Making a phone call from prison in America can be costly. Video calls, messaging, staying in touch with a lawyer, accessing education - all of it has historically come with a price tag that many prisoners and their families simply can't afford.

In this episode, Julie James talks to April Feng. She’s the CEO of Ameelio, a tech nonprofit that provides free communication services to prisoners across the country. They believe that keeping people connected to their families while they're inside is one of the most effective tools we have for reducing reoffending.

Julie and April talk about how Ameelio works, what prisoners and correctional facilities make of it, and whether better communication inside prisons could ultimately mean fewer people going back.

Field Notes is the podcast that dives into the details behind some of the most interesting ideas in improving public safety. In this series, hosts Jennifer Doleac, Julie James, and Kevin Ring are talking to the researchers, practitioners and innovators from all sides who are actually making America safer, wrestling with some of the hardest problems in our society. Field Notes is an Indio Media Production for Arnold Ventures

© 2026 Arnold Ventures. All rights reserved.

The American pretrial system - the period between arrest and trial - affects hundreds of thousands of people every year. How it works, and whether it's working well, is one of the most contested debates in criminal justice.

Alison Shames is a director at the Center for Effective Public Policy, and she's spent years researching pretrial reform. In this episode, we talk about how the current system operates, what the evidence shows about its effectiveness, and what changes she believes could improve outcomes for public safety and the justice system alike.Field Notes is the podcast that dives into the details behind some of the most interesting ideas in improving public safety. In this series, hosts Jennifer Doleac, Julie James, and Kevin Ring are talking to the researchers, practitioners and innovators from all sides who are actually making America safer, wrestling with some of the hardest problems in our society. 

Field Notes is an Indio Media Production for Arnold Ventures

© 2026 Arnold Ventures. All rights reserved.

The relationship between healthcare access and public safety is an area of growing interest for researchers and policymakers. In particular, the question of what happens to people's healthcare when they enter and leave the justice system.

In this episode, Jennifer Doleac talks to David Ryan from the Health and Reentry Project, HARP, about how healthcare in the prison system can improve public safety.

They cover the current challenges, the policy landscape around Medicaid and incarceration, and what HARP is doing about it.  Field Notes is the podcast that dives into the details behind some of the most interesting ideas in improving public safety. In this series, hosts Jennifer Doleac, Julie James, and Kevin Ring are talking to the researchers, practitioners and innovators from all sides who are actually making America safer, wrestling with some of the hardest problems in our society. 

Field Notes is an Indio Media Production for Arnold Ventures

© 2026 Arnold Ventures. All rights reserved.

Content warning: This episode contains discussions and descriptions of rape and violence.

DNA testing has been used in criminal cases since the late 1980s. Many of us assume it's just part of how police investigations work - routine, widespread, and reliable. But Ashley Spence says the reality is far more complicated.

Ashley knows this issue better than most. She founded the DNA Justice Project in 2022, motivated by her personal experience as a survivor of an assault which was solved using DNA. 

In this conversation, we tackle the pressing questions around this technology - and ask - if the science exists to catch criminals, why are we leaving it on the table?Field Notes is the podcast that dives into the details behind some of the most interesting ideas in improving public safety. In this series, hosts Jennifer Doleac, Julie James, and Kevin Ring are talking to the researchers, practitioners and innovators from all sides who are actually making America safer, wrestling with some of the hardest problems in our society. Field Notes is an Indio Media Production for Arnold Ventures

© 2026 Arnold Ventures. All rights reserved.

Could recording statistics help make our communities safer? Jeff Asher, thinks they can.

Understanding crime trends in America is harder than it sounds. Data is collected inconsistently, reported late, and often incomplete, which makes it difficult for policymakers and communities to respond effectively.

Jeff Asher spent years at the CIA and the New Orleans Police Department before moving into research. He's the creator of the Real Time Crime Index, the most ambitious attempt to give America an accurate, up-to date picture of what's actually happening. In this episode, he talks about what the data shows, the challenges of collecting it, and why he thinks better statistics could lead to better outcomes.

Field Notes is the podcast that dives into the details behind some of the most interesting ideas in improving public safety. In this series, hosts Jennifer Doleac, Julie James, and Kevin Ring are talking to the researchers, practitioners and innovators from all sides who are actually making America safer, wrestling with some of the hardest problems in our society.

Field Notes is an Indio Media Production for Arnold Ventures

© 2026 Arnold Ventures. All rights reserved.

Greg Newburn is the Director of Criminal Justice Policy at the Niskanen Center in Washington DC. Niskanen’s a think tank that sits outside the usual political divides - and use evidence to guide smart policy decisions.

We talk about why the debate over criminal justice has become so polarised, whether that's actually useful for making people safer, and why he thinks clearance rates - the number of crimes that actually get solved - deserve a lot more attention than it gets.Field Notes is the podcast that dives into the details behind some of the most interesting ideas in improving public safety. In this series, hosts Jennifer Doleac, Julie James, and Kevin Ring are talking to the researchers, practitioners and innovators from all sides who are actually making America safer, wrestling with some of the hardest problems in our society. Field Notes is an Indio Media Production for Arnold Ventures

© 2026 Arnold Ventures. All rights reserved.

Staffing America's prisons has become one of the hardest challenges in the corrections system. Recruitment is down, keeping staff is difficult, and facilities across the country are looking for answers. Yet it’s an issue the public knows very little about.

Andy Potter spent 30 years as a corrections officer before founding One Voice United, an organisation that represents corrections staff in criminal justice conversations. 

In this episode, he talks about what's driving the staffing shortage, what it means for the people working inside prisons, and what he thinks needs to change.  He argues that this is more than a prison HR problem - it’s really a public safety crisis and why more people need to be aware of it.Field Notes is the podcast that dives into the details behind some of the most interesting ideas in improving public safety. In this series, hosts Jennifer Doleac, Julie James, and Kevin Ring are talking to the researchers, practitioners and innovators from all sides who are actually making America safer, wrestling with some of the hardest problems in our society. Field Notes is an Indio Media Production for Arnold Ventures

© 2026 Arnold Ventures. All rights reserved.

Robbie Barbero, a senior fellow at Renaissance Philanthropy, has spent years on the science of childhood lead exposure: what it does to the developing brain, how it shows up decades later in school failure, lost earnings and violent crime, and why roughly half a million American children still have elevated lead levels today.

If we took lead out of paint and petrol, why is it still here? Where is it coming from now? And if the fix is as simple as testing every child, why aren't we doing it?

Barbero makes the case that the real bottleneck is a market failure in diagnostics, and that philanthropy can pay to fix it. He calls eliminating elevated lead levels in American children not a moonshot but a slam dunk. This is a conversation about a solvable problem.

Field Notes is an Indio Media Production for Arnold Ventures

© 2026 Arnold Ventures. All rights reserved.

Prisons are meant to keep communities safe. But what happens when the prisons themselves aren't functioning properly?

Staffing in America's prisons has become one of the biggest problems facing the justice system. Recruiting and retaining officers is increasingly hard, and the impact reaches far beyond the prison walls.

Jennifer Doleac talks to Mike Thompson from the Keystone Restituere Center for Justice. It’s a Pennsylvania-based policy and research organisation that works with correctional agencies across the country to improve how prisons are run, using data and evidence rather than ideology to drive change.

Keystone Restituere Center is in part funded by a grant from Arnold Ventures


Field Notes is the podcast that dives into the details behind some of the most interesting ideas in improving public safety. In this series, hosts Jennifer Doleac, Julie James, and Kevin Ring are talking to the researchers, practitioners and innovators from all sides who are actually making America safer, wrestling with some of the hardest problems in our society.



Field Notes is an Indio Media Production for Arnold Ventures

© 2026 Arnold Ventures. All rights reserved.

The best ideas in public safety don't always reach the public.

Every other week, hosts Jennifer Doleac, Julie James, and Kevin Ring sit down with the researchers, practitioners, and innovators wrestling with the hardest problems in crime and public safety, and finding the answers that are actually making America safer.

New perspectives. Fresh ideas. Listen or watch every other week.