Maurice Chammah says the unprecedented federal execution spree during the final weeks of the Trump presidency is evidence of the death penalty's continued decline, not its resurgence. The journalist is the author of the new book, Let the Lord Sort Them: The Rise and Fall of the Death Penalty. Chammah tracks the use and symbolism of the death penalty alongside the long arc of U.S history and the evolution of the criminal justice system.
In the latest episode of our podcast series, our host Juan Carlos Areán from Futures Without Violence speaks with Lisa Nitsch, Director of Training and Education at House of Ruth in Baltimore, and Tamaris Princi, Director of Abusive Partner Intervention Programs at the Urban Resource Institute in New York about holistic wraparound services for abusive partners. They address issues surrounding accountability, understanding the motives and needs of abusive partners, and centering survivor voices in developing these programs.
Homer Venters has been inspecting prisons, jails, and ICE detention centers for COVID-compliance almost since the start of the pandemic. The former chief medical officer for New York City jails says what were already substandard health systems and abusive environments have deteriorated sharply. Any fix to health care behind bars, he says, has to start with listening to the people these facilities have worked to silence: those with lived experience of the conditions.
Host Juan Carlos Areán from Futures Without Violence speaks with Aldo Seoane and Greg Grey Cloud, co-founders of Wica Agli, and Jeremy NeVilles-Sorell, the director of the National Native Coalition of Men’s Programs, about their abusive partner intervention program in South Dakota and their national work to improve safety and prevent domestic and sexual violence within the indigenous community.
Josie Duffy Rice says remaking the justice system is a generational struggle, but it's one progressives are winning. The well-known criminal justice commentator and activist, and president of the news site The Appeal, explains why she believes in the power of big ideas, and offers her take on the federal election, "defund the police," and the role of the media in promoting—or thwarting—change.
Juan Carlos Areán of Futures Without Violence leads a discussion on the importance of centering survivor voices in abusive partner intervention work both at the community-based and system level. They offer strategies to safely center survivor voices and experiences in the work, such as hosting multi-disciplinary case staffings, offering surrogate victim impact sessions, and including survivors in the curricula review and staff training processes.
Why do some young people carry guns? It's a difficult question to answer. People in heavily-policed neighborhoods with high rates of violence aren't generally enthusiastic about answering questions about guns. On New Thinking, hear from three of the authors of a year-long study we led into young people and guns. The findings are disturbing, but if the goal is to learn from marginalized communities themselves what help they need, no less important is the way the research was conducted.
Specialized domestic violence courts have shown promise in keeping victims safe, supporting offenders in changing their behavior, and repairing harm to individuals and communities. Some tribal communities have implemented these specialized courts and dockets to address the high rates of violence that Native women experience, oftentimes by non-Native perpetrators.
Neighborhoods impacted by high rates of gun violence also have the highest levels of reported domestic violence incidents. The RISE Project works to ensure community-based gun violence prevention efforts have more tools and resources to prevent and respond to intimate partner violence. On this episode of In Practice, the RISE team talks to Rob Wolf about the initiative and how it differs from a more conventional law enforcement approach.
The movement to reform prisons is almost as old as prisons themselves. But what is the ultimate goal of reform of a system like the criminal justice system? On our New Thinking podcast, Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law explain why they think many of today's most popular reforms are extending, rather than countering, the justice system's harmful effects. Their new book is Prison By Any Other Name.
