Above, visiting room, former maximum-security juvenile prison. Unless noted, all photography by JB Nicholas.
REPORTER / PHOTOJOURNALIST / CRIMINAL JUSTICE CONSULTANT / PUBLIC SPEAKER
JB NICHOLAS IS AN EX-OFFENDER TURNED REPORTER, PHOTOJOURNALIST, CRIMINAL JUSTICE CONSULTANT AND PUBLIC SPEAKER BASED IN NEW YORK CITY, WITH PARTICULAR EXPERTISE COVERING CRIME, COURTS, BREAKING NEWS, PRISONS, OUTLAWS AND THE FIRST AMENDMENT.
Since 2006, his news photography has appeared in scores of print, online and broadcast publications around the world, including Paris Match, National Geographic, Vanity Fair, New York Magazine, People, Time, The Guardian, the Village Voice, Newsday, the New York Post, the New York Daily News, Gothamist, Oxygen.com and many others.
His reporting has been published by the Daily Beast, the Village Voice, National Public Radio, WNYC, Narrative.ly, Gothamist, Oxygen.com, the New York Post, the New York Daily News and the Villager.
Among his reports was an account detailing how the New York State prison system, in effect, killed a mentally-ill juvenile offender named Benjamin Van Zant; that report and two follow-up reports helped spur legislation raising the age of criminal responsibility in New York to 18.
For the Village Voice, his reporting revealed that New York City was building a new $1 billion jail on Rikers Island, at the same time advocates were pushing for its closure -- work on the new jail was halted upon the publication of his report in the Voice, and the new jail was eventually cancelled.
JB Nicholas's focus on crime and the criminal justice system is no accident -- he himself was incarcerated from November 1990 until July 2003, and was closely supervised on parole until 2009.
Besides covering these subjects, he has reported on environmental groups' successful opposition to "glamping" -- luxury camping -- on state-owned land in the Adirondack Forest Preserve, fracking in Pennsylvania, Confederate icons on public display in the U.S. Capital and in the Bronx, as well as bike messengers' battle against Uber's courier service.
Currently, he is a contract reporter for Oxygen.com, where he covers crime for its true crime news website, Crime Time. He is also a regular contributor to The Daily Beast and Gothamist.
selected reporting
