Everyday Injustice

This week on Everyday Injustice, we sit down with LaToya Mitchell, Navigator Project Manager, CA Bridge Program and talked about the innovative program that helps get people from ER into drug treatment and reduce annual drug overdoses. A few weeks ago, she was part of a rally at the California Capitol to push for a package of bills that would improve access to programs such as the Bridge Navigator...

This week Everyday Injustice discussed the death penalty with Nathaniel Batchelder. Batchelder has spent over 30 years working with Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. He graduated from Oklahoma City University in the seventies. In 1984, he met the Sisters of Benedict who started the Benedictine Peace House, and he became involved there. He is now the director of the Oklahoma City Pea...

1974 marked a tumultuous time in Boston where white parents of school children pushed back – at times violently against the use of busing as a form of integration. This year, marking the fiftieth anniversary, the Boston Globe carried an investigative retrospective. They found, “50 years after busing decision, a school system still unequal, still segregated.” Further, “Busing was set in motion by r...

Through the telling of the story about William Freeman, Harvard Historian Robin Bernstein effectively rewrites an historical narrative. Whereas the recent narrative had it that convict leasing and prison for profit began in the post Civil War South, the story of William Freeman shows that the for profit prison system actually began much earlier and it happened in the North. Bernstein discusses wit...

This spring, the Bureau of Prisons announced they were shuttering the women’s prison at FCI Dublin – after it was rocked with revelations of sexual abuse and whistleblower retaliation that led to the former warden to be indicted and convicted. Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM), a criminal justice advocacy group, has been coordinating legal representation for women who were formerly incarc...

A decade ago, California voters passed Prop 47 which reduced the punishment of simple drug possession and petty theft to misdemeanors while raising the felony threshold from $400 to $950 for petty theft. From the start, the measure passed by the voters has garnered criticism from law enforcement and other tough on crime groups and has been blamed for the rise in fentanyl use as well as a rash of h...

Rahsaan “New York” Thomas grew up in the notorious Brownsville section of Brooklyn, New York, where he faced gun violence, bullying, redlining, abusive policing policies, generational incarceration, and drug infestation. He ended up with a 55 to life sentence. But while at San Quentin, he turned his life around and became a writer, curator, director, producer, social justice advocate, restorative...

“Policing is violent. And its violence is not distributed equally: stark racial disparities persist despite decades of efforts to address them,” writes Texas Professor Michael Sierra-Arévalo in his recently published book, The Danger Imperative. In his book, Sierra-Arevalo delves into how police culture shapes officers’ perception and practice of violence. He conducted over 100 interviews and spen...

In April, four incarcerated people at the Adult Correctional Institutions in Cranston, Rhode Island died. Everyday Injustice, spoke with Melonie Perez and Brandon Robinson from Direct Action for Rights and Equality (DARE), a non-profit that organizes low-income families in communities of color for social, economic, and political justice. Perez and Robinson expressed concern for the lack of trainin...

In April, an unprecedented lawsuit was filed in the Supreme Court of California challenging the state’s death penalty statute as racially discriminatory and unconstitutional under the Equal Protection guarantees of the California Constitution. The filers which include the ACLU, LDF (Legal Defense Fund), and the Office of the State Public Defender on behalf of OSPD, Witness to Innocence, LatinoJust...

Civil Rights Attorney John Burris announced a $7.5 million settlement against the Antioch, CA Police in the 2020 death of Angelo Quinto. Quinto, suffering from a mental health incident was killed when police held him in a prone position similar to George Floyd for over ten minutes despite pleas from his mother. John Burris said: “While no amount of money can make up for the tragic circumstances su...

In her introduction to Dorsey Nunn’s book, Michelle Alexander quoted Toni Morrison: “Just remember that your real job is that if your free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else.” Alexander notes, “I’ve known Dorsey for two decades. I’ve watched him grow and evolve into an extraordinary thinker and leader, someone who has helped to birth...

Shannon Bohrer, served 27 years in the Marland State Police – but it was a case where he was an investigator that caused him to re-examine the criminal legal system. He wrote the book Judicial Soup which “examines the need for criminal justice reforms through a case in which an innocent person was found guilty of a crime he did not commit.” As his book explains, “The story is simple, yet the judic...

When Michael Owens was an angry and traumatized young man, he committed a horrible crime and was sentenced to Life Without Parole (LWOP). For a long time, while in prison, he continued to engage in self-destructive behavior. But even while he has no guarantee he will ever see the outside of a prison again, Michael has been able to turn his life around. He has gotten education while behind bars. He...

One of the problems with mass incarceration is that we end up incarcerating people who at one point committed violent and dangerous crimes long past the point at which they are no longer a danger to society. The case of Arturo Luna is instructive, raised in a tough environment, he committed crimes at a young age. But now has become a mentor, become educated is a completely different person from th...

This week on Everyday Injustice, we talk with Angie Gordon. Angie is a 39-year-old trans woman serving a 48-years-to-life sentence in the state of California. Convicted of multiple violent felonies in 2009; so, in April of 2024 she will have served fifteen years of her sentence. Before coming to prison, Angie was a high school dropout, but since her incarceration, she has devoted her time to furth...

It is described as: “A riveting and heart-wrenching story of violence, grief and the American justice system, exploring the systemic issues that perpetuate gang participation in one of the wealthiest cities in the country, through the story of one teenager.” Professor Laurence Ralph, tells the story of Sito, a relative of his and the tragedy of his life - first wrongly accused of murder and then f...

Stephanie Marudas and Emily Previti have joined forces to launch the podcast series, Obscured. Marudas is the founder of Kouvenda Media and co-creator of Obscured. Prior to founding Kouvenda Media, she reported for WYPR in Baltimore and WHYY in Philadelphia. Previti is executive editor and co-creator of Obscured. Before joining Kouvenda Media, she covered voting rights and election administration...

This week on Everyday Injustice Jarrett Adams – himself exonerated of a wrongful conviction – is seeking to undo a massive injustice in Virginia. Despite the fact that a jury found Terrence Richardson and Ferrone Claiborne not guilty of murder, a judge was able to sentence them to life in prison. They have currently spent 22 years behind bars, but Jarrett Adams is trying to free them, having recen...

This week on Everyday Injustice, we talk with Dr. Paul Elam, chief strategy officer at the Michigan Public Health Institute & leads Advance Peace. There is increasingly an understanding that issues such as gun violence cannot simply be addressed in the criminal legal system and that we cannot arrest our way out of the problem. Elam discusses how gun violence is a public health issue and discusses...

Having survived multiple recall attempts in his first term, Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón officially launched his reelection in October at the SEIU Local 2015 office in front of a room full of supporters – many of them health care workers. The DA noted his mother, an immigrant from Cuba often had to toil, working for below minimum wages. That has translated into a commitment to fight...

This week on Everyday Injustice, we are joined by Jason Smith, Executive Director of the Michigan Center for Youth Justice. The Michigan Center for Youth Justice (MCYJ) is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing policies and practices that reduce confinement and support trauma-informed, racially equitable, socio-economically and culturally responsive, community-based solutions for Michiga...

This week on Everyday Injustice we have Caroline Isaacs, the Executive Director of Just Communities Arizona. JCA is an abolitionist organization that seeks to end the current punishment system and its emphasis on criminalization, surveillance, and mass incarceration. They envision a world in which prisons and jails are unnecessary. “We believe those directly impacted by the current punishment syst...

Freddie Gray was one of the seminal police killings when it occurred in Baltimore in 2016, leading to protests and riots and calls for reform. The officers were charged with murder by SAO Marilyn Mosby, but not of them were convicted. Justine Barron in her book “They Killed Freddie Gray” following the work of her podcast, after sifting through thousands of documents and interviewing witnesses, con...

Listen to Everyday Injustices exclusive interview with Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón after he announced his reelection in front of an audience of workers at SEIU Local 2015. Gascón noted that crime was going down despite the news coverage that would lead the public to the contrary conclusion. “I would say one of the biggest challenges that we have is how can we get factual informatio...