The Crime Report (https://thecrimereport.org/category/qa/)
Belton “Money Rock” Platt, a young, flamboyant drug dealer in Charlotte, N.C., spent 20 years in prison before emerging to become a minister. In a new book, journalist Pam Kelley places his life story in the context of generations of southern racism, and in a chat with TCR she explains why such stories remain painfully relevant today.
A journalist whose brother was sent to prison for murder recounts the long-term impact on his family and community in “My Brother Moochie.” In a conversation with TCR about his book, Issac Bailey explains how the experience informed his own perspective about race and incarceration in the American South.
There’s a largely ignored territory in the justice system populated by poor, often minority, individuals whose lives have been stunted by perennial run-ins with the law over petty crimes and misdemeanors. Yale law professor Issa Kohler-Hausmann calls it “Misdemeanorland,” and she explores its consequences in a conversation with TCR about her new book of the same name.
A new book examines the arrest data produced by police stops in North Carolina, and finds the public safety benefit was minimal. In a conversation with The Crime Report, co-author Frank Baumgartner says it should make police departments across the US reevaluate a practice that is often considered racial profiling.
Long before the current probe into Russian meddling in US elections, Soviet and US intelligence agents were operating out of the National Press Building in Washington, DC to covertly influence policymaking. Steven Usdin, author of a new book called the “Bureau of Spies,” tells TCR what he discovered in the archives.
On the 10th anniversary of the Second Chance Act, veteran corrections administrator and researcher Stefan LoBuglio says attitudes towards prisoner reentry have undergone a “sea change” since the 1990s. But in an extended chat with TCR, he warns of a retrenchment in programming that threatens the overall functioning of the U.S. corrections system.
Increasing numbers of females now serve in the senior ranks of US policing, and they are slowly changing law enforcement practices across the country. But there’s still a long way to go before women cops can achieve full equality with their male peers, a University of Illinois professor argues in a new book.
Three Dallas men freed after being exonerated for crimes they didn’t commit have dedicated the rest of their lives to saving others in the same situation. Filmmaker Jamie Meltzer tells their story in a PBS documentary to be aired Monday.
Calvin Buari, convicted of a double murder he didn’t commit, was a casualty of over-zealous prosecutors in New York’s tough-on-crime era of the 1990s. In a conversation with The Crime Report about his new podcast, “Empire on Blood,” investigative journalist Steve Fishman tells the story of the battle to clear his name.
For lack of alternatives, thousands of mentally ill individuals are trapped in the justice system. In a conversation with TCR, Alisa Roth, author of “Insane: America’s Criminal Treatment of Mental Illness,” says change will only happen when we reexamine our attitudes towards mental illness.