PODCAST · government
The Permanent Record
by Just City
The Permanent Record is a new podcast from Just City. It features conversations about the criminal justice system and how we can work together to make it smaller, fairer, and better for everyone.
Episodes
-
Scott Hechinger Is Zealous
In early August of 2026, Just City launched a campaign to remember and honor the 68 people who died in the Shelby County Jail since 2018. We wanted to tell their stories and make them known to the community. So, we went to one of the finest storytellers we know - Scott Hechinger, former public...
-
Criminal Court Judge David Pool
Judge David Pool is a fifth generation Memphian, but his pathway to becoming a state criminal court judge was a little out of the ordinary. As a touring musician, he took to the highways of America, and as beloved music teacher, he roamed the hallways of a local high school, inspiring another...
-
Emily Galvin-Almanza: The Price of Mercy
Emily Galvin Almanza is a former public defender and the co-founder and executive director of Partners for Justice and the author of the new book The Price of Mercy: Unfair Trials, a Violent System, and a Public Defender's Search for Justice in America. She was in Memphis recently to promote her...
-
Sheriff Candidate Anthony Buckner
In advance of the upcoming county elections, we sat down with each of the seven candidates for Shelby County Sheriff to ask questions about the jail, immigration enforcement, and public safety. Here is our final episode in that series, a conversation with Anthony Buckner. Be sure to listen to the...
-
Sheriff Candidate Ricky Pollard
In advance of the upcoming county elections, we sat down with each of the seven candidates for Shelby County Sheriff to ask questions about the jail, immigration enforcement, and public safety. Here is our sixth episode in that series, a conversation with Ricky Pollard. Be sure and check this…
more -
Sheriff Candidate Marco Yzaguirre
In advance of the upcoming county elections, we sat down with each of the seven candidates for Shelby County Sheriff to ask questions about the jail, immigration enforcement, and public safety. Here is our fifth episode in that series, a conversation with MarcoYzaguirre. Be sure and check this…
more -
Sheriff Candidate Michael Pope
In advance of the upcoming county elections, we sat down with each of the seven candidates for Shelby County Sheriff to ask questions about the jail, immigration enforcement, and public safety. Here is our fourth episode in that series, a conversation with Michael Pope. Be sure and check this…
more -
Sheriff Candidate Keisha Scott
In advance of the upcoming county elections, we sat down with each of the seven candidates for Shelby County Sheriff to ask questions about the jail, immigration enforcement, and public safety. Here is our third episode in that series, a conversation with Keisha Scott. Be sure and check this feed...
-
Sheriff Candidate Brad Less
In advance of the upcoming county elections, we sat down with each of the seven candidates for Shelby County Sheriff to ask questions about the jail, immigration enforcement, and public safety. Here is our second episode in that series, a conversation with Brad Less. Listen to each interview and...
-
Sheriff Candidate Reginald Hubbard
In advance of the upcoming county elections, we sat down with each of the seven candidates for Shelby County Sheriff to ask questions about the jail, immigration enforcement, and public safety. Here is our first episode in that series, a conversation with Reginald Hubbard. Listen to each…
more -
Episode 67: Former Shelby County Sheriff/Mayor Mark Luttrell
Mark Luttrell was the Sheriff of Shelby County, Tennessee for eight years beginning in 2002. He was then elected Shelby County Mayor for two terms. When he became Sheriff more than 20 years ago, Luttrell inherited a very unstable and chaotic situation at the Shelby County Jail. Violence, poor...
-
Episode 66: Rep. Justin J. Pearson
State Representative Justin J. Pearson represents District 86 in the Tennessee General Assembly. Though he's best known for getting expelled by Republican leadership in 2023 after speaking out about gun violence, Rep. Pearson has been a vocal advocate and skilled community organizer for years.…
more -
Episode 65: "Raisins, Spam, & Spaghetti Noodles"
The Tennessee General Assembly is speeding toward adjournment in the next few weeks, and some of the bigger issues and decisions are coming into focus. Stella Yarbrough of ACLU-TN rejoins the podcast this week for an update and discussion on some of the bills that interest us - voting rights...
-
Episode 64: "A Glamour Slammer"
The recent spike in deaths in the Shelby County Jail resulted in quite a bit of media coverage and a tour of the jail for local journalists. Unfortunately, Brittany Brown and Katherine Burgess from MLK50: Justice through Journalism were not invited on the tour. So we invited them to join us on…
more -
Episode 63: "It's Not the Talk of the Town"
Criminal justice and public safety make headlines everyday in our community. The Permanent Record will take you behind the news reports and help you understand what keeps us safe and what doesn't. Listen as Just City Executive Director, Josh Spickler and the Legal Director at ACLU of TN, Stella...
-
Episode 62: Crime & Public Safety in the News, Pt. 2
We're shaking up the Permanent Record for 2025. Criminal justice policy, crime, and public safety make headlines everyday in our community. So, for the next few months we're going to shift from an interview format to one that offers news and analysis, and we're going to be recording more often.…
more -
Episode 61: Crime and Public Safety in the News, Pt. 1
We're shaking up the Permanent Record for 2025. Criminal justice policy, crime, and public safety make headlines everyday in our community. So, for the next few months we're going to shift from an interview format to one that offers news and analysis, and we're going to be recording more often.…
more -
Episode 60: Kaitlin Beck & Lily Resha
In the second of two episodes highlighting our Court Watch program, defense attorney Kaitlin Beck and student intern Lily Resha talk with longtime Court Watch leader, Yonée Gibson. Their discussion touches on the value of court watch from an attorney perspective, the unexpected patterns that…
more -
Episode 59: Court Watchers Laramie Wheeler and Ruchie Borkar
Just City's Court Watch program enlists community members to observe Shelby County's criminal courtrooms and empowers them to record what they see and hear. These volunteer watchers bring much-needed transparency and accountability to a criminal court system that is often more opaque and obscure...
-
Episode 58: Mark Loughney Returns
Mark Loughney returns to The Permanent Record. We last spoke to Mark while he was incarcerated in Pennsylvania. We first met Mark when The Marshall Project covered his Prison Portraits exhibit. Work from Mark's Pyrrhic Defeat series is always on display at the Just City office in downtown…
more -
Episode 57: Sylvia Ryerson
Director Sylvia Ryerson discusses her film Calls From Home after a live screening hosted by Just City on April 13, 2024. The film follows a weekly radio broadcast that serves as an important communication tool for the families of incarcerated people in rural Appalachia.
-
Episode 56: Jacob Steimer
Jacob Steimer, a journalist with MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, recently authored a series of stories on the presence of lead in neighborhoods across Memphis. He joined us to discuss the science of lead poisoning and how effective abatement strategies can help to lower crime rates. This…
more -
Episode 55: Iris Roley
In this special conversation with Cincinnati Black United Front’s Iris Roley, she shares her pioneering experience in seeking police accountability by centering Black community members in reform. She shares the story of filing a first-of-its-kind racial profiling class action settlement that led…
more -
Episode 54: Michele Deitch
Professor Michele Deitch, director of the Prison and Jail Innovation Lab at UT-Austin joins us to delve into options for oversight as we see a rise in jail deaths, the risks of treating children as adults in the criminal legal system, and alternatives and best practices for jails. She discusses…
more -
Episode 53: Insha Rahman
Insha Rahman, vice president for advocacy and partnership at the Vera Institute of Justice and expert on bail and pretrial detention, joined us to help correct misunderstandings about bail, and she points out that reforming pretrial detention can make our communities both safe and just. She…
more -
Episode 52: They Knew Which Way to Run
They Knew Which Way to Run is a stunning look at the 1984 Bhopal Gas Tragedy in India. The 7-part podcast series takes us on an amazing exploration of themes often discussed on The Permanent Record. Themes like accountability, pain, harm, and how we deal with those as human beings.
-
Episode 51: Joanna Schwartz
A few short weeks after the killing of Tyre Nichols, UCLA Law Professor Joanna Schwartz released a very timely book. It's called Shielded: How the Police Became Untouchable. In it, she describes how current law makes it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to hold police accountable when they...
-
Episode 50: Juvenile Court Judge Tarik Sugarmon
On this episode Josh speaks with newly elected Juvenile Court Judge Tarik Sugarmon. We learned about his career from public defense to finally taking over duties at the Juvenile Court. Judge Sugarmon comes from a family with a very distinguished history of standing up for civil rights, and he...
-
Episode 49: District Attorney Steve Mulroy
We're back with a special interview of the newly elected District Attorney in Shelby County, Steve Mulroy. Steve was elected on August 4th and took office on September 1st. His first week in office was marred by some of the worst incidents of crime that Memphis has seen in a long time. We…
more -
Episode 48: Liliana Segura
Liliana Segura is an award-winning investigative journalist covering the United States criminal justice system. She currently writes for The Intercept. Liliana covered the recent federal execution spree set in motion last summer by the Trump administration. We invited Liliana to share from her...
-
Episode 47: Pat Culp
"The number of women in American prisons has risen at an alarming rate over the past three decades. In this episode, we talked with Pat Culp, the Executive Director of WEBS Memphis - Women Empowered to Become Self-Sufficient. A native Memphian, Pat has spent the last 28 years providing women in…
more -
Episode 46: Kelley Henry
Kelley Henry has spent her career fighting for people facing the death penalty in Tennessee. Currently, she is fighting for Pervis Payne who, despite consistently maintaining his innocence, is set to be executed in December. The day before we recorded this interview, a Shelby County judge ordered...
-
Episode 45: Mark Loughney
In October of 2018 The Marshall Project featured the work of Mark Loughney, an artist who is currently incarcerated. We began conversing with him through email and snail mail and started collaborating on an exhibit, which is still in the works. We decided it was time to talk with Mark voice to...
-
Episode 44: Furonda Brasfield
In this very special episode, we talked to “America’s Next Top Lawyer”, Furonda Brasfield former America’s Next Top model contestant, turned attorney and Executive Director of the Arkansas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. Just City Court Watch coordinator and State organizer, Joia Erin...
-
Episode 43: Liz Ryan of Youth First
The United States leads the world in incarceration of children, and Liz Ryan and the Youth First Initiative are leading the effort to change that. Youth justice is a frequent topic of conversation in Memphis, and Shelby County is considering a major expansion of its youth detention facility. For...
-
Episode 42: State Representative Andrew Farmer
State Representative Andrew Farmer lives in Sevierville, Tennessee and represents the 17th House District. He serves as Chair of the Criminal Justice Subcommittee, and we suspected he had a family connection to Dolly Parton. We invited him on the podcast to find out about both.
-
Episode 41: Raymond Santana
In this very special episode, we talked to Raymond Santana - one-fifth of the group now known as The Exonerated Five. Raymond and four other young men from NYC were wrongfully convicted of raping a woman in Central Park in 1989. They are now the subject of Ava DuVernay's Netflix series, When They...
-
Episode 40: Steven Hale
Steven Hale is a staff writer for the Nashville Scene. He has been a media witness to three of Tennessee’s most recent executions. His written accounts of those experiences are very moving and provide critical insight to the politics and mechanics of capital punishment in Tennessee. Since the…
more -
Episode 39: Noura Jackson
Noura Jackson was charged and convicted of killing her mother in a 2009 trial that made national headlines; however, citing significant missteps by the prosecutor in the case, her conviction was unanimously overturned by the Tennessee Supreme Court. The lead prosecutor on the case was Shelby...
-
Episode 38: Emily Bazelon
Emily Bazelon's latest book Charged: The New Movement to Transform American Prosecution and End Mass Incarceration explores the critical role of the elected prosecutor in our criminal legal system. It prominently features the case of Noura Jackson, which resulted in an overturned conviction…
more -
Episode 37: Simone Weichselbaum
Earlier this year, the Marshall Project and local journalist, Wendi Thomas, filed a lawsuit against the Memphis Shelby Crime Commission over its failure to disclose financial information and other records. Simone Weichselbaum, who covers national policing policy for the Marshall Project, was...
-
Episode 36: Carrie Johnson
Carrie Johnson ist the Justice Correspondent for National Public Radio’s Washington Desk. She covers a wide range of emerging justice issues, law enforcement stories, and legal affairs. Carrie is one of our only repeat guests on The Permanent Record. Check out her first interview (Episode 16) in...
-
Episode 35: Mark Holden
The new year brought new Federal criminal justice and prison reform, so we're devoting the next few episodes of the Permanent Record to examining the First Step Act. It has been widely praised and was broadly supported by a bi-partisan coalition that has become very rare for Congress. President...
-
Episode 34: Rudy Valdez
Rudy Valdez is a filmmaker committed to making cinematic, meaningful documentary films that inspire social change. We invited him on The Permanent Record to discuss his latest film, The Sentence, a documentary about mandatory minimums and sentencing reform that he shot and directed over the…
more -
Episode 33: Veda Ajamu
Every time we sentence a person to jail or prison, we also sentence a family to a life without that person. The demands on the families of incarcerated people are often overlooked, but Veda Ajamu’s family is all too familiar with the many burdens of having a loved one locked up. For this episode,...
-
Episode 32: Shane Claiborne
In mid-October, Tennessee announced that Edmund Zagorski would be executed on November 1, 2018, and the State intends to use the electric chair to do it. If carried out, it will mark the second execution in Tennessee this year, after nearly a decade without one. Native Tennessean Shane Claiborne...
-
Episode 31: Dr. Margaret Vandiver & John Ashworth
Dr. Margaret Vandiver is a retired professor of criminal justice at the University of Memphis and a strong supporter of Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. She has studied state and collective violence, ranging from the use of the death penalty in America to contemporary instances…
more -
Episode 30: Marc Perrusquia
The Daily Memphian is a brand new local media outlet, and its first issue included an expansive investigative piece -- “A Reluctance to Record”. It's a must-read that reveals yet another instance where part of the criminal justice system in Memphis is an extreme outlier -- the Memphis Police...
-
Episode 29: Bill Dries and Ryan Poe
The Shelby County general election is less than a week away, and your host is a hopeless political junkie. So, for this special episode, Josh convened a special election roundtable with two of Memphis' top political reporters. Ryan Poe of the Commercial Appeal and Bill Dries of the Memphis Daily...
-
Episode 28: David Lenoir
With election season in Shelby County in full swing, we present one of two recent interviews with the candidates for County Mayor. David Lenoir has played SEC football, started a mutual fund, and served two terms as Shelby County Trustee. He is now the Republican candidate in the race for Mayor....
We're indexing this podcast's transcripts for the first time — this can take a minute or two. We'll show results as soon as they're ready.
No matches for "" in this podcast's transcripts.
No topics indexed yet for this podcast.
Loading reviews...
ABOUT THIS SHOW
The Permanent Record is a new podcast from Just City. It features conversations about the criminal justice system and how we can work together to make it smaller, fairer, and better for everyone.
HOSTED BY
Just City
CATEGORIES
Loading similar podcasts...
Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does The Permanent Record have?
The Permanent Record currently has 77 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is The Permanent Record about?
The Permanent Record is a new podcast from Just City. It features conversations about the criminal justice system and how we can work together to make it smaller, fairer, and better for everyone.
How often does The Permanent Record release new episodes?
The Permanent Record has 77 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to The Permanent Record?
You can listen to The Permanent Record on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts The Permanent Record?
The Permanent Record is created and hosted by Just City.
URL copied to clipboard!