70 Million

Currently, over 7 million people are under some form of carceral supervision in the United States–from custody to bail to probation. For our final episode, 70 Million reporter Mark Betancourt moderates a conversation about the role we, the public, play in creating and sustaining the matrix of incarceration as it exists today. He’s joined by Cornell professor Peter K. Enns, author of the book Incarceration Nation: How the United States Became the Most Punitive Democracy in the World, and Insha Rahman, Vice President of advocacy and partnerships at the Vera Institute.

Find a resource guide and annotated transcript at our website here.

The commercial bail bond industry is privatized, consolidated – and estimated to be worth $2.4 billion dollars. People arrested in a state like California, the most expensive place to post bail, often end up in cycles of carceral debt that derail their lives. Reporter Sonia Paul follows one woman’s story – and talks to the organizers, politicians, and experts advocating for bail reform.

Find a resource guide and annotated transcript at our website here.

School resource officers are often called upon in middle and high schools to help with routine discipline. But for many children, especially those with disabilities, a law enforcement response to their behavior can lead to the school-to-prison pipeline. Reporter Claire McInerny tells one family’s story in Texas.

Find a resource guide and annotated transcript at our website here.

For four decades, testimony from jailhouse informants has been the source of public scandal in criminal cases across the U.S. Research shows juries find these witnesses credible, even when they know informants benefit from their cooperation with prosecutors. The impact of this practice is hard to calculate. Reporter Rhana Natour looks at critical cases in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and California, to shed light on the issue.

Find a resource guide and annotated transcript at our website here.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the city of Los Angeles moved thousands of unhoused people into hotel rooms. The program, called Project Roomkey, was a temporary safety net during the national health emergency. But participants soon nicknamed it “Project No Key” because they felt more incarcerated than housed. Reporter Mark Betancourt chronicles their experience in part two of our series on how homelessness is criminalized.

 Find a resource guide and annotated transcript at our website here.

In Los Angeles, thousands of people who live outside have to navigate the insecurities caused by homelessness, the ire of housed neighbors, and the city penalizing them for their circumstances. In one park, months of efforts to remove unhoused people culminated in a showdown with police. Reporter Mark Betancourt investigates in this episode, part one of a two-part series about the criminalization of homelessness.

Find a resource guide and annotated transcript at our website here.

Grand juries are supposed to safeguard against the government charging people with a crime when it lacks sufficient evidence. But because prosecutors control what happens in grand jury proceedings, they almost always get an indictment. That is, unless the accused is a police officer. Reporter Mark Betancourt explores a case of police brutality in Dallas that evaporated after going before a grand jury.

Find a resource guide and annotated transcript at our website here.

In Brookside, Alabama, an eager new police chief, unsuspecting motorists, and a state-mandated loophole converged to create a nightmare for local residents—and generate piles of cash for the local government. Reporter Rhana Natour has the story.

Find a resource guide and annotated transcript at our website here.

The US Constitution guarantees a right to trial to anyone accused of a crime, but less than 3 percent of criminal defendants get a trial. Instead, they’re regularly cornered into pleading guilty, sometimes admitting to a crime they didn’t commit. Reporter Mark Betancourt retraces one innocent man’s legal ordeal to explain why this happens. 

Find a resource guide and annotated transcript at our website here.

Weeks before the 2022 midterm elections, 70 Million creator and executive producer Juleyka Lantigua digs into the subject of criminal justice reform with three candidates from different parts of the country: Maxwell Alejandro Frost, Carolyn “Jiyoung” Park, and Durham County District Attorney, Satana DeBerry. All three spotlight inequities in policing and the courts, and call out areas in need of serious reform in the criminal justice system.

Find a resource guide and annotated transcript at our website here.

Looking back over five seasons, we’re so thankful to you, our listeners, for believing in this work, for sharing the episodes, and for including our reporting in your own work. Season 5 builds on the legacy of this Peabody Award-nominated podcast with fresh in-depth reporting and our characteristic rich narrative storytelling. This time we start with a thesis: the entire criminal justice system is rigged, top to bottom. Each episode goes deep into how local, regional, state and federal players tilt the scales of justice to benefit the powerful and suppress the powerless. 

Find more information—including transcripts and resource guides—and catch up on our past four seasons here.

A year ago, Oregon became the first state to decriminalize drug possession. The goal is to reverse some of the negative impacts of the War on Drugs by approaching drug use from a health-centered basis. We visit an addiction and recovery center in Portland that’s gearing up for what they hope will be an influx of people seeking treatment. Reported by Cecilia Brown.

Find a resource guide and annotated transcript at our website here.

Texas conservative lawmakers and bail reform advocates have long debated what bail reform can look like for those who cannot afford to bail themselves out of jail. Journalist Andrea Henderson looks closely at a new bail law some activists consider a setback. 

Find a resource guide and annotated transcript at our website here.

Police encounters during a mental health crisis have a greater chance of turning deadly if you're Black. New response mechanisms bypass law enforcement and result in helpful interventions. Reporter Jeneé Darden looks at how folks in Northern California are trying to reimagine crisis response services. 

Find a resource guide and annotated transcript on our website here.

Many organizers in St. Louis have given up on reforming the criminal legal system. Now, they’re working to abolish it. And they’re starting with the closure of one notorious jail. To reach their goal, they’ve decided to get involved in electoral politics. Reporter Chad Davis takes a look at what happens when you go from agitating from the outside to working with those in power. Co-reported with Carolina Hidalgo.

Find a resource guide and annotated transcript at our website here.

A legal matrix that incentivizes criminal convictions can motivate unethical prosecutors to bend or break the rules. In New York, a group of law professors is trying to curb that by pushing the system to discipline its own. Reported by Nina Sparling.

Find a resource guide and annotated transcript at our website here.

We wanted to see what has happened since we first reported on mental health interventions for arrestees in Miami, how the "bond angels" save lives in New Orleans, and what the digital police surveillance network called Project Greenlight has meant for Detroit. Reported by Danny Rivero, Eve Abrams and Sonia Paul. 

Find a resource guide and annotated transcript at our website here.

This special roundtable of experts looks at how policing and incarceration practices are impacting COVID-19 rates in BIPOC communities around the country. 

Because being jailed means an increased risk of getting COVID-19, those released might unknowingly bring the virus home, putting their loved ones and communities at risk. Our editor, Jen Chien, moderates the conversation with Nicole Lewis, senior editor of the jurisprudence section at Slate Magazine, Eric Reinhart, medical anthropologist, psychoanalyst and resident physician at Northwestern University, and Alicia Virani, former public defender and current professor at UCLA School of Law. Produced by Lisa Bartfai.

Find a resource guide and annotated transcript at our website here.

Nearly one in two Black women in the US have a loved one who has been impacted by our carceral system. Many become de facto civilian experts as a result. Some rise to lead as outside catalysts for change. And now, scores of Black women are joining the ranks—as officers of the court, police, judges—to manage and advance a system that has had such an outsized impact on their lives. Reported by Pamela Kirkland.

Find a resource guide and annotated transcript at our website here.

The saying goes that “justice delayed is justice denied.” One part of Illinois’ judicial system has had an outsized role in delaying justice for decades: the Cook County Clerk of the Circuit Court. Home to Chicago, Cook County’s court system is massive, with more than a dozen courthouses generating millions of records. And in the records disarray, residents were mired in years-long delays that cost them time and opportunities. Reported by Mark Betancourt.

Find a resource guide and annotated transcript at our website here.

There’s a place in rural St. Johns, Arizona, where teens who have encounters with officers of the law can play pool, make music, and get mentored instead of going to jail. It’s called The Loft, and it’s the brainchild of a judge who wanted to save the county hundreds of millions of dollars and divert young people towards the support many were not getting at home. Reported by Ruxandra Guidi.

Find a resource guide and annotated transcript at our website here.

Peabody Award-nominated  podcast 70 Million is coming back for our fourth season! Join us for more in-depth reporting and rich narrative storytelling from communities impacted by the carceral complex. We'll bring you updates from previous seasons and new dispatches from the frontlines of criminal legal system reform.  First episode launches September 13, 2021.

Find more information—including transcripts and resource guides—and catch up on our past three seasons here.

When jails across the country began releasing thousands of people amid the COVID-19 outbreak earlier this year, and mass demonstrations against police brutality brought millions out of their homes, criminal reform advocates wondered if they'd finally see significant and lasting reform. Journalist Renata Sago reports on two Florida jails that are having very different responses to the possibility of change.

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Our friends at Future Hindsight just launched Season 12!  Future Hindsight is a weekly podcast that aims to spark civic engagement through in-depth conversations with citizen changemakers. Season 12 is full of thought-provoking, visionary and practical ideas that help us reimagine our future in a post pandemic and post Trump world. It covers everything from needing to be civically engaged all the time––which is to say in between elections––to education, policing our communities, and having the courage to think big when it comes to rebuilding our economy. Every episode of Future Hindsight explores how each one of us has the power to shape our society and fulfill our shared civic responsibility. 

+Subscribe to Future Hindsight on Apple Podcast

+Visit Future Hindsight's website.

In California, so-called quality of life laws criminalize panhandling, living in cars, and blocking sidewalks. Reporter Sarah McClure chronicles how arresting homeless individuals entangles them in a cycle of poverty and incarceration—and how three groups are breaking the cycle.

This episode talks about some troubling details, which involve gun violence. Some listeners may find it disturbing. 

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In Alaska, rising violent crime and substance abuse across the state have also increased incarceration rates among Native Americans. Making use of their legal sovereignty, some Alaska Native leaders issue “blue tickets,” documents that sentence offenders to legal expulsion. Journalist Emily Schwing reports on the consequences and cultural impact of banishment from Toksook Bay.

Special thanks to Vanessa Lincoln for simultaneous interpretation and transcription for this episode.

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Sean Wesley knew he had Hepatitis C when he started serving his prison sentence in Louisiana, and spent years trying to get treatment. Despite an innovative arrangement between a drug manufacturer and the state's Department of Corrections, he was transferred from facility to facility, and even finished his sentence, without ever receiving proper care. Reporter Xander Adams looks into why.

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Over the past few years, voters across the U.S.have elected prosecutors who promised to implement much-needed criminal justice reforms, from decriminalizing marijuana to ending cash bail. Journalist Ruxandra Guidi revisits her reporting on the election of a new prosecutor in Houston two years ago, and chronicles how activists, relatives of incarcerated people, and local residents are changing strategies and pushing for reform.

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From DCP Entertainment, "Say Their Name" is a documentary series that focuses on the assault and killing of unarmed Black people by police and in ‘Stand Your Ground’ states. It highlights incidents throughout the United States, memorializing these individuals through the words of the people that knew them best and helping us understand the aftermath for their families and communities, long after the headlines and hashtags have moved on.

+Subscribe to Say Their Name on Apple Podcasts.

+Visit the Say Their Name website to learn more about their crowdfunding campaign and the Say Their Name Memorial Fund.

Kirsten made her way out of jail and addiction with the help of a special court on the Penobscot Nation reservation in Maine. There, culture and justice work together to bypass traditional punitive measures for more restorative ones. Reporter Lisa Bartfai visits the Healing to Wellness Court to see how it all works.

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The Trump administration has issued numerous policies to systematically dismantle asylum as a legal right. They're also locking up asylum seekers for months or years, until they either win their case, are returned to their home countries, or self deport. Reporters Valeria Fernández and Jude Joffe-Block follow two asylum seekers as they endure detention, legal cases, and family separation in the US, where they sought refuge.

Thank you to Maria and Ansly for sharing their stories with us.  

This episode discusses troubling details, involving violence. Some listeners may find it disturbing.  

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Reporter Sonia Paul takes us to Detroit, where 80% of residents are Black, and examines the tools, models and methods changing the nature of policing in the city — from the rise of live-streamed surveillance to facial recognition technology. She investigates their impact on residents, and implications for overpoliced communities of color across the country.

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A year ago, Illinois passed a law requiring all jails to ensure that pre-trial detainees have an opportunity to vote. Chicago’s Cook County Jail was turned into a polling place during the 2019 primaries. Sheriff Tom Dart is an enthusiastic supporter of the program. And advocates like Amani Sawari are working to ensure voters in custody are informed and prepared to vote in the upcoming election. Pamela Kirkland reports.

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James Howard III was arrested this spring and sent to Chicago’s Cook County Jail a few weeks into the state's coronavirus lockdown. Crowded, unsanitary, and with little means of social distancing, the single-site jail experienced a rapid outbreak of COVID-19. Mark Betancourt reports on the unprecedented steps officials took to control the outbreak, and the urgent attempts of families to keep their loved ones safe.

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We produced something beautiful for Macmillan Podcasts!! Introducing Driving the Green Book, a ten-part documentary series premiering September 15. Follow award-winning BBC broadcaster Alvin Hall as he retraces many of the locations featured in the historic travel guide. From Detroit to New Orleans, Hall takes us on an immersive audio journey, collecting powerful, personal testimony about how Black Americans used the Green Book to travel with dignity during the height of segregation. New episodes every Tuesday. Subscribe today!

+Subscribe to Driving the Green Book on Apple Podcasts.

+Visitthe  Driving the Green Book website to explore the Apple maps guides to the show, music playlists, transcripts and more.

We're back! Now as an award-winning and Peabody Award nominated podcast. Thank you for listening and sharing us. For two years we've documented criminal justice reform—one jail and one story at a time. In season 3, we travel the country exploring how our changing reality is impacting those in custody and the policies that keep them there. We're going to dig deeper, from the spread of COVID-19 in jails, to police depending on private companies that offer new surveillance and facial recognition technology, to efforts at making voting from jail feasible.  

Visit 70MillionPod.com for annotated transcripts, tool kits, and more resources. 

Editors: Phyllis Fletcher and Laura Flynn

Lead Producer and Sound Designer: Cedric Wilson

Host: Mitzi Miller

Production Assistant: Emma Forbes

Managing Producer: Virginia Lora

Lead Fact-checker: Sarah McClure

Contributor Fact-checker: Ryan Katz

Staff Writer: Laura Tillman

Photo Editor: Michelle Baker

Marketing Lead: Leslie Datsis

Creator & Executive Producer: Juleyka Lantigua-Williams

70 Million is made possible by a grant from the Safety and Justice Challenge at The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Drug felony charges have more than doubled in Colorado as the state faces an opioid crisis. Jail admissions are on the rise in some counties. While diversion efforts are proving effective in others. But jails have also become “the dumping ground” for people with mental illness who are arrested. We visit one county that wants to use it’s jail less and one county that just built a state-of-the-art one to see how the two approaches are working out. 

Please take our Listener Survey to tell us what you think about 70 Million and help us shape the future of the show!

After someone is arrested, there are multiple court-ordered actions after they make bail. Often, missing any of these--especially court appearances--complicates their situation and increases their punishment. Reporter Jenny Casas goes to Palm Beach, Florida, where something as simple as texting has made a significant difference in people’s lives.

If you haven’t already listened to Part 1 of this story, we suggest you do that first.

In 2013, the Texas Jail Project gets a call from Bonnie Wyndham -- a mother whose daughter, Cat, is pregnant behind bars and not getting the medical care TJP has been fighting to guarantee. In this episode, we hear Cat’s story. Plus, nearly 15 years after their chance meeting in the Victoria County Jail helped launch the TJP, our reporter Rowan Moore Gerety brings Shandra Williams and founder Diane Wilson together.

Shandra Williams had experienced five miscarriages by the time she and her husband Dawayne became pregnant with their son. Then she was arrested. Reporter Rowan Moore Gerety travels to Victoria, Texas, where Williams’ harrowing story of being pregnant behind bars unknowingly launched a reform movement.

Comedian Felonious Munk was among the 13,000 formerly incarcerated people whose voting rights Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe restored in 2018. 70 Million creator Juleyka Lantigua-Williams talks with Munk about the years he spent in prison, the shock of losing his freedom, and his crusade for sensible justice reform.  

At 17, Mark Denny was wrongfully convicted of a rape and robbery in Brooklyn. It took nearly 30 years for that conviction to be overturned -- and it might never have happened without help from the same office that prosecuted him. Reporter Sabine Jansen tells the story of the Brooklyn Conviction Review Unit, the DAs who re-investigate their colleagues’ work, and the collaboration that finally set an innocent man free. 

Five years after Michael Brown’s death at the hands of a police officer galvanized criminal justice reform activists in St. Louis, they're gaining serious momentum to shut down the city's notorious Workhouse jail. Reporter Carolina Hidalgo spent time with the Close the Workhouse campaign and Arch City Defenders, their supporters, and detractors.

UPDATE:
July 2020:  The St. Louis Board of Aldermen unanimously voted to pass a bill which provides for the closure of the Workhouse by the end of 2020.  The bill defunds and closes the Workhouse, and it puts the money saved toward community services in neighborhoods impacted by years of disinvestment and incarceration.

As of this week, our second season is a Peabody Awards nominee!!  Reporters who take a closer look at communities and programs trying bold solutions to solve big problems in criminal justice. (70 Million is made possible by a grant from the Safety and Justice Challenge at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.)

Reporters who take a closer look at communities and programs trying bold solutions to solve big problems in criminal justice. Hear stories about cash bail reform, overturning wrongful convictions, and more from folks who make up the 70 million US adults with a criminal record and whose lives touch our own. (70 Million is made possible by a grant from the Safety and Justice Challenge at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.)

This episode is a special collaboration with Miami’s WLRN radio station, whose reporters Nadege Green and Daniel Rivero report on the county’s Criminal Mental Health Project which has been instrumental in diverting mentally ill people away from jail. They meet the judge to started the program and see how counselors, peer specialists, and officers are focusing on treatment and services rather than arrests.

Like in much of the country, jails in Miami-Dade County double as de facto mental health facilities for people with mental health issues cycling through the criminal justice system. But Miami-Dade’s Criminal Mental Health Project has taken the lead in addressing the needs of this population. Now it is a national model for how to tackle the interplay between mental illness and criminal justice, while driving down recidivism and jailing rates in the process. This episode is a special collaboration with Miami’s WLRN radio station, whose reporters Nadege Green and Daniel Rivero meet the judge who started the program and see how counselors, peer specialists, and officers are focusing on treatment and services rather than arrests.