PULITZERS GO CARRIBEAN

The Virgin Islands Daily News of St. Thomas won the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for public service journalism -- the most prestgious of the annual journalism awards -- for its reporting on the links between the region's crime wave and corruption in the criminal justice system. Coverage of crime poverty, illiteracy and drug abuse dominated the other categories, whose winners were announced this afternoon. Among them: Washington Post writer Leon Dash and photographer Lucian Perkins won the explanatory journalism prize for their book-length profile of a District of Columbia family's struggle with poverty. The national reporting award went to Tony Horwitz of The Wall Street Journal for stories about working conditions in low-wage America. The Journal's Ron Suskind won for feature writing for stories about inner-city honor students in Washington. The Boston Globe's David Shribman won the beat reporting prize for his work on developments in Washington and around the nation. Other winners: The Washington Post's Carol Guzy won the spot news photography prize for a series on the crisis in Haiti, and Newsday won for investigative reporting on disability pension abuses by police.