Les Misérables in America

ony Messenger of the is one of the few columnists—maybe the only one—in America whose beat is the poor who are preyed upon by public officials. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 2019 for his stories about rural white Missourians thrown into, Messenger explains that the problem exists in all 50 states. He focuses on three single mothers abused by the criminal justice system, in Norman, Oklahoma; Columbia, South Carolina; and Salem, Missouri. While being jailed for misdemeanors, they lose their jobs and, without their paychecks, are evicted from their homes. Best-selling author James Patterson called Messenger’s debut “crucial evidence that the criminal justice system is broken and needs to be fixed.”