Erica Meiners: Childhood and Carceral Society

Erica R. Meiners is a Professor of Education and Women’s and Gender Studies at Northeastern Illinois University. Professor Erica Meiners discusses her book, For the Children? Protecting Innocence in a Carceral State, in which the definition of childhood become an ideological state used to push back against resistance and reform. Childhood, Meiners states, depends on social constructions and differ based on the group it refers to - freed slaves were talked about as children, while white wealthy…

Christy Lopez: Police Reform and Carceral Logic

Christy Lopez draws on her work as a Deputy Chief in the Special Litigation Section of the Civil Rights Division at the U.S. Department of Justice to talk about Pattern or Practice Investigations with in police departments. How these investigations begin, how they work, and what their outcomes may be, are all unpacked by Professor Lopez. Additionally, Prof. Lopez describes her formulation of “carceral logic” and how it informs police reform efforts.

Jocelyn Simonson: Radical Acts of Justice

Professor Jocelyn Simonson talks about her book, Radical Acts of Justice: How Ordinary People Are Dismantling Mass Incarceration. Beginning with a close look at the ideological meaning behind calling the prosecution, “The People,” Prof. Simonson points out how the criminal justice systems defines “community.” By looking at several ways activists and volunteers engage in organized efforts centered around bail, court watching, and participatory defense, Prof. Simonson shows how justice is changing…

Vida Johnson: Judges and White Supremacy

Vida Johnson, professor at law at Georgetown law, discusses her article “White Supremacy and the Bench.” In which she describes how judges maintain and enforce structural racism. Judges benefit from a cultural cache of authority, prestige and as unbiased arbiters of fairness, but they often sustain and amplify racism through jokes, decisions, and rulings that unfairly targets people of color.

Gian Maria Campedelli: Black Homicide Victims

Gian Maria Campedelli, research scientist at Fondazione Bruno Kessler in Italy, discusses his research article, “Homicides Involving Black Victims are less likely to be Cleared in the United States.” Drawing upon three databases the FBI’s national incident-based reporting system (NIBRS) and the Murder Accountability Project (MAP), Campedelli found that homicides with Black victims were between 3.4% and 4.8% less likely to be solved by police. Gian Maria Campedelli, a research scientist in…

Christopher Span: Book Learning and Slave Education

Christopher Span, Professor of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, discusses his work, “Sam’s Cottonfield Blues” and “Quest for Book Learning: African American Education in Slavery and Freedom.” He discusses why literacy was so feared by white enslavers and crucial to slaves. Detailing how slaves subverted the rules to learn to read while enslavers punished those who did. Prof. Span’s own family provides a powerful example of the rhythm and style of…

Lerone Martin: J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI's White Christian Nationalism

Lerone Martin discusses his new book, "The Gospel of J. Edgar Hoover: How the FBI Aided and Abetted the Rise of White Christian Nationalism." Prof. Martin argues that J. Edgar Hoover molded the FBI after his own personal and deeply held religious beliefs and crafted a culture where FBI Agents were defenders of a certain type of religious faith. Hoover solidified a vision of America that was founded on white Christian values, so that any deviation of politics or thought threatened the…

Jonathan Witmer-Rich: Cuyahoga County Bail Reform

Jonathan Witmer-Rich discusses his work on the ”Cuyahoga County Bail Task Force: Report and Recommendations.” Professor Witmer-Rich explains the bail situation in Cuyahoga County. Looking at cash bail as a means to secure future appearances and reduce risk, courts are actually preemptively incarcerating and punishing citizens who are presumed innocent. We talk about how the Ohio Supreme Court and Ohio voters responded to recommendations for felony bail reform. Jonathan Witmer-Rich is the…

Tracey L. Meares: Effective Policing

Tracey L. Meares discusses her article, “The Good Cop: Knowing the Difference Between Lawful or Effective Policing and Rightful Policing — And Why it Matters.” Prof. Meares describes the two traditional roles of policing as they function under the law and in fighting crime. These two roles place the responsibility of policing on the behavior of citizens. But Prof. Meares suggests a third role, rightful policing, that places the emphasis on procedure, fairness, and transparency of conduct of the…

Jessica Pishko: Constitutional Sheriffs

Jessica Pishko is a journalist and lawyer who graduated from Harvard Law School and Columbia University’s MFA program. Jessica Pishko, journalist and lawyer, discusses her book, "The Highest Law in the Land: How the Unchecked Power of Sheriffs Threatens Democracy," in which she walks through the long history of the American Sheriff. Since the 1960s, sheriffs have consistently moved to the right, claiming to be the final and only authority to enforce and defend the Constitution. Since…

Kali Gross: Vengeance Feminism

Kali Gross discusses her book, Vengeance Feminism: The Power of Black Women's Fury in Lawless Times. Prof. Gross looks at the stories of Black women who hit back—not always figuratively, and not always legally either. Reckoning with women who lied, robbed, and cheated a racist, misogynistic world, these women's stories illustrate how they grappled with the daily violence of their lives. Kali Gross is the National Endowment for the Humanities Professor of African American Studies at…

Kate Weisburd: The Carceral Home

Kate Weisburd discusses her article, The Carceral Home. As prison walls are replaced with parole and probation rules that govern every aspect of private life, invasive surveillance technologies are used to monitor intimate information. Where does that leave the private home's primacy as first among equals? Data collection, audio recording, and GPS technologies are expanded to punish people in open society. Professor Wesiburd explores how these issues interact with each other and complicate…

Khiara M. Bridges: Race and the Roberts Court

Khiara M. Bridges has written many articles concerning race, class, reproductive rights, and the intersection of the three. Today’s episode focus on her 2022 Harvard Law Review article, “Race in the Roberts Court”. Professor Bridges talks about Dobbs, Bruen, and the fate of Affirmative Action in relation to how each uses arguments about black history and freedom in contradictory and problematic ways. The Roberts Court's leans on racial skepticism to up end established precedent. Khiara…

Emily Widra: Police Contact and Disparity

Emily Widra discusses her article, "Despite fewer people experiencing police contact, racial disparities in arrests, police misconduct, and police use of force continue." By looking at the newly released Bureau of Justice Statistics report that collects data of police contact in 2022, she finds that even while fewer people interacted with police than in prior years troubling police behavior remains consistent. Emily Widra is a Senior Research Analyst at the Prison Policy…

Alexia Rauen: When Immigrants Call the Police

Alexia Rauen discusses the article she co-authored, "Experiences of immigrant survivors of violence with law enforcement." She explains how immigrant victims of domestic violence viewed their interactions with responding police officers. Based on interviews with survivors, she found that experiences with police varied widely based on factors such as immigration status, English proficiency, and gender. Alexia Rauen is the Co-Executive Director at Advocates for Immigrant Survivors…

Robert Craig: Private Prisons After Dobbs

Robert Craig discusses his article, “Fundamental Rights and Private Prisons after Dobbs: Shifting Sands and Opportunities.” He details the history of private prisons next to the history of state-run prisons. Additionally, the competing interest of for-profit prison incentivizes extended incarceration and cost cutting practices that set the stage for a legal argument based on Plyler and Dobbs which challenges private prisons on basis of ordered liberty and constitutional violation. Robert…

Tonja Jacobi: Interrupting the Supreme Court

Tonja Jacobi discusses her article "Supreme Court Interruptions and Interventions: The Changing Role of the Chief Justice." Recent scholarship has focused on how often the Supreme Court Justices get interrupted, especially when female Justices are speaking. To fix this, the Court changed how hearings are run. This article looks at whether these interruptions—and the gender gap in who gets interrupted—have gotten better, and if the new rules helped. Tonja Jacobi is a Professor of Law…

Andrew Lawler: Lord Dunmore's Emancipation Proclamation

Andrew Lawler discusses his new book, “Perfect Frenzy: a Royal Governor, his Black Allies, and the Crisis That Spurred the American Revolution.” It is the story of the colony of Virginia on the eve of the American Revolution and Lord Dunmore, infamous British villain. But what is fact and what is fiction? Lord Dunmore issued the first Emancipation Proclamation and freed hundreds of slaves, but did he fire bomb Norfolk? What is certain is Dunmore ignited the passions of the Revolutionaries and…