Grammy-award winning rapper Young Thug is currently at the centre of one of the longest criminal trials in Georgia state history. He’s been charged alongside more than two dozen other people under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, known as RICO. Prosecutors are using his rap lyrics as evidence he and a gang called YSL are involved in serious criminal activity, but his defence attorneys say Thug is entirely innocent and that he’s not running a gang, he’s running a record label.

Dr Gemma Flynn unpacks this extraordinary case in her latest zine called, ‘Slime: The State of Georgia v. Young Thug, The art of evidence in the war on gangs’.

In this episode of Just Humans we discuss Young Thug’s career, the trial, the lack of mainstream media attention it's received, race and politics and what impact this could all have on how rappers write lyrics.

To get your own copy of Gemma’s zine please email [email protected] Instagram @gemmaflynn

Gemma’s Young Thug Playlist

• Lifestyle by Rich Gang feat. Young Thug https://youtu.be/nGt_JGHYEO4?si=_yJQWN6_dXPyqs3R
• Pick up the Phone, Young Thug and Travis Scott https://youtu.be/mZDinQ92OZQ?si=qT4cWoUPmsjNASI9
• Business is Business album
• King Slime: The Prosecution of Young Thug and YSL, iHeartPodcasts. https://www.radio.net/podcast/king-slime

Additional Reading

Neilson, E., Dennis, AL. and ‘Killer Mike’ (2019). Rap on Trial: Race, Lyrics, and Guilt in America. New York: New York Press

Hannah-Jones, N. et al. (2019) The 1619 Project : a new origin story. First edition: New York: one World.

Hosted/produced/edited by Rachelle Cobain, SCCJR

Intro/outro music: Rewind by Donna Maciocia and Sean H. Available for download from the Distant Voices EP ‘Looking at Colours Again.’

Visit the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research website www.sccjr.ac.uk to find out more about us and work.

Since completing her PhD thesis, Dr Anastacia Elle Ryan has spent the last ten years working as a researcher, advocate and social entrepreneur promoting the rights of sex workers and criminalised women in Scotland and further afield. 

Anastacia founded a charity which aimed to remove the stigma often associated with sex work and provided support and services that improved the lives of hundreds of women across Scotland.

In this final episode of the season, Anastacia talks to Rachelle Cobain about the social and legal position of sex work, how decriminalisation may have a positive impact on workers in Scotland and why she decided to turn her academic studies into activism and advocacy. 

The Charity, SISU, is being relaunched soon, follow updates on Twitter @SISU_UK

Hosted/Produced/Edited by Rachelle Cobain, Communications Officer at SCCJR

Follow us on Twitter @RachelleCobain @AnastaciaRyan

Music: ‘Rewind’ by Donna Maciocia and Sean H available to download from the Distant Voices EP ‘Looking at Colours Again’.

Visit the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research website: www.sccjr.ac.uk and follow @TheSCCJR on Twitter & Instagram

Fergus McNeill, who is a Professor of Criminology and Social Work at the University of Glasgow, started his career as a criminal justice social worker before entering the world of academia in the late 90’s. Since then, much of his work has focused on how we punish, rehabilitate and reintegrate people into the community after they’ve offended.

In this episode we talk about how two very different encounters Fergus has had during his career – one with a man we’re calling Teejay and another with Mary – had a profound and enduring impact on his research and his perception of supervision.

As Fergus uses song writing and photography to both engage and collaborate with Teejay, we also look at the role art has played in helping him understand people with lived experiences and how it has provided a degree of proximity to his research participants.

Pervasive Punishment: Making Sense of Mass Supervision (2018) Emerald Publishing is available here.

McNeill, F. (2018) ‘Mass supervision, misrecognition and the Malopticon’, Punishment and Society, first published January 29, 2018, https://doi.org/10.1177/1462474518755137 An open access version can be found here: http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/154645/

The song played at the end of the episode is called Blankface which featured on the Vox Liminis Seen and Heard EP. Written by Teejay with Fergus McNeill. Performed by: Louis Abbott, Donna Maciocia and Tom Gibbs. Recorded and produced by Louis Abbott

Just Humans is Hosted/Produced/Edited by Rachelle Cobain, Communications Officer at SCCJR

Follow us on Twitter @RachelleCobain @fergus_mcneill

Intro music: ‘Rewind’ by Donna Maciocia and Sean H available to download from the Distant Voices EP ‘Looking at Colours Again’.

Visit the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research website: www.sccjr.ac.uk and follow @TheSCCJR on Twitter & Instagram

Former solicitor and now PhD student Deborah Russo intended her research into segregation in Scottish prisons to begin with a series of in-person interviews, but as Covid hit in 2020 she quickly had to devise an alternative plan.

Over the last year she has been working on a written correspondence project which has seen her amass more than 150 letters from people in prison, detailing personal accounts of their experiences of isolation, the physical and psychological toll it has taken on them, and the ways in which they seek to cope with life inside.

Deborah found that as these letters left the prison cell and went beyond the gates they acted as a bridge between the prisoner and the researcher, leading to a much more powerful, personal, and often cathartic exchange.

“In the mind of the participant it must mean something; that [the letter] moves away from the carceral space and perhaps it’s a way for the mind to become freer,” Deborah tells our host Rachelle Cobain.

Deborah gives listeners an incredibly moving insight into the minds of those isolated in prison, left without connection or meaningful human contact.  

*Advisory: Please be aware that at around the 17-minute mark the conversation contains some adult sexual references.

Hosted/Produced/Edited by Rachelle Cobain, Communications Officer at SCCJR

Follow us on Twitter via: @RachelleCobain @russo_dea

Music: ‘Rewind’ by Donna Maciocia and Sean H available to download from the Distant Voices EP ‘Looking at Colours Again’.

Visit the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research website: www.sccjr.ac.uk and follow @TheSCCJR on Twitter & Instagram

Dr Emma Forbes joins us in this episode to describe her extraordinary project GlassWalls which uses the medium of stained glass to shine a light on domestic abuse in Scotland.

Emma talks to Rachelle Cobain about each of the glass panels and the stories they tell us about victim/survivors and how law and society has viewed domestic abuse over the last few decades.

The panels are part of a collaboration between the women at the Daisy Project in Glasgow along with Charles Provan and Brian Waugh from Wasps Studios.

You can see photographs of all the panels on the GlassWalls website https://glasswallsart.com/

The Daisy Project provides domestic abuse advocacy and support https://thedaisyproject.org.uk/

With special thanks to Jo Mango and the women of the Daisy Project who wrote the song ‘Are you Listening?’ which is played at the end of the episode.

Hosted/Produced/Edited by Rachelle Cobain, Communications Officer at SCCJR

Follow us on Twitter via: @RachelleCobain @Emma_E_Forbes @Glasswalls3

Intro music: ‘Rewind’ by Donna Maciocia and Sean H available to download from the Distant Voices EP ‘Looking at Colours Again’.

Visit the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research website: www.sccjr.ac.uk and follow @TheSCCJR on Twitter & Instagram

Grayson Bartels is a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh working on his thesis which looks at how people in prison recover from Substance Use Disorder (SUD).

In this episode of Just Humans we talk about Grayson’s own struggle with addiction to narcotics, the emotional cost of this kind of research and why he thinks connection is the essential ingredient to recovery.

This episode includes a clip taken from Johann Hari’s Ted Talk, ‘Everything you think you know about addiction is wrong’ which is available on YouTube https://youtu.be/PY9DcIMGxMs

If you have been affected by this podcast and would like help and information please visit this website Support for people affected by drugs | NHS inform

Hosted/Produced/Edited by Rachelle Cobain, Communications Officer at SCCJR

Follow us on Twitter via: @RachelleCobain @gray_bartels

Music: ‘Rewind’ by Donna Maciocia and Sean H available to download from the Distant Voices EP ‘Looking at Colours Again’.

Visit the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research website: www.sccjr.ac.uk and follow @TheSCCJR on Twitter & Instagram

In this special podcast episode we got four amazing criminologists together to discuss the question, 'is there life after state punishment?'

Professor Fergus McNeill and Dr Marguerite Schinkel from the University of Glasgow are joined by Dr Reuben Jonathan Miller, University of Chicago and Professor Shadd Maruna, Queen's University Belfast.

This episode was also filmed so if you'd prefer to watch the conversation head over to the SCCJR YouTube channel.

A special thank you to Sean H and Donna Maciocia for supplying their song 'Rewind' taken from the EP 'Looking at Colours Again' which is part of the Distant Voices project at Vox Liminis. 

We have lots of content on our website so if you want to learn more about us and what we do visit our website www.sccjr.ac.uk or follow us on Twitter @TheSCCJR. 

Networks: Dr Ben Collier, University of Edinburgh

We used to say look at the stars to feel how small you are, today we need just look at our phones. As we type into them the network pulses and our secrets are hoarded by the algorithm. We must ask, are we human or are we data? 

Dr Ben Collier, Lecturer in Digital Methods at the University of Edinburgh, has spent the last couple of years looking intently at how our governments and police are using online tactics to nudge and influence us as we surf the internet. 

From sophisticated fire safety messages being targeted at smart speakers in people's homes, to online adverts warning would-be teenage hackers that the DDoS attack they are planning is illegal, the creeping influence of these institutions is giving rising cause for concern. 

Who is scrutinising these campaigns and could they unintentionally be doing more harm than good? 

These are all questions our guest Ben and host Ali Fraser delve into in this episode of Just Humans. 

Here's Ben's paper which he co-wrote with Dr Gemma Flynn, Dr James Stewart and Dr Daniel R. Thomas. https://bit.ly/31WPlQl

Ben and Daniel also presented this SCCJR Seminar on the paper which you can watch on SCCJR's YouTube. 

The Home Office audio clip featured in this episode came from the Digital Campaigning Essentials podcast published in May 2020.

Hosted by Dr Alistair Fraser, Director of the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research (SCCJR). 

Produced & Edited by Rachelle Cobain, Communications Officer at SCCJR.

Music: ‘Rewind’ by Donna Maciocia and Sean H available to download from the Distant Voices EP ‘Looking at Colours Again’.

Visit our website: www.sccjr.ac.uk or follow us on Twitter @TheSCCJR

Work: Dr Hannah Graham

Some of us have started to return to the office and in doing so we are relearning how to connect with our colleagues and professional networks. 

The art of the office and how to share our work with the outside world is always a challenge and nevermore so than in these strange Covid times. 

To help guide us we have gathered round the watercooler with our long-time friend and colleague, Dr Hannah Graham, Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Stirling. 

Hannah has established herself as a prominent public scholar who is never shy of raising her voice and speaking out about issues of crime and justice that are close to her heart. 

In this episode we learn more about how Hannah has developed her public voice, how she (and others) can connect and support colleagues and why it's important to show up! 

Hosted by Dr Alistair Fraser, Director of the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research (SCCJR). 

Produced & Edited by Rachelle Cobain, Communications Officer at SCCJR.

Music: ‘Rewind’ by Donna Maciocia and Sean H available to download from the Distant Voices EP ‘Looking at Colours Again’.

Visit our website: www.sccjr.ac.uk or follow us on Twitter @TheSCCJR

Friends: Dr Lisa Bradley and Dr Nughmana Mirza

SCCJR besties Lisa and Nughmana first met when doing their PhD's at the University of Glasgow and soon found they had a lot in common; their research interests, having busy home lives with young kids, wanting to do academia differently and a shared love of chatting over cake and coffee.

Soon their conversation sparked deep connection and collaboration. 

In this episode of Just Humans we look at how friendship can be viewed as a radical act within the academy and examine the ways in which it may enrich research and the people who make it. 

Since recording Dr Lisa Bradley is now a Lecturer in Creative and Interdisciplinary Studies in Education and Dr Nughmana Mirza is a Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Glasgow. 

Researchers Don’t Cry?! https://researchersdontcry.wordpress.com

Diversifying Justice https://diversifyingjustice.com

Hosted by Dr Alistair Fraser, Director of the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research (SCCJR). 

Produced & Edited by Rachelle Cobain, Communications Officer at SCCJR.

Music: ‘Rewind’ by Donna Maciocia and Sean H available to download from the Distant Voices EP ‘Looking at Colours Again’.

Visit our website: www.sccjr.ac.uk or follow us on Twitter @TheSCCJR