A team of journalists from AL.com today won a Pulitzer Prize for their investigation of predatory policing in the small town of Brookside, reporting that freed people from jail and prompted Alabama legislators to pass new laws.

Reporters John Archibald, Ashley Remkus and Ramsey Archibald, and investigative editor Challen Stephens, won the Pulitzer Prize in Local Reporting.

Their work, which led to immediate and lasting changes, also won the George Polk Award for local reporting and the Hillman Prize for web journalism, among other honors.

The reporting revealed how the police force in Brookside, a town of 1,253 people, used proceeds from fines for nefarious citations and arrests and forfeitures to bilk poor residents of thousands of dollars, increasing 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.

Read the work here:

John Archibald, the lead reporter for the project, working with investigative reporter Ashley Remkus, data reporter Ramsey Archibald and investigative editor Challen Stephens, chronicled the rise of the Brookside Police Department and continued reporting through its downfall.

“The power in this work is that it is done by a reporting team who lives here, understands Alabama and can report in a way that will power change here at home,” said Kelly Scott, editor in chief and vice president of AL.com.

“That’s why we do this work — the impact it has here. And that tremendous impact is what we’re most proud of with this reporting and series. This work has forever changed Alabama.”

The work was supported by Ivana Hrynkiw, who led engagement efforts for AL.com, and former AL.com photographer Joe Songer, who took the photos.

The reporting on Brookside was part of a series, Banking on Crime, that examined policing for profit in Alabama. The series is a finalist in the multimedia category of the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel Awards and was named a finalist for the Knight Award for Public Service from the Online News Association. The series was supported by a grant from Columbia University’s Ira A. Lipman Center for Journalism and Civil and Human Rights.

John Arcibald also won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 2018 for his opinion columns. Challen Stephens and Ashley Remkus won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 2021 for work on the severity and prevalence of injuries from police K-9s, reporting done in collaboration with three other news outlets.