Everyday Injustice

For nearly 42 years, Gary Tyler lived with a sentence that was never rooted in truth, fairness, or genuine evidence. Arrested at age 16 in Louisiana and accused of killing a white teenager during a moment of racial violence in 1974, Tyler was quickly swept into a system determined not to find the truth, but to find someone to blame. “I was incarcerated…for 41 and a half years,” Tyler explains, und...

On this episode of the Everyday Injustice Podcast, host David Greenwald speaks with Josh Schwartz and Leon Parker of the Wren Collective, a policy and communications organization working to reform the criminal legal system and strengthen public defense nationwide. The conversation centers on a new statewide study revealing that California dramatically underfunds its public defense system—despite b...

In a new episode of Everyday Injustice, host David Greenwald sits down with three formerly incarcerated filmmakers — Dana Dickerson, Heather Jarvis, and Naje “Gigi” Webster — to explore the emotional and systemic realities of life after prison. Produced in partnership with Represent Justice, the conversation shines a light on the women behind the films The Trauma We Carry, It’s Not Okay, and The T...

In this week’s episode of Everyday Injustice, host David Greenwald speaks with Alissa Skog, a researcher at the California Policy Lab, about her team’s new report on California’s expansive re-sentencing policies and their impact on recidivism. Skog explains that California has gone further than most states in reviewing long sentences imposed under older laws, such as Proposition 36 and Proposition...

In this episode of Everyday Injustice, host David Greenwald talks with former federal prosecutor Jared Fishman, author of Fire on the Levee: The Murder of Henry Glover and the Search for Justice after Hurricane Katrina. Fishman revisits the 2005 killing of Henry Glover by New Orleans police officers in the chaotic days following Hurricane Katrina, a case he investigated and brought to trial early...

On this episode of Everyday Injustice, host David Greenwald speaks with Doreena Durbin, founder of a transformative prison meditation program in Texas. A former musician turned meditation teacher, Durbin’s path has been as unconventional as it is inspiring. Her book, An Inner Life: Freedom Is Found Within, and her work behind prison walls share a single message — that peace and self-understanding...

In this episode of Everyday Injustice, host David Greenwald speaks with Daniel Forkkio, CEO of Represent Justice, a national organization that amplifies the voices of formerly incarcerated people through storytelling. Forkkio explains that Represent Justice partners with filmmakers, advocates, and ambassadors across the country to humanize those impacted by the criminal legal system and shift publ...

A Conversation with Courtney Teasley On this episode of Everyday Injustice, attorney and activist Courtney Teasley shares her journey from growing up in East Nashville during the crack epidemic to becoming what she calls a “legal disruptor.” Teasley defines this role as going beyond the bare minimum in the legal system—intervening proactively to prevent unjust outcomes before they are sealed by gu...

The latest episode of Everyday Injustice takes on one of the least understood but most destructive aspects of the criminal legal system: fines and fees. Host David Greenwald speaks with Lillian Patil and Tanisha Pire of the Fines and Fees Justice Center about their new report, Imposing Instability: How Court Fines and Fees Destabilize Government Budgets and Criminalize Those Who Cannot Pay. Their...

On the latest episode of Everyday Injustice, host David Greenwald sits down with David Gaspar, CEO of The Bail Project, for a powerful conversation about the inequities of America’s bail system. The discussion opens with an exploration of how cash bail disproportionately punishes poor and marginalized communities, while offering little real protection to the public. As Gaspar explains, the system...

Mac Muir, former senior investigator with New York City’s Civilian Complaint Review Board and author of Cop Cop: Breaking the Fixed System of American Policing, joined Everyday Injustice to discuss his years of investigating misconduct and the systemic failures he witnessed firsthand. Muir, who later directed Oakland’s Police Oversight Agency, explained that his book grew out of a desire to docume...

On this week’s episode of Everyday Injustice, host David Greenwald sits down with Adam Clausen, director of Innovation and Social Impact, whose life story embodies both the failures and possibilities of the American justice system. Once sentenced to 213 years in federal prison, Clausen not only found a way to survive the impossible but has since emerged as a national leader advocating for reform a...

Martha Arevalo, executive director of the Central American Resource Center (CARECEN) in Los Angeles, described an atmosphere of fear and chaos as federal authorities escalate enforcement in immigrant communities. Speaking on Everyday Injustice, she said residents are facing armored vehicles, masked officers, and indiscriminate detentions that sweep up people regardless of their immigration status....

In the latest episode of Everyday Injustice, Tony Viola, a former Cleveland real estate professional, shares his story of being wrongly accused and convicted in what was billed as the nation’s largest mortgage fraud case. Viola was indicted in both state and federal court, accused of stealing $46 million, and cast in the media as the architect of a massive scheme that he says never existed. Viola...

On this episode of Everyday Injustice, host David Greenwald sits down with Kara Gotsch, Executive Director of The Sentencing Project, for a wide-ranging conversation about the ongoing challenges—and hard-won progress—toward ending mass incarceration in the United States. Gotsch opens with a stark but measured assessment: while the prison population has declined since its peak in the late 2000s, th...

Anna Vasquez on Everyday Injustice On the latest episode of the Everyday Injustice podcast, host David Greenwald speaks with Anna Vasquez, a survivor of wrongful conviction and now Director of Outreach and Education for the Innocence Project of Texas. Vasquez was one of four women—collectively known as the San Antonio Four—who were falsely accused and convicted in the 1990s amid a wave of homophob...

A Sacramento Lawsuit and the Fight for Police Accountability In the latest episode of Everyday Injustice, host David Greenwald sits down with civil rights attorney Marissa Hatton of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area and community activist Meg White to examine a pivotal case against the Sacramento Police Department. The lawsuit, stemming from police violence duri...

On this episode of Everyday Injustice, host David Greenwald speaks with journalist and legal scholar Jessica Pishko about her acclaimed book The Highest Law in the Land, a deep dive into the growing political and institutional power of elected sheriffs in the United States. Pishko explains how sheriffs—often overlooked in criminal justice reform circles—have quietly become key enforcers of a right...

On this episode of Everyday Injustice, host David Greenwald speaks with Patrice Sulton, founder of the DC Justice Lab, attorney, professor, and nationally recognized criminal justice reform advocate. As the organization marks its fifth anniversary, Sulton reflects on its origins—launched by law students seeking change in the wake of George Floyd’s murder—and its evolution into a major force for re...

On this episode of Everyday Injustice, host David Greenwald sits down with distinguished Rutgers University professor Todd Clear, a leading scholar on mass incarceration and its social consequences. With a career spanning over five decades, Clear has been at the forefront of research showing how incarceration harms communities, especially in already-disadvantaged neighborhoods. In this deeply refl...

This week on Everyday Injustice, host David Greenwald speaks with Corinna Lane, a former prosecutor and author of the compelling new book Secrets of the Killing State: The Untold Story of Lethal Injection. Lane's career took a dramatic turn from prosecution to death penalty advocacy, driven in part by personal experience with the juvenile justice system and a deep awareness of the power prosecutor...

This week on Everyday Injustice, we sat down with Philip Jacobs, the founder and CEO of Rebel Firm, a creative consultancy and production company tackling racial inequity through storytelling, entrepreneurship, and community engagement. Born in Los Angeles but raised across multiple states, including Nebraska and Washington, Jacobs brings a lived understanding of the challenges that shape young Bl...

On this week’s episode of Everyday Injustice, host David Greenwald speaks with Maria Foscarinis, a former Wall Street lawyer who left corporate law in the 1980s to become one of the nation’s leading advocates for homeless rights. Foscarinis, who helped found the National Homelessness Law Center, joins the podcast to discuss her forthcoming book, Housing for All: The Fight to End Homelessness in Am...

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In this episode of Everyday Injustice, we sit down with Emily Salisbury, Director of the Utah Criminal Justice Center and associate professor in the University of Utah’s College of Social Work. Trained as a criminologist with a background in forensic psychology, Salisbury has spent her career focusing on justice-involved women and the unique pathways that lead them into—and out of—the criminal leg...