Episode Description
We're back with a question that sounds obvious until you say it out loud: if you're picking a North Star… why is "more prisons" anywhere on the map?
This week, Nora and Marcus wade through the usual dystopian fog and land in L.A., where a blockbuster social media trial is screaming in 4K: "Yes. The harm. Is the business model." Not a glitch. Silicon Valley said, "Move fast and break things," and we're like, "Cool, you broke our kids' brains."
Then enter Emily Galvin Almanza (Partners for Justice) and her new book The Price of Mercy, which is part courtroom drama, part myth-busting masterclass, part polite society intervention. Emily brings lived experience, legal receipts, and the kind of clarity that makes you sit up straighter. She walks us through how people get criminalized before they're even arrested, how poverty itself becomes probable cause. How bail is basically a "pay-to-sleep-in-your-own-bed" subscription service. (Premium tier: freedom. Ads included.) And how plea deals are engineered so aggressively that "choice" becomes less a right and more a hostage negotiation with your own future.
Mentioned in the episode:
See Emily Galvin Almanza at Town Hall Seattle Saturday Feb 21 | Follow Emily: @galvinalmanza | The Price of Mercy: Unfair Trials, a Violent System, and a Public Defender's Search for Justice in America | Partners for Justice | Dads on Duty | Marcus on Jesse Jackson in The Stranger |
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Crowded Out: The True Costs of Crowdfunding Healthcare | Readying to Rise
Music: No Tears for a Wolf · Ahamefule J. Oluo · Okanomodé. Used with permission.
Logo by Nikki Barron.
Transcripts are machine-generated and imperfect.
Nora and Marcus's work on the podcast is separate from their professional roles and does not represent the views of their employers.
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