About Official Ignorance: The Death in Custody Podcast
“Official Ignorance: The Death in Custody Podcast” – hosted by Dr. Roger Mitchell and Dr. Jay Aronson – shares the stories of individuals who died in custody and chronicles the efforts of activists and journalists to uncover the true scope of deaths in custody. Through their accounts and interactions with special guests, Mitchell and Aronson outline a practical, achievable system for accurately recording and investigating these deaths.
Bonus: Mutulu Olugbala Fighting for Freedom and Social Justice in Cannabis Reform
Official Ignorance is a captivating podcast hosted by Dr. Roger Mitchell, Jr. and Professor Jay Aronson. In this episode, they are joined by the legendary Mutulu Olugbala, also known as M1 of the renowned hip-hop group dead prez, who is now a board member of The Last Prisoner project, focusing on justice for incarcerated cannabis […]
24 Oct 2023
Bonus: How Hip Hop Made Us, pt. 2 – Roger
Enjoy the early, informal recordings that lay the groundwork for the podcast, and learn more about our hosts, their mutual love of hip-hop, and their journey to the topic of death in law enforcement custody.
24 Oct 2023
Bonus: How Hip Hop Made Us, pt. 1 – Jay
Enjoy the early, informal recordings that lay the groundwork for the podcast, and learn more about our hosts, their mutual love of hip-hop, and their journey to the topic of death in law enforcement custody.
17 Oct 2023
Back to the Beginning: Talking Advocacy and Accountability with Activist Larry Hamm
In the final episode of Season 1, Roger and Jay talk to Larry Hamm, founder of the Newark, NJ-based Peoples’ Organization for Progress, longtime activist, and one of Roger’s earliest mentors. We discuss Larry’s early years as a Black student at Princeton University, his efforts to organize protests in Orange, NJ in the wake of […]
10 Oct 2023
Sandra’s Story – The Truth about the American Criminal Legal System
There are no protections in the criminal justice system, especially for Black people. In the case of Sandra Bland, we were reminded that they definitely do not care if you are wealthy, poor, female, queer, or disabled – in addition to your blackness. Mitchell and Aronson dive into why dismantling and reimagining our law enforcement will […]
3 Oct 2023
Dr. Joye Carter: The Nation’s First Black Chief Medical Examiner takes on Death in Custody
On today’s episode we have a wide-ranging conversation with Dr. Joye Carter, the nation’s first Black board-certified chief medical examiner, about her long career as a forensic pathologist. We ask her about her efforts to expose deaths in custody that would otherwise have been covered up. We discuss the importance of mentorship, diversity in death investigations, […]
26 Sept 2023
We Count What We Care About: Uncovering Hidden Deaths in Our Nation’s Prisons and Jails
On today’s episode, we talk to Josh Vaughn and Brittany Hailer, journalists working to expose the deadly toll of Pennsylvania’s jails. Josh tells us about his efforts to track disparities in the deaths that jails in the state report and the number that actually occur. Brittany tells us how she has shown that the Allegheny […]
19 Sept 2023
The Miseducation of Capitol Hill: The Death in Custody Reporting Act
In today’s episode, we discuss a recent Senate hearing led by Sen. Jon Ossoff from Georgia that investigates the abject failure of the federal government to do what the Death in Custody Reporting Act of 2013 requires it to do—determine how many people are dying in prisons and jails each year, record where they are […]
12 Sept 2023
The Legacy of Ida B. Wells: From Lynchings to Death in Custody
It is impossible to talk about the impact that death in custody has on Black and other communities, or the efforts of activists and advocates to shine a light on the crisis, without examining the life and work of Ida B. Wells, the famed journalist who began the process of exposing the horror of lynching […]
5 Sept 2023
Earl Faison and the Origins of the Official Ignorance Project
Our investigation begins with the story of Earl Faison, a 27-year-old who died in police custody less than an hour after being arrested on April 11, 1999. Roger, was a young medical student just down the road at the time, and Faison’s shocking death led him to devote his career to investigating deaths in custody […]
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