Sharon Cohen, national enterprise writer, Chicago, for a unique partnership with students at the University of Maryland’s Capital News Service, investigating the high rate of suicides in U.S. jails. The team spent months compiling a database of lawsuits and reviewing hundreds of other cases, finding news-making patterns. Among them: Scores of jails have been sued or investigated for allegedly refusing inmates medication, ignoring their cries for help, failing to monitor them despite warnings they might harm themselves, or imposing such harsh conditions that the sick got sicker. The team’s package, “Death Behind Bars,” examined the issue in text, photos and video.