May 15, 2017
After years of scrutiny and calls from advocates, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the closing of Rikers Island, the facility that embodies the very worst of our country’s failed experiment with mass incarceration. To discuss what’s behind this announcement and its significance for criminal justice reform, Rebecca speaks with Greg Berman, the Director of the Center for Court Innovation. Next, Washington Post reporter Perry Stein explains the controversy of D.C.’s missing black and Latina girls, and Kymone Freeman and Alex Lawson, co-founders of We Act Radio, join to discuss what other issues the mainstream media ignores or gets wrong — and the story behind the station’s launch 5 years ago. Finally, Beverly Tuberville — formerly a lifelong Republican voter who went on to help found the Oklahoma chapter of Indivisible — joins the show. But first, Joe Soss, a professor at the University of Minnesota, talks about how disability beneficiaries have become the new welfare queens.