine, news and digital journalism program. They were involved in producing and processing FOIA requests, analyzing and organizing the demographic data, fact-checking and collecting information through Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) on each person incarcerated in one of the CMUs. Leading the student team was Haley Moreland ‘26, with additional help from Olivia Boyer ‘26, Sorem Oppenheimer ‘26 and Nada Merghani G’25.

Their exhaustive work resulted in a database that displays the convictions, nationalities and specific case details for the almost 200 people previously or currently incarcerated in the CMUs.  

“I’d like to think that projects like this, though they can take lots of time, build up the skill of steadfastness and thoroughness in students who are inclined toward this kind of work,” Husain said. “Every investigation you do teaches you something new about a system and I hope the students are able to build on this work in their careers.” 

Husain hopes the project makes readers aware of the expansion of the CMUs and the need for harsh prison systems to be investigated, “in this case, the systems that are at the intersection of incarceration and what the federal government calls counterterrorism,” she said.  

The investigative team currently has several pending FOIA requests and more unreleased data that they hope to pursue in the future. The project was partially funded by a public records grant from the Gumshoe Group, awarded to the team in 2022.