This week on Everyday Injustice we have a conversation with Louis Baca, who as a youth committed a murder and was sentenced to Life without Parole. Baca discusses how he came to commit a crime, and also how he has been able to address his childhood trauma and educate himself without any promise that he will ever get out. He talks about what we have learned about juvenile brain development and how California laws have slowly adapted to the science. Baca also discusses how he is giving back, helpi...
Nov 18, 2024•41 min
On November 5, 2024, the California voters passed Prop 36 by an overwhelming margin, partially rolling back Prop 47 passed a decade ago. Everyday Injustice discusses with Sikander Iqbal of the Urban Peace Movement exactly what this means for California and the future of criminal justice reform. As Iqbal told us, a key factor in the passage of Prop 36 was the role of viral videos of smash and grabs - even though for the most part, such crimes would not be impacted by the change in law. Voters wer...
Nov 12, 2024•35 min
In July 2024, a woman died from a heat-related illness while incarcerated at the Central California Women's Facility (CCWF) in Chowchilla, California. According to California Coalition for Women Prisoners (CCWP), the woman's death was due to heat stroke and prison neglect. However, CDCR claims the cause was related to pre-existing health conditions. Elizabeth Nomura, state membership organizer for the CCWP told the Guardian, “I’ve had heatstroke before [while incarcerated] and I know what it fee...
Nov 04, 2024•33 min
This week on Everyday Injustice we talk to McCracken Poston about the story behind Zenith Man - Death, Love, and Redemption in a Georgia Courtroom. Poston, was a four term member of the Georgia House of Representatives who got caught up in the shift of Georgia Politics and lost a bid for the US Congress. Poston found himself representing a most unusual client - a man once revered as a natural TV repairman who had also suffered several downfalls, including being accused of holding his wife captiv...
Oct 28, 2024•52 min
This week Everyday Injustice talks with Kevin Cosney, the Associate Director and Co-Founder of the California Black Power Network. The CA Black Power Network is a united ecosystem of Black grassroots organizations working together to change the lived conditions of Black Californians by dismantling systemic and anti-Black racism. They have launched the Million Voters Project - a multi-racial, multigenerational coalition made up of nine community-driven state and regional networks, will launch the...
Oct 21, 2024•31 min
This week on Everyday Injustice we interview our incarcerated writer, Ghostwrite Mike who is incarcerated at Valley State Prison in Chowchilla, California. We talk about the importance of prison journalism and our ongoing project with Ghostwrite Mike and other incarcerated writers. Listen as we discuss the importance of shining a light at what is going on behind the walls of prisons and all the work that incarcerated writers are now doing.
Oct 14, 2024•56 min
This week on Everyday Injustice we talk with Nicole Lee, a 4-generation Oakland native the Executive Director of Urban Peace Movement (UPM), and Sikander Iqbal, the Deputy Director of Urban Peace Movement. The UPM is a grass-roots racial justice organization in Oakland that builds youth leadership to transform the social conditions that drive community violence and mass incarceration. UPM has three leadership programs -DetermiNation Black Men’s Group for young Black men, Leaders in Training Prog...
Oct 07, 2024•36 min
A July ruling in New York marked a victory for the public and transparency. Federal judge Victor Marrero held that the public has a First Amendment right to know what authorities have done with allegations of prosecutorial misconduct. The court issued its July 22 decision in the case CRC v. Cushman, finding that the Second Department and Grievance Committees can no longer conceal from public view the decisions they have made, or will make, regarding 21 ethics complaints filed against current and...
Oct 01, 2024•34 min
For years, Preston Shipp served as an appellate prosecutor in the Tennessee Attorney General’s office. While serving as a volunteer and teaching college classes for a conservative Christian College in Tennessee prisons, he became good friends with many people who were incarcerated, one of whom he had actually prosecuted. These relationships caused Preston to wake up to the many injustices that are present in the American system of mass incarceration In his book, Confessions of a Former Prosecuto...
Sep 23, 2024•49 min
Decades of allegations of sexual abuse at the women’s prison at FCI-Dublin led to the stunning decision by the Bureau of Prisons to shut down the prison altogether. A special master was appointed by the judge, who noted, “that some of the deficiencies and issues exposed within this report are likely an indication of systemwide issues within the BOP, rather than simply within FCI-Dublin.” Everyday Injustice sat down with two survivors: Darlene Baker and Kendra Drysdale along with staff attorney S...
Sep 17, 2024•37 min
This week on Everyday Injustice, we have UC Berkeley Sociologist Stephanie Canizales - Faculty Director of the Berkeley Interdisciplinary Migration Initiative. Born and raised in Los Angeles – Canizales is herself the daughter of Salvadoran immigrants whose experiences growing up as unaccompanied youth in Los Angeles. She just published her first book: Sin Padres, Ni Papeles: Unaccompanied Migrant Youth Coming of Age in the United States. She interviewed 75 unaccompanied migrant children in Los ...
Sep 09, 2024•38 min
Joining Everyday Injustice Podcast this week is Beth Shelburne, a journalist and writer with more than 25 years of experience. In 2023, a podcast series she created, reported and wrote called “Earwitness,” the story of Tofest Johnson. As described: Toforest Johnson is a father, a son, a brother. He was born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama. He has been on Alabama’s death row since 1998 for a crime he had nothing to do with. He was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of Jefferso...
Sep 02, 2024•35 min
This week on Everyday Injustice we have Erik Altieri, the Interim Director of Campaigns for the Clean Slate Initiative. The Clean Slate Initiative passes and implements laws that automatically clear eligible records for people who have completed their sentence and remained crime-free, and expands who is eligible for clearance. Their vision: “People will no longer be defined by their records and will have the opportunity to contribute to their community, have a fair opportunity to work, get an ed...
Aug 26, 2024•31 min
This week on Everyday Injustice we have Insha Rahman, the Director of Vera Action, a non-profit organization that harnesses the power of advocacy, lobbying, and political strategy to end mass incarceration, protect immigrants’ rights, restore dignity to people behind bars, and build safe and thriving communities. Listen as Rahman talks about Prop 36 in California – the effort to roll back Prop 47 – which penalties for low level and non-violent offenses. She discusses the issues of retail theft a...
Aug 19, 2024•37 min
This week on Everyday Injustice we are joined by Ludovic Blain and Michael Daly of the California Donor Table. Ludovic was hired as CDT’s first full time staff-person in 2009. Michael Gomez Daly is the Senior Political Strategist for the California Donor Table. California Donor Table is a statewide community of donors who pool their funds to make investments in communities of color so they have the power and resources they need to (1) elect people who represent their values and needs and (2) hel...
Aug 12, 2024•32 min
In July, the book - Dismantling Mass Incarceration was released edited by Premal Dharia, James Forman, Jr and Maria Hawilo. The book, which is an anthology of literature on mass incarceration and criminal justice reform, offers a variety of approaches to confronting the carceral state. Everyday Injustice was joined by Maria Hawilo, one of the co-editors, and a former public defender who is a distinguished professor at the Loyola University Law School in Chicago. She pointed out that the book rat...
Aug 05, 2024•32 min
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 Project. The navigator program allows ER patients to connect with treatment medication and staff im...
Jul 29, 2024•32 min
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 Peace House, a center for education and non-violent action on issues relating to human rights. Listen a...
Jul 22, 2024•34 min
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 rightfully furious Black parents making modest demands: equal educational opportunity for their child...
Jul 15, 2024•34 min
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 with Everyday Injustice the story of William Freeman, what made his case so unusual and how his experie...
Jul 08, 2024•35 min
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 incarcerated at Dublin. Everyday Injustice spoke with Shanna Rifkin, the deputy general counsel at FAMM. S...
Jul 01, 2024•32 min
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 high profile retail thefts and smash and grabs. However, as Tinisch Hollins of executive director of ...
Jun 24, 2024•32 min
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 justice circle keeper, youth counselor, and runner. He is most known as “New York” on the Pulitzer P...
Jun 10, 2024•36 min
“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 spent over 1000 hours on patrol. Everyday Injustice asks the Michael Sierra-Arévalo to describe a cultur...
Jun 03, 2024•37 min
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 training by staff and lack of urgency in some of the incidents that might have been preventable. Moreover, ...
May 27, 2024•29 min
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, LatinoJustice PRLDEF (Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund), the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, ...
May 22, 2024•1 hr 1 min
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 surrounding Angelos’s death, his family is to be commended for their unwavering commitment to improvin...
May 20, 2024•43 min
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 and shape movements that are changing the course of history.” Dorsey and others launched the “ban th...
May 13, 2024•38 min
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 judicial process evolved into a complex event. It is a crime story that featured too many players, some w...
Apr 29, 2024•36 min
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 has become a mentor to younger incarcerated people but also youths on the outside in danger of maki...
Apr 08, 2024•28 min
