Elizabeth Hinton along with several other esteemed academics and scholars recently agreed to serve as advisors for the Vanguard Carceral Journalism Guild. Ten incarcerated writers will be trained and platformed as part of the guild. Hinton is a Professor of History and African American Studies at Yale University and a Professor of Law at Yale Law School. She is the Co-Director of the Institute on Policing, Incarceration, and Public Safety at the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University, and the author of America on Fire: The Untold History of Police Violence and Black Rebellion Since the 1960’s (2021), and From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America (2016). Hinton talks with Everyday Injustice about the upcoming project and her role in it. As Hinton explains: “the Vanguard Carceral Journalism Guild is something that is completely one of a kind and that it's amplifying original on the ground reporting by people who reside in confinement.” She adds, “I think one of the things that's really exciting about it is that it's not just targeting people on the outside, but it's also seeking to inform and ground conversations and movements, ideas that are happening on the inside. “Because there are intentional barriers erected between people who reside in the carceral state and those of us who live outside of it. It's really hard to get a sense of what is going on. I think most people who aren't connected to people who are incarcerated have no idea the kinds of conditions that are maintained, have no idea the kinds of violence that structures the entire system in every iota and every form. Have no idea the kinds of human rights abuses that are happening and the politics that are happening, as well as the amazing initiatives, the self activity that's going on inside prisons.” Listen as Elizabeth Hinton discusses the importance of carceral journalism and what this project will mean.

This week on Everyday Injustice, we talk with Alissa Skog, who was lead author on the October report that found that nearly 2.5 million Californians are eligible to have their convictions automatically relieved under a little know law that allows for automatic expungement. “A criminal record can have profound and lasting impacts on people, affecting key areas of their life such as employment, parental rights, stable housing, access to safety-net benefits, and voting,” California Policy Lab noted. To address these “follow-on” punishments, the California legislature has enacted the most comprehensive automatic record relief laws in the country. Under these laws, all non-convictions (arrests that do not lead to a conviction), most misdemeanor convictions, and many low-level felony convictions are eligible for automatic relief after people complete their sentences and specified waiting periods. On Everyday Injustice, Alissa Skog discussed the upside of the law allowing people to get out from under collateral consequences of past convictions, but also some of the drawbacks including the lack of notifications. The report estimates the number of people likely to maintain a clean slate over the following five years.

In 2015, Jill Leovy wrote a book: Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America.” “Ghettoside,” a blend of street reporting and scholarship, introduced and elaborated the idea that high-crime communities are simultaneously under-policed and over-policed. It further broke ground by locating the causes of urban violence in problems of law, not in family structure, culture, psychological differences or other familiar scapegoats. “ Listen as Jill Leovy talks about her book nearly a decade later, talks about crime reporting and the problems of policing urban violence.

This week on Everyday Injustice we talked once again with Amika Mota of the Sister Warriors. This past election saw the defeat of Prop 6 which would have ended forced labor in carceral institutions. We also talked about the passage of Prop 36 which rolled back some of the criminal justice reforms under Prop 47. What went wrong from Amika’s perspective? What needs to be done differently in the future. On key point we agreed on – the need to uplift the stories of those impacted by the system to humanize them. Listen as Everyday Injustice and Amika Mota engage in a critical conversation about how to move forward.

In October, Jose Olivares, a 39-year-old man wrongfully incarcerated for 13 years in the death of his girlfriend’s son was released after a Los Angeles County judge vacated his conviction. Lawyers from two Innocence Projects and a unit of the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office had filed together to overturn his conviction. Olivares was arrested in 2011 following the tragic death of his girlfriend's almost four-year-old son from an accidental short fall. Dr. Judy Melinek, a renowned forensic pathologist, authored a report in 2023 after a thorough review at NCIP’s request, and stated that an accidental short fall was the “reasonable and likely explanation” for the decedent’s injuries. Everyday Injustice talks with Lauryn Barbosa Findley of the Northern California Innocence Project who worked to free Olivares. “Mr. Olivares’ case is both extraordinarily unique and tragically common because faulty medical testimony has been used for too long to convict far too many loving parents and caretakers,” said NCIP Clinical Supervising Attorney Lauryn Barbosa Findley. “The facts always showed that Mr. Olivares was innocent but the medicine needed time to catch up and prove it. We strongly urge the DA’s office to heed the medical evidence and not try him erroneously a second time.”

On October 10 and 11, San Quentin held its first ever Film Festival. 150 people from the outside, including Everyday Injustice, got to go inside San Quentin and hang out with around 100 or so incarcerated people, many of them intimately involved in the production of various films. Incarcerated Films competed with films submitted from the outside. One of the big winners was The Strike, which was a documentary about the hunger strike held over a decade ago against solitary confinement at Pelican Bay. A few days after the film, Everyday Injustice walked with the production team. Lucas Guilkey – Director/Producer of the The Strike JoeBill Muñoz – Director/Producer of The Strike Dolores Canales – Film protagonist, founder of CA Families Against Solitary Confinement, organizer on behalf of her son who was in solitary confinement during the hunger strikes Jack Morris – Film protagonist, spent over 30 years in solitary confinement, participated in the hunger strikes Article: https://davisvanguard.org/2024/10/the-strike-wins-first-san-quentin-film-festival-award-highlights-horrors-of-solitary-confinement-at-pelican-bay/ Listen as the production team walks us through the horrors of Pelican Bay’s SHUe during the hunger strike from 2014.

This week on Everyday Injustice we have a conversation with Louis Baca, who as a youth committed a murder and was sentenced to Life without Parole. Baca discusses how he came to commit a crime, and also how he has been able to address his childhood trauma and educate himself without any promise that he will ever get out. He talks about what we have learned about juvenile brain development and how California laws have slowly adapted to the science. Baca also discusses how he is giving back, helping other youths who are from a similar background and how he can back to the community even if he remains incarcerated.

On November 5, 2024, the California voters passed Prop 36 by an overwhelming margin, partially rolling back Prop 47 passed a decade ago. Everyday Injustice discusses with Sikander Iqbal of the Urban Peace Movement exactly what this means for California and the future of criminal justice reform. As Iqbal told us, a key factor in the passage of Prop 36 was the role of viral videos of smash and grabs - even though for the most part, such crimes would not be impacted by the change in law. Voters were repeatedly told that Prop 47 has hindered the prosecution of retail theft, even though California remains one of the tougher states in terms of the felony threshold for grand theft, and California’s crime rate has paralleled that of states without such criminal justice reform. Listen as Sikander Iqbal talks about the electoral defeats for criminal justice reform across California and how they bode for the future.

In July 2024, a woman died from a heat-related illness while incarcerated at the Central California Women's Facility (CCWF) in Chowchilla, California. According to California Coalition for Women Prisoners (CCWP), the woman's death was due to heat stroke and prison neglect. However, CDCR claims the cause was related to pre-existing health conditions. Elizabeth Nomura, state membership organizer for the CCWP told the Guardian, “I’ve had heatstroke before [while incarcerated] and I know what it feels like to be so dehydrated that you can’t see. They are sitting in a room, toasting in what feels like an oven. They’re all suffering.” Everyday Injustice talked to Amika Mota of Sister Warriors. Mota told everyday injustice that while the Chowchilla has swamp coolers that are meant to lower temperatures and fans, they weren’t working properly. As extreme heat increases with Climate Change, this figures to become an even larger problem. The Sister Warriors are a member-led organization of over 5,000 formerly and currently incarcerated and systems-impacted women and trans people of all genders, founded in 2017 at a convening of over 200 systems-impacted people in Oakland. “We improve conditions for women and trans people of all genders by fighting for – and winning – policies and systems change that center the needs and experiences of communities most impacted by systems of exploitation, criminalization, and incarceration throughout the state.” The answer that Mota offers isn’t better cooling systems – though they are needed – it is fewer incarcerated people.

This week on Everyday Injustice we talk to McCracken Poston about the story behind Zenith Man - Death, Love, and Redemption in a Georgia Courtroom. Poston, was a four term member of the Georgia House of Representatives who got caught up in the shift of Georgia Politics and lost a bid for the US Congress. Poston found himself representing a most unusual client - a man once revered as a natural TV repairman who had also suffered several downfalls, including being accused of holding his wife captive in their basement for almost three decades before killing her. When Alvin Ridley’s wife was discovered dead in her home, residents of the small town of Ringgold, GA assumed the recluse, hoarder, and odd figure naturally murdered her. Poston tells us the story behind the case and the man, Alvin Ridley.

This week Everyday Injustice talks with Kevin Cosney, the Associate Director and Co-Founder of the California Black Power Network. The CA Black Power Network is a united ecosystem of Black grassroots organizations working together to change the lived conditions of Black Californians by dismantling systemic and anti-Black racism. They have launched the Million Voters Project - a multi-racial, multigenerational coalition made up of nine community-driven state and regional networks, will launch the largest field campaign in the state to get out the vote for the November 5th election. Cosney talks about their efforts to mobilize for Prop 5 which they believe “will help local cities and counties meet the demand for affordable housing and kick start public improvement projects like schools, libraries, parks, transportation and water resources.” At the same time, they are attempting to stop Prop 36, an initiative they say “will eliminate vital mental health services and crime prevention programs approved by California voters a decade ago.” Regarding Prop 36, James Woodson, executive director of California Black Power Network, and MVP steering committee member says, “Proposition 36 is a lie. It will increase our prison and jail population and take away funding for mental health services, trauma recovery centers, youth programs, rehabilitation, and treatment, programs that are proven to promote community safety. That is why we are turning out our communities to vote No on Proposition 36.