Every year the U.S. spends $80 billion to keep more than two million people incarcerated. The US makes up 5% of the global population, but holds 20% of its prisoners. We’re the global leader in a contest no one wants to win. U.S. police kill more than 1,000 people annually, and the data shows that BlPOC Americans are disproportionately killed and abused. The use of excessive force, violence and brutality at the hands of police are are common violations of human rights. 

In this episode of Human Rights Chat, we speak to Ta'Mara Hill, Policy Officer at the Center for Victims of Torture (CVT), who works on building CVT's portfolio on US-based human rights abuses – targeting police brutality, criminal justice reform, and other related issues. Ta’Mara shares about her work in the Healing, Incarceration, and Policing (or HIP) program and policy initiatives to make change in Minnesota.

Activists do such crucial work–fighting against injustices and protecting the most vulnerable, yet this challenging work often has a detrimental effect on activist mental health. Activists and human rights defenders experience high levels of fatigue, burnout, and secondary trauma. In this episode of Human Rights Chat, New Tactics staff interview Loretta Pyles, author of Healing Justice: Holistic Self-Care for Changemakers. We discuss systemic barriers to the right to rest and leisure and what individuals and organizations can do to counter the mental health risks of activism. Resources: #HumanRightsChat on Twitter and 10 Reads for Human Rights Activists.

Documenting the impact of human rights advocacy work can be difficult. Traditional strategies to track and evaluate progress are often ill-suited to monitor progress in a field where change can be hard to measure. Still, better understanding how and why organizations succeed can help inform and strengthen strategy.

In collaboration with podcasts The Irrelevant Arabs (@irrelevantarabs)and Palestinians Podcast (@PalestiniansPod), as well as Sylvia Thomas, producer at Freedom Podcasting Company and Barbara Frey, director of the Human Rights Program at the University of Minnesota, New Tactics created its own podcast that explores issues of representation, the value of oral storytelling, and accessibility in creating independent media.