In Harm’s Way

About the Project

When journalist Susie Cagle first spoke to Ajamu, who’s incarcerated in California’s Central Valley, the flood water was growing closer. “We really don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said, from a prison complex in the Tulare Basin, where a dried up lake came back to life after months of heavy storms. Some of the 8,000 prisoners feared they’d be abandoned.

In an engaging, accessible style, Cagle’s story explores how the state’s decision to place the facilities in a dry lakebed despite warnings of future flooding and a volatile climate put prisoners such as Ajamu at risk.

The 70-plus panel comic combined narrative storytelling, data visualization and interactivity. Here are some highlights:

• Cagle’s interviews with prisoners and use of reference imagery and video footage helped inform her drawings and brought readers into the prison complex.
• Among the examples of her unconventional, but effective and memorable data visualization was the use of a mountain to show the changes in snowpack in the Sierra Nevadas and the use of a chain-link fence to show the growth of prisons.
• Lastly, we developed an unobtrusive way to address a persistent problem in comics: footnotes. Clicking on an “i” button would reveal sourcing. One illustrator noted on social media: “It’s a smart solution to a perennial challenge in comics!”

The comic raised a pressing larger question: With many facilities located in places that are vulnerable to climate change-fueled floods and wildfires—and few corrections departments releasing details of their preparations—what risks are facing prisoners and the surrounding communities?

“That’s the scary part,” Ajamu told her. “We’ll never know until it happens.”