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.