🚸Advocating for youth, and filmmakers 🎬
Sounds Like Impact: A newsletter for audio and action
Welcome to Sounds Like Impact!
This edition features a curation about injustice in the juvenile “justice” system, and a bonus interview with Avril Speaks of Distribution Advocates podcast.
Content warning: This curation features episodes that discuss children enduring abuse in the criminal legal system.
ICYMI: Last week we had a guest curation from Tosin Sulaiman about inclusive design and I interviewed Vanessa Maria Quirk from Urban Roots podcast.
⚕️ I was not kidding when I said that I keep hearing about debt when I posted to LinkedIn the other week. The latest:
Valerie June and other country music stars made a PSA about medical debt. Yes, country musicians are talking about medical debt and the ridiculous pricing for care (in the US at least), and you should join their chorus.
Also, I came across this article from Marie Claire about people going into medical debt to afford fertility treatments, specifically related to the egg freezing process. Yes, big, audible sigh.
🌱 In other news, the Climate Film Festival from
put out a call for submissions and they are looking for folks 18-24 to join a student steering committee.📓 And before we dive into the, frankly terrible and irresponsible, way we are treating our youth, I wanted to share this amazing podcast related news: Over 100 New York City Public Schools to Replace Bells with Educational Podcasts. That seems like a step in the right direction to me!
Reminder: To guest curate, be interviewed, advertise and more, click here.
🎧 #AudioForAction Theme of the Week
Nothing Just About Juvie
I watch a lot of documentaries about various injustices, particularly focused on the U.S. because that’s where I live. Needless to say, this curation wasn’t the first time I had heard about how Reagan’s “war on drugs” kicked mass incarceration into hyper drive, or heard of the term “super predators” and Clinton’s 1994 crime bill that really cemented the school-to-prison pipeline.
I have vague memories of growing up and seeing day-time talk shows that wanted to scare “bad kids” by having them engage with military officers and convicted individuals. Beyond Scared Straight was after my day-time TV watching time (I was in college then), but I’d heard about that too: bringing youth to prisons to scare them into correcting their behavior.
It would be years later before I had experience interacting with people that had been caught up in the system. When I was working at Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, we had a vendor that employed men who were formerly incarcerated to clean and maintain our streets. One of those men would go on to be hired at the organization and become my coworker; I learned to be more patient because of him. Not too long after, I began volunteering with Young New Yorkers, an organization founded by
, that uses the arts to divert youth from the juvenile “justice” system.I share these things to present two ideas, though not necessarily novel ones:
If you don’t have experience working with impacted communities of certain social issues, documentaries will help you build your empathy. Watch more.
Mass incarceration is used as a band-aid to avoid dealing with social & economic inequality, and our children—yes our, even if you don’t have them like I don’t—are paying the price.
Now, let’s get into it.
The System
You’re Wrong About, Juvenile “Justice” with Josie Duffy Rice
Josie Duffy Rice is a legal scholar who is not new to podcasting. She hosted Justice In America and more recently hosted Unreformed: The Story of the Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children, a show I included in my 2023 mid-year round-up. Her podcast appearance on You’re Wrong About really digs into the history of the criminalization and incarceration of youth.
Making Contact, Unequal Justice: the Criminalization of Black Youth
Black children are disproportionately impacted by the the criminal “justice” system and in this ~30 minute episode, guest Dr. Kris Henning—author of The Rage of Innocence: How America Criminalizes Black Youth—explains the root of this injustice.
70 Million, Where Juvenile Detention Looks More Like Teens Hanging Out
Reported by Sounds Like Impact interviewee Ruxandra Guidi, this episode looks at a diversion program keeping kids out of jail that could serve as a model for other places.
Testimonies
Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso, Jay Jordan Was Incarcerated At 18. Now, He’s Transforming the Criminal Justice System
While I want to resist the framing that people who have experienced a lot of adversity should turn around and do something remarkable with their lives, I think stories like these are important to share.
KQED’s Forum, Sentenced to Life at Age 14, Ian Manuel Reflects on Youth Incarceration and Solitary Confinement
Even if you don’t listen, I am going to point out now that a then 14-year old was put in solitary confinement for 18 years.
It’s also worth noting that this interview is not the first time KQED has covered mass incarceration. In fact, on February 6th they began the second season of On Our Watch podcast. This season, “New Folsom,” traces the footsteps of two whistleblowers in an elite investigative unit in California’s most dangerous prison.
Series
A 4-part investigative series that I wrote about in my best of impactful podcasts 2023 list.
Roughly a million kids a year get caught up in the criminal justice system. Over nine episodes, we'll listen as some of those young people tell their stories.
Walter Thompson-Hernández speaks with formerly incarcerated young writers whose work will be read over the course of the season by creatives like John Legend, Issa Rae, Yvonne Orji, Karamo Brown, Jay Ellis, Keke Palmer, Julio Torres, and Jesse Williams. Vulnerable poems and honest stories play out against a tailored soundtrack with original music.
🚨 Calls to Action
Watch: TIME: The Kalief Browder Story about a 16-year old who spent three years at Rikers jail awaiting trial after being accused of stealing a backpack. He would then go on to die by suicide after his release. Make sure to follow up your viewing with checking out the Campaign to Close Rikers.
And while you are on Netflix, another documentary you might want to check out is 13th by Ava DuVernay for more historical context on mass incarceration.
Review: 70 Million podcast has a really great resource guide that helps you to understand jail reform efforts. There are also episode toolkits, and most relevant to this theme are: disrupting the foster care to jail pipeline and why policing our schools backfires.
Read: Recently published NPR piece “Youth with autism are more likely to be arrested. A Nevada judge wants to remedy that.”
📣 Spotlight
Avril Speaks is an award-winning Producer, Director and Showrunner based in Los Angeles. She has produced several award-winning films including Jinn, Dotty & Soul, and the South African film African America, which was nominated for an NAACP Image Award, four African Movie Academy Awards and streamed on Netflix. Most recently, Avril was the Showrunner for the docu-series Uprooted: The Untold Keith Warren Story, which is available on Max and was an Executive Producer for Files of the Unexplained, coming soon to Netflix. Avril was a 2020 Sundance Momentum Fellow, a 2022 recipient of the Dear Producer Award. She is also a co-founding member of Distribution Advocates and a board member for the Black TV and Film Collective.
Follow Avril’s work on Instagram @azuspeak and check out their website.
What is happening in distribution is the same thing that is happening in many industries in our country and in the world. Conglomerates are taking over and consolidating everyday, which reduces the accessibility of distribution access…When this happens, there are less opportunities for diverse voices that might fit outside the mainstream, less opportunities for audiences to see some great films.
Learn more about the world of distribution and get some film recs too!
🌟 Classifieds
Nothing to promote but still want to support? You can donate here.
I remember those early days at Young New Yorkers when we relied mostly on volunteers like you---everyone cared so much about keeping young people out of the system and ending the horrors of mass incarceration. I feel like we all grew together so much during that season.