Everyday Injustice

In Episode 334 of Everyday Injustice, host David Greenwald speaks with Massachusetts criminal defense attorney Ernie Stone about the growing importance of trauma-informed criminal defense and why understanding clients’ life experiences is essential to effective representation. Drawing on nearly two decades of legal practice, Stone argues that what is often called “trauma-informed” lawyering should...

In Episode 333 of Everyday Injustice, host David Greenwald speaks with journalist and author Justine van der Leun about her new book, Unreasonable Women: Three Stories of Violence, Imprisonment and Extraordinary Survival. The conversation explores a troubling reality within the criminal legal system: how survivors of domestic violence and sexual abuse are often criminalized rather than protected....

On this week’s episode of Everyday Injustice, host David Greenwald speaks with Dr. Elizabeth Ostler, founder of the Communal Theater Company and creator of the upcoming play “SisterPlay,” a deeply personal work inspired by the death of her sister Lisa while detained in the Salt Lake County Jail. Ostler recounts how her sister, who struggled with addiction for years, died in custody in 2016 after r...

On Episode 330 of the Everyday Injustice podcast, host David Greenwald examines one of the most overlooked yet devastating aspects of the criminal legal system: the widespread use of fines and fees as a mechanism of punishment and revenue generation. Joined by Joanna Weiss and Priya Sarthy-Jones of the Fines and Fees Justice Center along with Tiffany Shaw of JusticeLink, the discussion explores ho...

In Episode 329 of Everyday Injustice, the podcast features a wide-ranging and deeply probing conversation with UCLA professor Terrence Keel, a leading scholar examining the intersection of race, science and public institutions. The discussion centers on his new book, The Coroner’s Silence, which investigates how death investigations—particularly in cases involving police custody—can obscure rather...

On Episode 328 of Everyday Injustice, host David Greenwald speaks with Matilde Hernandez, a wellness consultant, author and speaker whose life was transformed by incarceration and the long journey that followed. Hernandez shares how a first-time case in Georgia led to a prison sentence she says she did not fully understand, and how the experience forced her to confront trauma, shame and the challe...

In a wide-ranging conversation on Everyday Injustice, economist and policy researcher Jennifer Doleac argued that criminal justice reform should be driven less by ideology and more by evidence. Discussing her book The Science of Second Chances, Doleac said policymakers often adopt programs that sound compassionate or politically attractive without testing whether they reduce crime, improve lives o...

A newly discussed investigative report is drawing renewed attention to allegations that contaminated water and failing infrastructure at Mule Creek State Prison may be harming both incarcerated people and residents in the nearby town of Ione. Journalist Emily Nonko said the issue has received far too little public scrutiny despite what she described as a major environmental and infrastructural bre...

In the latest episode of Everyday Injustice, host David Greenwald sits down with historian Professor Josh Clark Davis of the University of Baltimore to explore a critical but often overlooked dimension of the civil rights era—organized resistance to police violence. Drawing from his new book Police Against the Movement, Davis challenges conventional narratives that frame police brutality as someth...

In Episode 324 of the Everyday Injustice podcast, host David Greenwald sits down with Kandia Milton, government affairs director at Dream.org, for a wide-ranging conversation on criminal justice reform, reentry, and the persistent structural barriers facing people returning from incarceration. Milton brings a rare dual perspective to the discussion, combining more than two decades of policy experi...

In Episode 323 of the Everyday Injustice podcast, host David Greenwald sits down with Eric Morrison-Smith, Executive Director of the Alliance for Boys and Men of Color, for a wide-ranging conversation on criminal justice reform, systemic inequality, and the urgent need to rethink how society responds to harm. The discussion traces Morrison-Smith’s personal journey into advocacy, from his early exp...

A groundbreaking Oklahoma law intended to provide relief to survivors of domestic violence serving long prison sentences is revealing just how difficult it remains for the criminal legal system to grapple with trauma, accountability, and mercy. Investigative journalist Pamela Colloff, who reported on the issue for ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine, said the Oklahoma Survivors Act was desi...

A new episode of the Everyday Injustice podcast examines the controversial case of Curtis Davis Jr., a Mississippi man whose conviction is raising troubling questions about prosecutorial conduct, plea bargaining and the withholding of potentially exculpatory evidence. The episode features a conversation with Maurice Clifton, a criminal justice advocate who has been investigating the case and pushi...

On the latest episode of Everyday Injustice, host David Greenwald sits down with historian Stuart Schrader of Johns Hopkins University to examine the political rise of police unions and their growing influence in American public life. Schrader’s forthcoming book, Blue Power: How Police Organized to Protect and Serve Themselves, traces how police organizations transformed themselves from fraternal...

Meditation, Redemption and the Promise of Reentry In the latest episode of Everyday Injustice, host David Greenwald revisits the transformative power of meditation inside prison walls, bringing back longtime meditation teacher Doina Durbin and introducing Doug, a formerly incarcerated man whose life was reshaped by the practice. The conversation moves beyond theory, grounding itself in lived exper...

This week, Everyday Injustice brings listeners a special episode, featuring an installment of the podcast Women Beyond Walls, a series that centers the voices and lived experiences of women directly impacted by incarceration. Rather than relying on stereotypes or abstractions, the podcast foregrounds real stories of harm, survival, and resistance—while asking listeners to imagine what a more human...

Jerry “JD” Mathis on Reentry, Shame, and Finding a Voice On this episode of the Everyday Injustice podcast, host David Greenwald speaks with Jerry “JD” Mathis, an award-winning author, PEN America Writing for Justice Fellow, and formerly incarcerated writer whose work centers on mass incarceration, reentry, and the redemptive power of storytelling. Mathis’ life arc—from decorated National Guard so...

In this episode of the Everyday Injustice Podcast, host David Greenwald is joined by Jeffrey Deskovic, Oscar Michelen, and Andre Brown for an unvarnished conversation about a wrongful conviction case that nearly resulted in a second, devastating return to prison. Brown, who spent 23 years incarcerated for a crime he maintains he did not commit, had his conviction vacated in 2022, only to face the...

On this episode of Everyday Injustice, host David Greenwald speaks with Tracy Miller, a veteran prosecutor whose career inside one of the nation’s largest district attorney’s offices ended not with honors, but with retaliation, isolation, and a landmark lawsuit. Miller spent 25 years at the Orange County District Attorney’s Office, rising to senior leadership and building one of the country’s larg...

On this episode of Everyday Injustice, host David Greenwald speaks with Kate Chatfield, executive director of the California Public Defenders Association, about the mounting crisis in California’s public defense system and what it reveals about deeper structural failures in the criminal legal system. Chatfield explains that public defenders now represent roughly 90 percent of people charged with c...

Choosing Yourself Before Life Forces the Choice On the latest episode of Everyday Injustice, host David Greenwald speaks with Hakeem McFarland, a motivational speaker, wellness coach, author, and the founder of the Choose Yourself Movement, a philosophy built around reclaiming identity, integrity, and purpose in a culture driven by external validation. McFarland’s message is direct and uncompromis...

On this episode of Everyday Injustice, host David Greenwald speaks with Shazad Carbaidwala, a longtime volunteer and board member with Prisoner Visitation and Support, a national organization that provides consistent, face-to-face visits to incarcerated people in federal facilities across the country. Carbaidwala has spent nearly a decade visiting people inside prisons, offering something both sim...

Women are now the fastest-growing population in the criminal legal system, yet policy, practice and public understanding continue to lag behind that reality. On this episode of Everyday Injustice, host David Greenwald speaks with Stephanie Akhter, director of the Women’s Justice Commission at the Council on Criminal Justice, about why women’s involvement in the system is rising, how their experien...

The newest episode of Everyday Injustice features three powerful voices from Represent Justice’s ambassador program, each sharing deeply personal experiences with trauma, incarceration and healing. Emmanuel Noble Williams, John Medina Jr., and Angelique Todd describe how childhood violence, systemic neglect and survival-driven choices pushed them into the legal system—but also how storytelling and...

On this episode of Everyday Injustice, we sit down with journalist and author Nell Bernstein, one of the nation’s leading voices on youth incarceration and the failures of the juvenile punishment model. Bernstein is the author of Burning Down the House and her newly released book, In Our Future We Are Free: The Dismantling of the Youth Prison. Her work challenges the mythology around “dangerous yo...