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Criminal (In)justice

Problems with police, prosecutors and courts have people asking: is our criminal justice system broken? University of Pittsburgh law professor David Harris interviews the people who know the system best, and hears their best ideas for fixing it. Criminal (In)justice is an independent production created in partnership with 90.5 WESA, Pittsburgh's NPR News Station.
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Now displaying: October, 2019
Oct 29, 2019

The U.S. uses solitary confinement like no other country in the world, and nowhere more than the Supermax prison in Colorado. Solitary damages prisoners' minds, and the U.N. has called it torture. What happens when prisoners leave Supermax? 

Keegan Hamilton is a senior reporter at Vice News.

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Oct 26, 2019

Are you a Criminal Injustice patron? If not, here's a taste of what you're missing on the members feed! Unlock this episode and more exclusive content at patreon.com/criminalinjustice.


Sen. Bernie Sanders was decades ahead of the Democratic party on the core ideas that now define progressive consensus on criminal justice reform. Now that the times have caught up with him, what is Bernie proposing? And can he succeed?

Oct 22, 2019

Pennsylvania's Supreme Court declines to hear a challenge to the state's death penalty law. Dave provides analysis on 90.5 WESA's The Confluence.


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Oct 19, 2019

Are you a Criminal Injustice patron? If not, here's a taste of what you're missing on the members feed! Unlock this episode and more exclusive content at patreon.com/criminalinjustice.


Donald Trump's reelection campaign isn't exactly touting his criminal justice platform, but it's not hard to read the tea leaves on what a second Trump term might look like.

Oct 15, 2019

The law makes heroin, cocaine, and meth illegal according to their defined chemical structures. But what about drugs made from synthetic compounds, which can be changed with a tiny tweak in a clandestine lab? Can the law just say "close enough?"

Jordan Rubin is a legal editor at Bloomberg Law and co-host of the Cases & Controversies podcast.

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Oct 13, 2019

Supervised injection sites provide a venue where addicts can safely use intravenous drugs under medical supervision. The practice saves lives, but in the midst of a deadly opioid epidemic the Justice Department is going after injection sites using laws designed to shut down crack houses.

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Oct 10, 2019

Are you a Criminal Injustice patron? If not, here's a taste of what you're missing on the members feed! Unlock this episode and more exclusive content at patreon.com/criminalinjustice.


Pete Buttigieg entered the Democratic presidential primary race last spring with a message deliberately light on policy specifics. Since then he's rolled out a robust criminal justice  platform, part of a broader package of social reforms -- but will it be enough to win over African American voters skeptical of his record as mayor of South Bend, Indiana, where Buttigieg presided over a string of race-inflected law enforcement scandals?

Oct 8, 2019

Dave explains how prosecutors use "drug delivery resulting in death" charges in opioid overdose deaths on WESA's The Confluence.

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Oct 5, 2019

Amber Guyger, the off-duty police officer who murdered Botham Jean in his Dallas apartment, has been found guilty and sentenced to ten years in prison. The trial's resolution -- and surprising displays of emotion in the courtroom -- have sparked almost as much reaction as the crime itself.

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Oct 1, 2019

Koch Industries and Charles and David Koch – names that
are synonymous with right-wing political causes and
deregulation of industry. So why is Koch joining with the left to give former inmates second chances?

Jenny Kim is Deputy General Counsel and Vice President for Public
Policy at Koch Industries. She’ll tell us why Koch has taken
up criminal justice reform, and she’ll tell us what she says to
Koch critics.

Do the Koch Brothers Really Care About Criminal-Justice Reform?

Willie Horton 1988 Attack Ad


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