American prisons are not designed to be welcoming places. But what if the American prison experience was reimagined, to the benefit of corrections officers and inmates? In this episode, we head to an experimental prison housing unit in Pennsylvania, which is trying to do just that, by incorporating the ethos of a Scandinavian prison.

Guests:

Allison Murphy, Assistant to the SCI Chester Superintendent

Paige Devane, Corrections Officer, Little Scandinavia

Gina Clark, SCI Chester Superintendent Professor

Jordan Hyatt, Director of the Center for Public Policy, Drexel University

Bret Bucklen, Research Director, Pennsylvania Department of Corrections

Sources:

With thanks to John Stark and Swedish Television for the stills and footage from their documentary "Prison Project: Little Scandinavia" © Swedish Television SVT, 2023

Fighting Crime is an Indio Media Production for Arnold Ventures © 2026 Arnold Ventures.

All rights reserved.

Getting a good job after prison is one of the best ways to beat recidivism. But what does the evidence actually say about getting formerly incarcerated people back into work? In this episode, we discover some ideas that are helping and hindering people in getting jobs. The solutions are cheaper and simpler than you might expect.

Guests:

Coss Marte, founder of ConBody and ConBud

Dr Amanda Agan, Cornell University

Dr Zoe Cullen, Harvard Business School

Sources:

Amanda Agan, Sonja Starr, Ban the Box, Criminal Records, and Racial Discrimination: A Field Experiment; The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 133, Issue 1, February (2018)

Zoe B. Cullen, Will S. Dobbie, and Mitchell Hoffman, Increasing the Demand for Workers with a Criminal Record, NBER Working Paper 29947 (2022)

Fighting Crime is an Indio Media Production for Arnold Ventures © 2026 Arnold Ventures.

All rights reserved.

There are a bunch of ways to improve public safety that no one is talking about.