Criminal - The Questions I’m Asking

Episode Date: December 15, 2023

Today we meet “Genius Grant” winner Andrea Armstrong. In 2019, she started the Incarceration Transparency Project to identify and make public how many people were dying behind bars in Louisiana. The project also documents conditions inside the state’s prisons and jails – what Andrea Armstrong calls “secretive spaces of confinement.” She’s said: “Too often, the how and why a person in prison dies is kept secret from everyone, including the person’s family." Criminal is going back on tour in February! We’ll be telling brand new stories, live on stage. You can even get meet and greet tickets to come and say hi before the show. Tickets are on sale now at thisiscriminal.com/live. We can’t wait to see you there! Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: iTunes.com/CriminalShow. Sign up for Criminal Plus to get behind-the-scenes bonus episodes of Criminal, ad-free listening of all of our shows, members-only merch, and more. Learn more and sign up here. Listen back through our archives at youtube.com/criminalpodcast. We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery. Artwork by Julienne Alexander. Check out our online shop. Episode transcripts are posted on our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for Criminal comes from Apple Podcasts. Each month, Apple Podcasts highlights one series worth your attention, and they call these series essentials. This month, they recommend Wondery's Ghost Story, a seven-part series that follows journalist Tristan Redman as he tries to get to the bottom of a ghostly presence in his childhood home. His investigation takes him on a journey involving homicide detectives, ghost hunters, and even psychic mediums,

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Please use discretion. Alton Sterling was murdered in Baton Rouge, outside of a convenience store by the police. This is Andrea Armstrong. She's a law professor at Loyola University in New Orleans. On July 5, 2016, Alton Sterling, a 37-year-old black man and father of five, was shot six times at close range by Baton Rouge police officer Blaine Salamone. The police had been called to the convenience store after someone called 911, claiming a man selling CDs, wearing a red shirt, had a gun. There are multiple videos of the shooting. The officers had Alton Sterling pinned to the ground when they shot him. In one of the officers' body camera videos, you can hear them cursing at Alton Sterling

and continuing to curse at him even after he's been shot. The police officer calls Alton Sterling, and continuing to curse at him even after he's been shot. The police officer calls Alton Sterling stupid. The whole thing took less than 90 seconds. Alton Sterling died on the scene with gunshot wounds to his chest and his back. According to a state report, one of the officers had found a gun in Alton Sterling's pocket after he'd been shot. Graphic video of the shooting, filmed by bystanders, spread quickly, and protesters began assembling at the convenience store where Alton Sterling had been killed.

And he kind of catalyzed a movement. His family, his friends, they wanted accountability. They wanted people to acknowledge what had happened to him. And so there was a series of protests in Baton Rouge around that time that was supporting those calls by the family. In the days after the shooting, thousands of people assembled to protest. Many people were arrested. More than 150 people were arrested for blocking a main road in Baton Rouge, Airline Highway. Andrea Armstrong was there for some of the protests, acting as a legal observer. What is a legal observer?

So a legal observer is part of the National Lawyers Guild project. And so it is really a volunteer effort. It is lawyers across the state who volunteer their time after being trained in kind of observing the protests. And basically you're there to document different engagements, right? So if there are in fact arrests, it is getting badge numbers and names for the arresting officers, as well as information about the person being arrested, including contact information perhaps for a next of kin or a relative in the event you are there to ensure that the constitutional rights of protesters are in fact respected during that time. How did the police respond to you as an observer? I think there was definitely some hostility in the sense of this is our turf. Who are you to tell us how to do our jobs? But I don't think that was universal. I remember there were a couple of protests where I, you know, observed and

the officers, you know, would give me a nod and, you know, they would come over and explain certain things that they were going to do or about to do to make sure that we kind of understood the various pieces of things that were happening. And how did the police react to the protesters? I mean, it was, you know, full-on SWAT gear and helmets and, you know, facing crowds of, you know, young, old. There were children in those crowds. There were, you know, there were people with guitars. There were, like, people were singing. And so it was a stark contrast, I think, particularly in the early days of the protests. Most of the protesters who were arrested were taken to the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison.

And when the protesters who had been arrested started being released. It was actually some of my former students were doing some of those bond hearings and legal representation. And they called me and they said, Armstrong, we're going to need a memo. And I was like, all right, like, what do you need a memo on? And they're like, well, we're getting all these reports of, you know, people not getting their medication, of, you know, people being freezing cold, of being denied phone calls, of, you know, they're being packed into cells without mattresses. You know, all of these things, and we're kind of struggling to understand what we're hearing. And so, you know, what we'd like to do is just pass on a lot of this stuff and just, could you just write something up for us to help us understand what we're seeing? She described protesters held in jail being pepper sprayed, being threatened, denied water

and toilet paper, being strip searched in front of other people, as many as 15 other people. Some protesters who needed medical attention didn't get it. The holding cells were dirty, sometimes bloody. One man described spending the night with 26 other people in a 12 by 12 cell. And so, you know, thinking about what we were learning was happening in the East Baton Rouge Parish Jail, it made it all the more clear that we needed to focus there because of the scale of the abuses that were happening to people who were detained. And what it turns out we later found, which is the sheer number of deaths that were occurring in that jail. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. We'll be right back. Thank you. series that follows journalist Tristan Redman as he tries to get to the bottom of a ghostly presence in his childhood home. His investigation takes him on a journey involving homicide detectives, ghost hunters, and even psychic mediums, and leads him to a dark secret about

his own family. Check out Ghost Story, a series essential pick, completely ad-free on Apple Podcasts. Hey, it's Scott Galloway, and on our podcast, Pivot, we are bringing you a special series about the basics of artificial intelligence. We're answering all your questions. What should you use it for? What tools are right for you?

And what privacy issues should you ultimately watch out for? And to help us out, we are joined by Kylie Robeson, the senior AI reporter for The Verge, to give you a primer on how to integrate AI into your life. So, tune into AI Basics, How and When to Use AI, a special series from Pivot sponsored by AWS, wherever you get your podcasts. Andrea Armstrong learned that between 2012 and 2016,

25 men at East Baton Rouge Parish Prison had died. Two of the men died by suicide. Most of the men died from illness. Some were denied medication, even for pre-existing conditions. Others were denied care. Can you tell me about some of the men who died there during that period? Yeah, it's, you know, East Baton Rouge Parish Jail is, and it is in fact a jail, not a prison. It was, the fact that it is named as a prison is an old kind of historical rabbit hole that we don't have to go down today. But it is designed to hold people detained pre-trial, right? So these are

by and large people who haven't been convicted of a crime, and they're just being held before their trial. And in that facility, people like David O'Quinn died. David was an incredibly talented artist who, you know, also suffered from mental health issues. During his relatively brief time, you know, the cuts developed on his wrists and his ankles from the restraints, that those cuts became infected, and that when he was released from those restraints, he could barely stand on his own. The youngest person included in her report was 17-year-old Tyron Colbert. Other people in the jail said he had been choked by his cellmate,

who was also 17 years old. They were in a fight over a blanket. No staff intervened. Tyron Colbert was found unresponsive in his cell. When Andrea Armstrong published her findings on the deaths at East Baton Rouge Parish Prison, she decided to begin the report with an in-memoriam section,

naming the dead and listing their ages. For some, there are photos. And also responses to the question What was something that made them happy? Here are some of the answers David O'Quinn Celebrating the 4th of July on the beach with family Walking his dog Bogey

Paul Cleveland He loved to cook and try new recipes Tyron Colbert Paul Cleveland. He loved to cook and try new recipes. Tyron Colbert. It used to make his day when his dad would take him to work or take him fishing, even if he didn't catch anything. Just taking the ferry to Plaquemines Parish and being with his dad made him happy. Tell me about the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison.

Is it an old facility, a new facility? It's a pretty old facility. I mean, it is constructed in that kind of old style with tiers, with cells on either side, not a lot of sunlight. Meaning, you know, these tier constructions, there's a guard who's at the very front of the tier, right? And what that means is unless that guard is constantly walking that hallway, they can't see what happens in the cells that are at the furthest end. So there's a lack of visibility. The facility itself is pretty old. But what I have found is, sure, the age of the facility matters, but what matters more is the staffing and the services that are offered. Even in an old building, you can treat

people humanely, as long as you're focused on what type of staffing you have, the training that they have, and the services that are available to incarcerated people. And those are lacking. Absolutely, right? I mean, so, you know, by and large, you and I, for example, don't have a right to health care. And that includes mental health care. But what we see in jails is, you know, you could submit a sick call form and maybe somebody would stop by cell side and talk with you in 24 or 48 hours.

But we also know that if there's anything more serious than a cold or kind of a basic symptom, that jails just aren't equipped to provide the type of care that they're entitled to. And it's not that they're entitled to it because they are more deserving or more worthy than you or for me. They are entitled to it because they have no other option. They aren't free to book a doctor's appointment or to go to the ER or go to an urgent care. And because they are so fully dependent, that is why they have a right to the care. You've said that, you know, these are our jails and prisons. What do you mean by that? Because they are ours the same way the schools are ours and the roads are ours and the Department of Health belongs to us, right? So in a democracy, we as the residents get to choose the shape and the form of our government.

With our vote, we get to determine whether dollars are sent to the Parks and Recreation Department or whether they're sent to the Road Works Department. You know, and so in that sense, these agencies are ours. They belong to us. And the things that they do, they do in our name and with our dollars. And prisons and jails are just another type of government agency and yet they are treated completely differently both by the law and by the public as if they shouldn't be subject to our preferences and our wishes as the residents of this city and of this state. Is it true that Louisiana has the highest per capita incarceration rate in the country?

I mean, listen, we have been in the top five since the late 1980s. So sometimes we play games and we're number two, you know, and then we're back up at number one, and sometimes we're number three. But we have been in the top five since the late 1980s. We have also been in the top five for violent crime since the late 1980s. Which for me just raises the question of whether incarceration, the way that we do it and how we do it, whether it actually makes us safer. Andrea Armstrong has said,

too often the how and why a person in prison dies is kept secret from everyone, including the person's family. In 2019, she started the Incarceration Transparency Project. She wanted to identify and make public how many people were dying behind bars in Louisiana. The project also documents conditions inside the state's prisons and jails,

what Andre Armstrong calls secretive spaces of confinement. And we do that through filing public records requests with facilities across the state to identify who died, demographic kind of characteristics about them. And then we analyze and try and kind of understand, well, who is it that's dying? Where are they dying? Are there particular diseases? Are there particular locations? And then we also, for people who have died in the New Orleans jail, and now we're working on the East Baton Rouge Parish jail, are there people who have died there where their story has yet to be told?

And so we're trying to find family members, relatives, and we create these memorials for those people. You know, in making this show, we have all kinds of people on. But sometimes people write in to us and say, you know, that if we interview someone who is incarcerated, you know, they may say, well, we're too sympathetic

to someone who has broken the law and that we're wrong to turn our attention to someone in prison or jail. There are other stories out there. Do people say this to you? Absolutely, right? I mean, I think they're like, well, why do you put so much time and attention in them? And there's so many reasons why. So I do believe, and I think far smarter and wiser people have said this before me, but how we treat the people who are the most despised among us is in fact an indication of who we are as a society and as a people. I mean, I think it is very easy to be good and moral and to live your values

when it is with somebody that you think is quote-unquote deserving. I think it's a lot harder when you think somebody doesn't deserve the best of society. And that's really where I think the most interesting work has to be done. We'll be right back. Thank you. more than 100 apps, and ideas about the work we do can be radically changed by the tools we use to do it. So what is enterprise software anyway? What is productivity software? How will AI affect both? And how are these tools changing the way we use our computers to make stuff, communicate, and plan for the future? In this three-part special series, Decoder is surveying the IT landscape presented by AWS. Check it out wherever you get your podcasts. a different approach. According to Noom, losing weight has less to do with discipline and more to do with psychology. Noom is the weight loss management program that focuses on the science

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On November 5th, 1983, a 56-year-old man named Isidore Roseman was working in his shop in Shreveport, Louisiana. He was a jeweler and a watchmaker who repaired antique watches and clocks. According to his nephew, Isidore Roseman opened the back door and a number of people rushed in and, quote, knocked him down, broke his glasses, and then put a gun to the back of his head and pulled the trigger. Police questioned a 34-year-old black man named Glenn Ford. Glenn Ford had been seen near the shop earlier in the day and sometimes did yard work for Isidore Roseman. A few months later, a number of items that had been in Roseman's store were found in a pawn shop.

A handwriting analyst believed that the signature on the pawn slips matched Glenn Ford's handwriting. He was arrested, along with three other men, and charged with capital murder and conspiracy to commit armed robbery. Glenn Ford had two court-appointed lawyers. Neither of them had tried a criminal case before. It was an all-white jury, and they found Glenn Ford guilty after deliberating for less than three hours. He was sentenced to death. The prosecution dropped all charges for the three other defendants. Glenn Ford was sent to Angola. How did you meet Glenn Ford was sent to Angola How did you meet Glenn Ford?

Glenn I met Glenn at Thanksgiving dinner I went with my two children to a friend's house Mercedes Metogonis and John Adcock And John had years ago worked on an appeal for Glenn, was part of his legal team. And Glenn had been home just for a little bit, being kind of released all of a sudden, very kind of spontaneously and secretly from death row. And so we were all there Thanksgiving and, you know, he mentioned, well, you know, I've been home a little bit, but haven't quite found,

found my lane, my space. And I said, well, do you like music? And he said, I do. And I said, well, let's go. We're in New Orleans. And so that was the start of an incredibly meaningful friendship for me. Tell me a little bit about him. That was hilarious. He spent 29 years on death row. He was wrongly convicted. And, you know, at the time he was released because at the district attorney's invitation, right? The district attorney said, oh, well, we've uncovered some evidence that shows that he may in fact be innocent of the murder. And so he was

released. Now, I just should insert as well that the state then contested, and he never received any compensation for being wrongfully convicted through our state processes. But he did not let that deter him. You know, he was out for about a month when he got the results back of his first physical, which happened, you know, on the outside. And he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. And he lived for 15 months after his release from death row. And in his opinion, death row still managed to kill him. And he didn't let that deter him. He spent 15 months in freedom. That meant that we went to go eat barbecue.

We went kayaking. We went and saw lots and lots of art because he was a self-taught artist. He reconnected in particular with Baby Glenn, his son, who he adored. He had 10 grandchildren that he was very proud of. He was able to reconnect with people that he had loved before he was sent away. And he really just lived every moment of those 15 months. And it was an honor to be able to be with him during that journey. Why didn't he get care inside Angola?

Well, he was on death row. So the way he describes it is the health care on death row consisted of either Tylenol or Thorazine. And, you know, the conditions that he had, those two medications wouldn't do anything for. I mean, he would tell us stories about death row, right? Some of them reaffirmed, if that's the right word, my belief in the humanity of every single person, right? He would talk about, on the row, the ways in which, even though they couldn't see each other, sometimes they could hear each other, particularly right next door to each other. And he would talk about the ways in which they kept each other's spirits up,

talked to each other and supported each other through really hard moments. And these are supposed to be the quote-unquote worst of the worst, right? And yet here they are listening to one another and reaffirming, you know, that somebody cares about them. They were a family on the row. That's in fact how Glenn knew John Thompson, who was here in New Orleans and who really organized a lot of the care for Glenn. John Thompson has also unfortunately died. He spent 14 years on death row and died of early heart attack. Likely also, right? He had spent so much time incarcerated that, you know, he thinks that his heart problems were also part and parcel of the stress of life on death row. But going back to, you know, the stories that Glenn told me, he told me also about conditions and so i remember one time we

were sitting there and he was talking about like they had a burn dump that was right outside of his window at one point when death row was situated there there were you know these practices where they would uh he called them they would gi the, and so to clean the sewer pipes, and they were at opposite ends of the tear, and so they would have to open the pipes on one end and flush it and wash it down the tear, and everybody would have to jump bubble on the wall, but they weren't given any masks or any gloves, and just talked about all of this stuff as if it was totally normal. And I'm sitting there listening going, this is, this sounds like there should be rules, right, around water and air purity and smoke inhalation and chemical pollutants. And it turns out that prisons and jails aren't really covered necessarily by a lot of the rules that govern you and me. And so Glenn was the one who taught me that lesson.

Your kids got to meet him. They met him plenty. You know, my kids walk with me in this work. You know, one of the things that I think I am most proud of is that they understand that when people are coming home from prison, they haven't gotten a lot of hugs, and that hugs generally make people feel better. And so one of the things that, you know, we know out here, you know, through science as well, is that like human touch is really important. And that being touch deprived can have an impact, a mental health impact, and that is part of being incarcerated, is, you know, the times when you are touched are, in so many cases, in a punitive or disciplinary way. You know, not everybody gets contact visits, and in fact, a lot of jails have stopped in-person visitation completely. The New Orleans jail, for instance, only offers virtual visitation

through a kiosk and a screen. So there's actually this area of the New Orleans jail where if guys are on a certain tier, they can see out onto the street. And so you can drive by that spot and you'll see people bringing their children so that they can see their dad, you know, up in the jail. You know, newborn babies being held, you know, so that they can lay eyes in person on their own child. People still find a way to connect. Earlier this year, Andrea Armstrong got a phone call letting her know she'd been awarded a MacArthur Genius Grant, a fellowship from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. You don't apply for a MacArthur Genius Grant,

and you aren't interviewed. You just go about your work. And one day, you get a phone call saying you'll get $800,000 over the course of five years. The Foundation website describes Andrea Armstrong's work, quote, bringing transparency to detention policies, conditions of confinement, and deaths in U.S. prisons and jails. What was your first thought when you heard? Oh my God. I think I repeated that probably like 20 times. Over and over and over.

They would say another couple statements and I would say, oh my god, it really is just an incredible honor, but also it totally comes out of left field. Did you immediately start thinking, oh boy, we're going to get to do so much good work with this? I mean, I think, you know, everybody's going to react differently, right? You know, I didn't grow up with money. You know, in fact, the amount of money kind of scares me.

It's the type of money where it's like I'm not going to jail over this money. So it's a lot of money. And so that part is very intimidating and scary for somebody like me, you know, with my background and the types of things that I'm accustomed to. Do you feel like a genius? I mean, does this surprise have you thinking about what that word means? I mean, I will take it. No, I mean, listen, I am a little black girl who grew up going to public schools in New Orleans. There has always been a part of me, as I have ended up in some

places I never would have predicted in my life, And there has always been a part of me that has said, am I really supposed to be here? Am I making the right choices? And I think one of the freeing aspects of this award is I have asked myself that question a lot less. And I'm not mad about it. It is and feels freeing in the affirmation that I am thinking in the right direction.

It doesn't mean I have all the answers. But it does mean that some of the questions I'm asking are the right questions. What's next for you? I mean, I have applied for a sabbatical for next year. One of the things that I am really interested in thinking more about is climate change in particular. As it impacts incarcerated people, I think it brings together a number of the different strands of my research, right? So I've thought a lot about health and about deaths and labor behind bars. But if we

think about it through the lens of climate change, it brings those three different strands into focus in a unique way. I think we see things there that we don't normally see when we look at incarcerated people. And in particular, I think it shows the unique vulnerability of incarcerated people in a way that isn't typical for us in the way we talk about incarceration. I mean, I was at a prison in New York. I'm not talking about Louisiana. I'm talking about New York this summer. And it was, it was so

stifling, you know, that, and just talking to, to the man I was interviewing about what he does and all the men he's around to deal with this heat, You know, it's, and that's in New York. I was in a prison in New York in July, and no air conditioning. Yeah. The guards were miserable. Yeah. And the incarcerated people were also miserable. And then they just had these massive fans trying to blow air down the tier.

And what happened was the noise pollution, people couldn't hear themselves think, right? And so you add this level of aggravation and we have other data that shows that like violence and aggression increases in hotter temperatures. They don't have ice. They don't have water. You've got medical staff running back and forth between dehydration, it was just a powder keg, right? That is not a safe incarceration practice. Nobody benefits from that. No one. And so I'm hoping that this work on climate change can help us see more clearly what it is we do. When you think about how we talked about incarceration 20 years ago, 25 years ago, do you feel like the world has changed a lot since, you know, maybe you were in college?

You know, what is really striking to me is the ways in which incarceration touches so many people in our everyday lives, right? So, you know, in addition to the 1.9 million people who are behind bars and all of their friends and family members, we also have half a million people at least who work behind bars, who are in the same conditions for 12-hour shifts, right? And then there's 10 million jail admissions every year in the jail, this churn of people going in and coming out, and yet it isn't something that we experience or express any empathy towards or compassion. And yet it impacts so many of us. So that part is surprising to me. And I think that as the numbers have continued to rise, we have started to see that improve.

I'm not the only one doing this work. I'd like to hope that we're at an inflection point, that we're at a turning point, and we recognize that sometimes we create more harm than we intend. Thank you. Our producers are Susanna Roberson, Jackie Sajico, Lily Clark, Lena Sillison, Sam Kim, and Megan Kinane. Audio mix by Veronica Simonetti. Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see them at thisiscriminal.com. And you can sign up for our newsletter at thisiscriminal.com slash newsletter.

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Criminal is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more great shows at podcast.voxmedia.com. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. The number one selling product of its kind with over 20 years of research and innovation. Botox Cosmetic, Adabotulinum Toxin A, is a prescription medicine used to temporarily make moderate to severe frown lines, crow's feet, and forehead lines look better in adults. Effects of Botox Cosmetic may spread hours to weeks after injection causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems, or muscle weakness may be a sign of a life-threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Don't receive Botox Cosmetic if you have a skin infection.

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