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PODCAST

The Appeal

The Appeal is a podcast, hosted by Adam Johnson, on criminal justice reform, abolition and everything in between. Each week we will feature fascinating interviews with those covering, working in, and most affected by the American criminal system; from lawyers to activists to reporters to the formerly incarcerated. The Appeal will unpack the latest efforts to shine a light on––and radically rethink––the largest prison state in the world.

news & politics national

All Episodes

27:22

Episode 26: The Power of Sheriffs

The Appeal ·

2019/01/10

In the past few years, criminal justice reformers have focused on city police departments and prosecutors. What might be gained from focusing on sheriffs' departments? Sheriffs wield a tremendous amount of power in our criminal justice system but largely fly under the radar. Often running on tough on crime platforms, once elected, they are largely unaccountable to city councils and other elected officials. Appeal writer Jessica Pishko has recently written an explainer on the subject, and joins to

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22:12

Episode 25: How Some Cities Are Fighting Back Against...

The Appeal ·

2018/12/13

With the swearing in of President Trump in January 2017 came an aggressive rightward shift in America’s immigration policy, specifically with regard to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Our guest, Appeal senior reporter Debbie Nathan, has been documenting how municipalities throughout the United States, especially those in deep red Texas, are pushing back using everything from mass protests to direct action to lawsuits.

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22:49

Episode 24: BLM Four Years On - Racism in the...

The Appeal ·

2018/12/06

It's been over four years since the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO and the issue of racism in the criminal legal system remains as stark and urgent as ever. Our guest, professor at American University College of Law, Appeal contributor and author, Angela J. Davis, recently edited an anthology on race and the US criminal system called 'Policing the Black Man' that lays out, in no uncertain terms, just how wide the gap is between the experiences of white and black Americans in everything

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19:58

Episode 23: The Pseudoscience behind Forensic Science

The Appeal ·

2018/11/29

We’ve watched the scene play out in countless police dramas: slick scientific experts with the latest gadgets and technology finding the Bad Guys with forensic pattern matching: Bite marks, fingerprints, a marking on a fired bullet or handwriting on a note. But how scientific are these methods? And how much do prosecutors and judges wildly oversell their reliability? This week, we are joined by Jessica Brand, Legal Director at The Justice Collaborative and Appeal contributor to discuss some of the

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33:42

Episode 22: The Dangers of Faux-Reform

The Appeal ·

2018/11/15

“Criminal justice reform” as a general label has become trendy in recent years and, for many prospective Presidential candidates it will be a major 2020 litmus test. But what do people mean when they use the term? What are the policies being advanced and what are some of the dangers of surface-level reformist language unattached to specific, activist-led initiatives? This week, we are joined by The Appeal’s Josie Duffy Rice to discuss how one can separate real reform from the dangers or

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19:03

Episode 20: Neglect and Abuse in Our Prison...

The Appeal ·

2018/11/01

Most people know that the healthcare situation in the United States is one of most precarious in the world, but what’s never talked about is the status of healthcare for America’s 2.2 million incarcerated persons––which is lightyears worse. One prison in particular, Angola in Louisiana, rates at the very bottom of even this group, with mortality rates almost double the national average for prisons. Our guest, Mercedes Montagnes of the Promise of Justice Initiative, is a lawyer helping people

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21:29

Episode 19: Prison Strikes and the Frontlines of...

The Appeal ·

2018/10/25

This fall, thousands of incarcerated people in dozens of states went on strike to protest harsh and exploitative conditions in America's prisons. Prisons, and the cruel conditions they foster, are often the last thing with which the public wants to be confronted about. But incarcerated people throughout the country are using the only leverage they have—their personal labor—to force the issue. Our guest, Appeal staff reporter Raven Rakia, joins us to talk about these efforts and what the future holds

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27:36

Episode 18: How Activists Brought Down the Most...

The Appeal ·

2018/10/11

Two pieces of news have rocked Chicago: the announcement by Mayor Rahm Emanuel that he will not seek a third term and the conviction of a white police officer, Jason Van Dyke, of the killing of a black teenager, Laquan McDonald. Both events were the result of years of activism, work that often goes unseen and unsung. This week's guest, writer Kelly Hayes, talks about the lessons Chicago holds for activists throughout the country.

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16:06

Episode 17: The Cruelty of Life Sentences For Proxy...

The Appeal ·

2018/10/04

The United States is alone in the world in pursuing two modes of prosecution: giving life sentences to children under 18, and giving life sentences for murder to people who never murdered anyone. Even if one doesn’t pull any trigger, or even have prior knowledge of a crime, they can be treated as if they are a murderer--if a killing occurs pursuant an underlying felony like robbery or carjacking. Appeal contributor Katie Rose Quandt joins us to discusses why felony murder laws are unjust and how

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25:19

Episode 16 - Police Accountability: As Elusive as Ever

The Appeal ·

2018/09/27

“Police accountability” is a term that gets thrown around a lot in conversations about criminal justice reform. But how do we make sure police officers who break laws or department rules are held to account? The reality––even four years after Ferguson––is that little progress has been made in creating structures that discipline police officers for bad behavior. Our guest, Appeal reporter George Joseph, has been doing deep dives into police discipline in cities across America. The findings? A system

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32:32

Episode 15: On the Ground in Dallas' High Stakes DA Race

The Appeal ·

2018/09/20

This week we're doing the first of a recurring series on how activists and organizers on the ground are trying to move the needle with regard to District Attorney races. Our first installment: Dallas County. An appointed conservative DA, Faith Johnson, has flown mostly under the radar in the notoriously red state as activists there, including our three guests–Dominique Walker of ACLU Texas, Reverend Edwin Robinson of Faith in Texas, and Joe Estelle of The Texas Organizing Project––have been working

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34:03

Episode 14: The Prison-to-School Pipeline

The Appeal ·

2018/09/13

You’ve likely heard of the school-to-prison pipeline, but what you likely haven’t heard is the prison-to-school pipeline––efforts in recent years to help the incarcerated and formerly incarcerated receive a quality education. Our guest, activist and educator Danny Murillo, has been spearheading such initiatives for over five years. After spending 14 years in Pelican Bay supermax prison he co-founded the Underground Scholars Initiative at University California Berkeley which is dedicated to making

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33:26

Episode 13: The Problem of 'Innocence'

The Appeal ·

2018/09/06

'He was a straight-A student', 'a loving husband', 'she worked 60 hours a week'––we often hear how victims of police and white supremacist violence didn't deserve to be killed due to their shiny records. But what if this is the totally wrong approach to discussing violence visited upon oppressed communities? Our guest, Appeal contributor Zoé Samudzi, argues that the notion of “innocence” as a condition for empathy is an outdated, puritan mode of thinking that implies those with messy, so-called

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21:50

Episode 12: Why Electronic Monitoring Is Not Prison...

The Appeal ·

2018/08/16

As prison reform efforts begin to have an effect on how many people end up behind bars, a reliance on electronic monitoring increasingly serves as a pseudo-solution to keep people out of cement and steel cages––by putting them into electronic ones. Our guest, Appeal contributor Kira Lerner, talks about the moral hazards presented by this approach and why it’s important prison reform efforts expand beyond cement walls to include those composed of house arrest and monitoring technologies.

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29:21

Episode 11: Big Box Retailers and Prosecutors Team Up...

The Appeal ·

2018/08/09

Shoplifting is traditionally seen as a petty crime unworthy of serious punishment, much less prison time. But under an increasingly popular theory of crime, DA's––with the help of retail lobbyists––are throwing the book at people for stealing as little as $39 worth of goods, claiming they burgled a public store. Our guest, Appeal contributor Jessica Pishko, discusses this punitive trend and what public defenders are doing to push back.

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28:11

Episode 10: Race and Corruption in Child Protection...

The Appeal ·

2018/08/02

State child protective courts are an under-reported element of our criminal legal system, but their impact on communities of color and the poor is felt as much, if not more, than other aspects of it. One case, that of the Hart family, caught national attention after a seemingly "normal" white couple adopted African-American children taken from the mother by a corrupt and likely racist judge in Texas––only to end in a grisly murder-suicide. Our guest, Appeal contributor Roxanna Asgarian, joins us to

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26:23

Episode 9: The History––and Promise––of the Bail...

The Appeal ·

2018/07/26

1 in 5 people incarcerated in this country have not been convicted of any wrongdoing. Their crime? Being poor in a country that tethers pre-trial freedom to one's wealth. In this episode we discuss with journalist Bryce Covert emerging efforts––from New York to New Orleans to Chicago––to bond people out of jail as both a temporary form of relief, and a long term strategy of undoing the cash bail system entirely.

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47:25

Episode 8: The Racist Zeal of 'Zero Tolerance' and...

The Appeal ·

2018/07/19

By now you've probably heard of the family separation crisis at the US-Mexico border. What you may not know is how exactly we got to this tipping point. On today's show we talk with Appeal writer Max Rivlin-Nadler, who's been following President Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions's ramped up "zero tolerance" approach to immigration. While President Obama had harsh immigration policies as well, Trump's approach goes much further––animated by a toxic mixture of racism, for-profit incarceration,

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31:32

Episode 7: What Abolitionists Mean When They Talk...

The Appeal ·

2018/07/12

We didn't always have police and prisons as we know them today—in fact, they're fairly recent inventions. Abolitionists like William C. Anderson ask us to radically rethink the necessity of police, and our practice of throwing people in cages. Anderson traces the origins of modern punishment from slavery to debt peonage to Jim Crow to the co-called War on Drugs.

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23:06

Episode 6: The Unique Cruelty of Sentencing Children...

The Appeal ·

2018/06/28

Despite recent Supreme Court rulings curtailing the practice, the United States remains the only country on earth that enforces life without parole sentences for crimes committed when they were minors. Our guest, Victoria Law, explains efforts by prosecutors in Louisiana to continue keeping dozens of men, most of them Black, in state prison for crimes committed when they were 16, 17 years old in the 1960s and 1970s––typifying a prosecutorial ethos of punishment for punishment's sake.

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