Season 1 fan favorite Jordan Margolis, aka Excuseman: the hero we deserve, but not the one we need.
Chicago has seen police scandals for decades -- from torturing suspects into confessions to the Laquan McDonald murder and coverup.
James Kalven has combined journalism and human rights work to spur police reform. Has it worked? And what lies ahead for a city awash in homicides and distrust of police?
An algorithm can't be racist, right? As it turns out, facial recognition software trained and tested mostly on white people is really good at identifying race and gender... as long as you're white and male.
New York Times Jan. 24, 2019: "Amazon is Pushing Facial Technology That a Study Says Could Be Biased"
Criminal Injustice season 1 guest Sam Walker argues in the Illinois Law Review that criminal justice reform is still possible.
The Supreme Court delivers decisions on two criminal justice hot buttons: civil asset forfeiture and double jeopardy.
Black Americans say they often experience difficulty with police that whites don't experience: extra scrutiny, harassment, profiling, even violence. Police say they have a difficult job that others just don't understand. What's it like to be both black and a police officer?
Matthew Horace is a former officer and the co-author of a fascinating memoir that explores this dynamic, The Black and the Blue: A Cop Reveals the Crimes, Racism, and Injustice in America's Law Enforcement.
If Donald Trump goes on Fox News to issue what sounds like a veiled threat against Michael Cohen's family, isn't that obstruction? Or witness tampering, at the least? One school of thought holds that Trump's thinking is too disorganized, and his rhetoric too incoherent, to hold him accountable for much of anything he says.
President Trump’s former lawyer and fixer will serve three years in prison for campaign finance violations and other crimes, despite (sorta, kinda) cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller's team. What did Michael Cohen tell them, and what did he leave out?
Some district attorneys' offices keep secret lists of police officers who are not to be called to testify because their credibility is in question. How widespread is the practice?
Following his death last month former president George H.W. Bush was eulogized as a moderate who carried himself with dignity and grace, recalling a kinder and gentler era in American politics.
But Bush's record on criminal justice tells another story. From the Willie Horton ad to the Oval Office speech in which he dangled a bag of crack before the camera, Bush weaponized tough-on-crime rhetoric laden with racial dogwhistles, pushing drug-war policies that led to mass incarceration and worse.
Since the creation of the first SWAT teams in the 1960s, militarized police units have multiplied. SWAT teams can rescue hostages or handle emergencies – but are they used that way? Do they increase public safety? And what’s the impact on the public, and on officers? Guest Jonathan Mummolo, Professor of Politics and Public Affairs at Princeton University, discusses his new research into the effect of police militarization – on crime, on communities of color, and on police agencies themselves.
Guest: Jonathan Mummolo, Assistant Professor of Politics and Public Affairs, Princeton University
Militarization Fails to Enhance Police Safety or Reduce Crime but May Harm Police Reputation
At the start of a new year, producer Josh Raulerson joins David for a recap of 2018's biggest criminal justice stories and a look at what may be in store for 2019.
Topics: repercussions from police shootings in Chicago and East Pittsburgh, PA; progressive elected prosecutors pushing reforms in a growing number of cities; the state of marijuana decriminalization and legalization; the endgame for Robert Mueller's investigation into Donald Trump and associates; Jeff Sessions exits the Trump administration; inmates organize around prison labor; the Supreme Court rules in Carpenter; and how the Justice Department's abdication of responsibility for fighting domestic terrorism from the right led to a surge in violent hate crimes.
Criminal Justice returns with all-new episodes on Tuesday, January 8.
Criminal Injustice returns with new episodes on January 8, 2019. Until then, we're reposting some of our favorite interviews. This episode originally appeared May 29, 2018.
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The word “torture” conjures images of Abu Ghraib in Iraq, or waterboarding at CIA black sites. But in the 70s and 80s, torture went on in parts of the Chicago Police Department for years. We’ll learn what happened, and we’ll talk about the consequences for civilians and the justice system.
Steve Mills is a veteran journalist and Deputy Editor of ProPublica Illinois.
Criminal Injustice returns with new episodes on January 8, 2019. Until then, we're reposting some of our favorite interviews. This episode originally appeared July 10, 2018.
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In the US, we incarcerate our fellow citizens at the highest rate in the world. And once they are in prison, we give the incarcerated not another thought. But one program works to help improve our imprisoned population, by teaching them college courses inside – along with college students, from the outside. It’s called the Inside Out Prison Exchange Program – and it’s grown from a single program at a Philadelphia sponsored at Temple University, to a force in 130 prisons around the world involving 130 universities and colleges.
Criminal Injustice returns with new episodes on January 8, 2019. Until then, we're reposting some of our favorite interviews. This episode originally appeared Sep 18, 2018.
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the job. They communicate better, and have a special talent
for de-escalation. In an era when we want less force and
more de-escalation, should the future of policing be female?
Guest Dr. Cara Rabe-Hemp is professor in the Department of
Criminal Studies at Illinois State University. She the author
of Thriving in an All-Boys Club: Female Police and their
Fight for Equality (2018).
The First Step Act was supposed to be a bold, bipartisan move toward federal criminal justice reform. But while the bill may actually become law, it's a baby step at best.
President Trump often flings accusations of partisan bias when judicial decisions don't go his way. Why can't Team Trump catch a break in court?
From marijuana legalization to voter re-enfranchisement, criminal justice-related referenda were all over this year's ballots. Dave breaks down 2018 midterm election results.
When the police kill an unarmed black man, we know the family and community suffer. But what about other people – particularly Black Americans beyond those closest to the victim – what’s the impact on them? The spillover effect of police killings and other violence on Black Americans?
Our guest is Brentin Mock, a journalist who writes for CityLab.com, of the Atlantic. Mr. Mock’s article, “Police Killings and Violence Are Driving Black People Crazy,” explains the new studies that demonstrate the wide impact police killings and other violence have on Black people who are not themselves directly affected.
From Chad in Hawaii, a followup to our Nov. 6 episode on full legalization of marijuana in Canada: if the Canadian government has better data on drug-related crimes than the U.S., do they track other things that we don't? We put the question back to our friends up north.
The shooter in the Tree of Life synagogue murders pleads not guilty. David shares analysis on 90.5 WESA's The Confluence.
We often hear about new methods police try to achieve better results against crime. But do the police have any reason to believe that their new approaches will work? Are their new initiatives based on hope, or on actual evidence that they will really help?
Our guest, Dr. Cynthia Lum, is Professor of Criminology and Director of the Center for Evidence Based Crime Policy, George Mason University. She’ll talk to us about Evidence Based Policing – and how she and her colleagues pioneered an approach that can make sure that what police want to do will really improve things.
Apropos of nothing in particular, Bruce from Norwich, CT wants to know about the legal risks of knowingly giving false information to federal investigators.
Canada becomes the second country in the world to fully legalize marijuana. What happens next?
Routine traffic stops are the most common interaction between police and citizens. A new book presents the most unambiguous evidence yet that race is a critical factor in who gets pulled over and why.
Baumgartner, Epp & Shoub, Suspect Citizens: What 20 Million Traffic Stops Tell Us About Policing and Race (Cambridge UP 2018)