In July, California passed a groundbreaking law: The state signed off on financial reparations for people who were sterilized without their consent in prison and in a 20th-century eugenics program. More than 20,000 people were sterilized in these programs, including procedures that state-funded doctors performed on incarcerated women without their consent all the way until 2010. 

Those in-prison sterilizations were exposed in 2013 by reporter Corey Johnson while he worked here. Johnson spent months tracking down documents that showed prison doctors had sterilized nearly 150 women in prison without proper approval between 2006 and 2010. 

Incarcerated women and prisoner advocates told Johnson that prison medical staff coerced the women, targeting those they deemed likely to return to prison in the future. The modern-day sterilizations hearkened back to the racist and sexist eugenics programs of California’s past, when doctors at state institutions forcibly sterilized people they deemed “feeble-minded” or “delinquent.” Johnson’s reporting prompted the Legislature to ban the practice and influenced the creation of a PBS documentary, “Belly of the Beast,” which galvanized support for the new reparations program. 

Johnson, who now works for the Tampa Bay Times, shared what it felt like to see the reparations law become reality and how he reflects on the impact of his reporting today.  

What got you interested in starting to report this story? 

One lazy Sunday afternoon in my Sacramento apartment, I was washing dishes while CNN blared in the background. Suddenly, the broadcast aired a report on eugenics in America and it stopped me in my tracks. The segment revealed that California led the nation in forced sterilizations with over 20,000 victims in the early 1900s. It also asserted that the state was so prolific, Hitler's Nazis visited and took tips back to Germany that were included in their eugenics program against the Jewish people. My jaw dropped. Afterward, I began to wonder, “What does it look like to be a sterilization victim? Who are some of these people? What has life been like for them and their loved ones?” I decided to spend a few weeks digging for answers. After one particularly long day in the library, I had dinner with one of my sources and midway through, they said very matter-of-factly: “I don’t know why you’re spending so much time looking at the 1900s. Don't you know that sterilization is still happening? It’s happening in the prisons.”  

How did reporting this story change you?

I think what I learned the most was sensitivity. I learned the power and the necessity to be thoughtful about interviews, to take care not to revictimize people by asking certain questions at certain times. I learned a lot about the relationship-building that must happen when approaching people who have experienced trauma. The investigation also reinforced the idea that some abuses aren’t exclusive to political party – you could be either a blue state or red state and the ingredients will still be there. For example, California is considered the bluest of the blue states. Yet it took a crowbar to loosen the data from official hands. I mean, they were incredibly resistant, even though the public records law was on my side. Hurdle after hurdle appeared out of thin air. I was surprised how often I was forced to fight with them. The lessons from those battles will stay with me forever. At the end of the day, power is power. And when abuses occur, power will conceal.  

How did you feel when the reparations bill passed? 

The fact that California even took this step, which was once unthinkable, is huge. Huge. To see these victims, these families, get some recompense – it made me pause for a moment to reflect on the journey. There are tons of people who deserve credit for pushing for that bill and getting it passed. The advocates especially were on the front line when no one else was. But it was humbling to see that people remembered our work and connected with the documentary.

Journalism is very hard, as we know well. There's the financial strains. The culture in America has shifted to a bad place. Lots of people don't understand what we do. Lots of people don't appreciate what we do. So the news about reparations just made me remember the many ways this craft can be magical. When the work is right, it can be sublime.