A team of journalists from AL.com and Reckon earned national recognition this week for reporting that examined policing for profit in Alabama.

The American Bar Association announced that Banking on Crime, a reporting series from AL.com, is a finalist in the multimedia category of the Silver Gavel Awards. The series also includes Pulled Over/Pulled Under, a short documentary filmed in partnership with Reckon to look at historical connections between race, oppression and criminalization in the South.

The Silver Gavel Awards “recognize outstanding work that fosters the American public’s understanding of law and the legal system,” according to the bar association announcement.

Banking on Crime exposed predatory policing in the tiny town of Brookside and followed the money through Alabama’s worst speed traps. The reporting also examined an ankle monitor program charging defendants $10 per day in Baldwin County.

Journalists John Archibald, Ashley Remkus and Ramsey Archibald, working with investigative editor Challen Stephens and photographer Joe Songer, reported the series for AL.com.

For Reckon, Anissa Latham-Brown, Sydney Batten, Amanda Khorramabadi, Kavolshaia Howze, Marsha Oglesby, R.L. Nave, Tamika Moore, and freelancers Jeremy Burns and Taj Devore-Bey worked on the documentary.

In Brookside, a small town of just 1,253 people north of Birmingham, AL.com revealed how police used proceeds from fines and forfeitures to increase revenue by 640 percent over two years. The police chief, his top lieutenant and more than half of the force resigned or were forced out within two weeks of AL.com’s initial story. Two months later, the state legislature passed a law restricting Alabama towns from using revenues from fines and fees to supply more than 10 percent of their budgets.

John and Ramsey Archibald and Ashley Remkus also earned a George Polk Award for their reporting.

The bar association will announce the Silver Gavel winners in an online ceremony on May 24.

“Eavesdropping in Maine Jails”, a reporting series by The Maine Monitor, is also a finalist in the multimedia category.

Read more stories from our Banking on Crime series: