Keri Blakinger

rdf:langString Keri Blakinger

rdf:langString Lancaster, Pennsylvania, U.S.

rdf:langString Bachelor's of English, Cornell University, 2012

rdf:langString Criminal justice journalist

rdf:langString Keri Lynn Blakinger (born June 15, 1984) is an American journalist and author. She is an investigative reporter for The Marshall Project where she covers criminal justice. As a child, she competed as a figure skater at regional and national levels, at first in singles and then in pair skating with Mark Ladwig. However, she struggled with bulimia during her competitions and, after her skating career ended, she developed a drug addiction in high school and college. She continued to deal with this and other problems while attending Rutgers University and later Cornell University before being caught and arrested in December 2010 for possession of heroin. She accepted a plea deal for two and a half years in prison, and the experience caused her to change her focus to journalism and trying to improve the penal system in the United States through her reporting. She worked for a number of news outlets in the late 2010's, including the Ithaca Times, the New York Daily News, and the Houston Chronicle before joining The Marshall Project in 2019. Her work has resulted in the charging of a prison rape perpetrator and a number of reforms in regard to the treatment of women and the physical and culinary options given to inmates. Corrections in Ink: A Memoir, by Keri Blakinger, was published in 2022 and described the major events of her life, including the effects of racism that she observed while in the prison system.