Advertise on podcast: New Thinking, from the Center for Justice Innovation

Born out of the HIV-AIDS epidemic, harm reduction began as a scrappy, drug-user-led movement with an ethos entirely opposed to the War on Drugs. Almost 50 years on, it's moving—quietly—from the margins to the mainstream.

The justice system is awash in purported AI solutions—for everything from prisons to courtrooms. But how do we separate AI’s real promise from the hype? And how do we ensure the technology helps, rather than sets back, the cause of fairness and justice? Roy Austin, Jr., is the former Vice President of Civil Rights at the tech giant, Meta. He was also a prominent official in the Department of Justice under President Obama. He now heads up the Howard Law Artificial Intelligence Initiative. “We have this fantasy that there is a neutral in this world and that’s what we are aiming for,” Austin says. “But there is no neutral.” Full show notes Follow the new AI and Justice Consortium Learn more about the Center for Justice Innovation’s work on AI and the justice system

Emily Galvin Almanza says, for the most part, the criminal justice system has only one setting: punishment. But punishment isn’t safety. It isn’t even accountability. Galvin Almanza makes that case in her new book, The Price of Mercy: Unfair Trials, a Violent System, and a Public Defender’s Search for Justice in America. But the book isn’t only about problems; it’s also about solutions. “We don’t have to fall prey to the worst aspects of our history,” contends Galvin Almanza. “We can build something better.” Full show notes

This is a story, not so much of forgiveness, but of something richer, more complicated, and even more deeply human.

Vicarious trauma is the trauma you absorb working with traumatized people, especially when you’re both inside of already traumatizing systems. Treatment not jail, diversion from harmful system-contact… Making justice reform work on the ground relies on an abundance of frontline staff: from mental health counsellors to peer mentors. But many of those staff, at our organization and at others like us, are hurting: navigating human suffering—trauma—on all sides. Full show notes

What is probation—and the ethos of drug testing that is at its heart—actually testing?

Hear from the winner of this year's Inside Literary Prize, the first major U.S. book award to be judged exclusively by people who are incarcerated.

A behind-the-scenes portrait of a day of judging for the Inside Literary Prize, the first major U.S. book award judged exclusively by people who are incarcerated.

"Even in the clients we serve, anti-Blackness is the reason why they show up in harmful ways in the community."

Morgan Godvin was at the frontlines of Oregon's decriminalization fight. She says progress towards a health-based approach to drug use "has fallen prey to fear-based policy."

Vincent Schiraldi used to run probation in New York City; now he’s asking whether probation should even exist. Schiraldi says some of the roots of mass supervision—and its connection to mass incarceration—can be found in a surprising place: the Supreme Court’s 1963 Gideon decision. It recognized, but failed to adequately support, a poor person’s right to a lawyer. Hear the final episode in our “Gideon at 60” series. Full show notes

A profile of the fight to secure lawyers for people facing eviction and the radical impact that is having in Housing Court. With its 1963 Gideon decision, the Supreme Court guaranteed a lawyer to any poor person facing prison time. For criminal cases, the decision was both sweeping and critically incomplete. On the civil side, the campaign for a right-to-counsel is taking a different approach—it’s slow and piecemeal, but it’s also working. This is the second episode in our series on the legacy of the Gideon decision. Hear the first episode here. Full show notes

Sixty years on from a landmark Supreme Court decision, how can public defenders organize for genuine change?

Rather than arrests and incarceration, what do young people who commit harm actually need?

A recent training for Manhattan prosecutors was a drumbeat on the harms of incarceration; hardly the typical message prosecutors receive. It was part of a wider effort by D.A. Alvin Bragg to expand the use of alternatives such as treatment and restorative justice. But in a newly-cramped climate for criminal justice reform, can that effort become a reality?