Shownotes
Background reading, guest details and extra info about episodes.
Episode 1
Defund, Refund, Reform: The Unsolved Problem of Police Violence
After the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in 2020, the call from protestors was to defund the police. Since then, media coverage of this debate has waned but the problem of police violence hasn't gone anywhere. Cait interviews a reformer and a "defunder" to unpack the arguments on both sides.
Interviewees:
Alex Vitale - Author of The End of Policing, professor of sociology at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center, visiting professor at London South Bank University, coordinator of the Policing and Social Justice Project.
Arthur Rizer - Conservative criminal justice consultant, adjunct professor at George Mason Law School, former soldier, police officer and federal prosecutor.
Artwork by:
Danielle Khoury
You can view her artwork here.
Music by:
Lexin Music from Pixabay
Sources:
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Prevalence of white supremacists in law enforcement - Reuters
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The public wants to refund not defund the police - Economist
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The politics of policing - Bloomberg
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Orlando 6-year-old arrested - New York Times
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Too much policing - academic paper by Jennifer Cobbina-Dungy
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Police killings, how does South Africa compare? - Mail & Guardian
The Prevent Duty requires teachers and other authority figures to report anyone who shows signs of radicalisation.
But critics say the policy is Islamaphobic and targets innocent people.
Episode 2
The Prevent Duty:
countering terror or terrorizing the innocent?
Interviewees:
Steven Greer - Professor of Human Rights at the University of Bristol Law School and visiting research fellow at the Oxford Institute for British Islam
John Holmwood - Professor of Sociology at the University of Nottingham and Co-chair of the People's Review of Prevent
Artwork by:
Danielle Khoury
You can view her artwork here.
Music by:
Lexin Music from Pixabay
Sources:
https://peoplesreviewofprevent.org/
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/podcasts/trojan-horse-affair.html
Drugs kill hundreds of thousands of people every year. The war on drugs hasn't resolved the problem. Could legalisation be the answer?
Episode 3
Legalise? Decriminalise? Ban? Getting to the Bottom of Drug Policy
Interviewees:
Dr Keith Scott - retired general practitioner and co-founder of the South African Drug Policy Initiative
Jonathan Caulkins - professor of public policy at Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz College and co-director at RAND's Drug Policy Research Center
Artwork by:
Danielle Khoury
You can view her artwork here.
Music by:
Lexin Music from Pixabay
Sources:
Against Excess, a book by Mark Kleiman
Good Cop, Bar War by Neil Woods
Dopesick - Television series based on the story of how Purdue precipitated the opioid epidemic. Available on Disney+ and Hulu
CNBC
Percentage of heroin users who become addicts.
Jama Network
South African Drug Policy Initiative
Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know by Mark Kleiman, Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken
Bonus episode: Can psychedelic therapy eradicate depression?
Medical trials suggest that psychedelics can have a profound impact on conditions like depression, anxiety, and PTSD.
I spoke to Ronan Levy, a pioneer in the psychedelic therapy industry, to find out more..
Interviewees:
Ronan Levy - CEO and Co-founder of Field Trip Health
https://www.fieldtriphealth.com/
Artwork by:
Danielle Khoury
You can view her artwork here.
Sources:
Research on MDMA-assisted treatment of PTSD
Scientific American
David Nutt’s study which scores alcohol as a more dangerous drug than heroin.
The Economist
The story of the girl who took 550 doses of LSD at once and says it cured her bipolar.
Vice
The quote from Dr Thomas Insel, former Director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), is:
“Recent data suggest that ketamine given intravenously may be the most important breakthrough in antidepressant treatment in decades.”
It looks like it appeared on the NIMH blog in 2014 but the page is no longer available. It is quoted in many places including here in The Guardian.
Coloradans did indeed vote to legalize psilocybin soon after this interview.
Read about it in Forbes.
Episode 4
The Abolitionist and
The Prison Warden
Prisons are supposed to protect, deter, and rehabilitate. But what if they're failing? Is there another option? Two guests offer two different visions of the prison system
re-imagined.
Interviewees:
Dr David Scott - Abolitionism activist and scholar at The Open University
Are Høidal - Senior advisor for the correctional services in Norway and former warden of Halden and Oslo Prisons
Artwork by:
Danielle Khoury
You can view her artwork here. You can view her artwork here.
Sources:
A World Without Prisons
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mMwrS30XT8
Statistics from the Prison Reform Trust (UK)
1 in 7 US prisoners are on a life sentence.
The Washington Post
US has the highest rates of life sentences
Aeon
Pew Research
Business Insider
The Radical Humaneness of Halden Prison
New York Times
Gov.uk
Harvard Politics
Online Learning College
Sage Publications
JENGba
Grassroots campaign against joint enterprise.
Ruth Gilmore (abolitionist and scholar) interview
New York Times
Episode 5
The Compassionate Prosecutor
Professor Mark Osler used to hand out heavy sentences for narcotics trafficking as a federal prosecutor. Now he helps prisoners petition for clemency. How's that for a plot twist?
In this episode we discuss:
- Whether the justice system can have an impact on drug use
- Why narcotics should be treated more like white collar crime
- The notion of compassionate prosecution.
Interviewees:
Professor Mark Osler
You can read his lengthy list of achievements here.
Or check out this profile from Rolling Stone.
Artwork by:
Danielle Khoury
You can view her artwork here.
Further reading/watching:
We Know How to Fix the Clemency Process. So Why Don't We?
New York Times opinion piece co-written by Osler.
Video with Rachel Barkow (Osler's colleague).
Scroll to the bottom of the page.
Why not treat drug crimes and white collar crimes?
An academic paper co-written by Osler
Episode 7
How to Police a Protest with Edward Maguire
The police have a duty to protect our right to protest while maintaining public safety. Too often they get the balance wrong.
Edward Maguire is a professor of criminology and criminal justice at Arizona State University and the author of a guidebook on policing protests safely.
He talks to Cait about crowd psychology, the history of protest policing, and his advice for police who take on these challenging events.
Interviewees:
Professor Edward Maguire
Prof of criminology and criminal justice at Arizona State University
and Director of the Public Safety Innovation Lab.
You can read more about him here.
Artwork by:
Danielle Khoury
You can view her artwork here.
Further reading:
Policing Protests: Lessons from The Occupy Movement, Ferguson and Beyond
By Edward Maguire and Megan Oakley
Available as a PDF here.
Episode 8
Protest policing in South
Africa
South Africa has been called 'the protest capital of the world' but it has also been the site of brutal protest policing - both pre and post the advent of democracy.
I spoke to Busisiwe Zasekhaya, formerly of Right2Protest, to understand the state of protest policing in the country.
Interviewees:
Busisiwe Zasekhaya
Former project co-ordinator at Right2Protest
Current co-ordinator at Climate Justice Coalition
Artwork by:
Danielle Khoury
You can view her artwork here.
Further reading: