Like many areas of society, the criminal justice system has struggled over the last year dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. The Council on Criminal Justice, a nonpartisan think tank that works to advance understanding of the criminal justice system and help inform the development of public policy, decided to take a deep dive into the system to see how it was coping. The council formed a task force in mid-2020 to examine how the criminal justice system has responded to the pandemic, offer guidance in the short term on how to deal with those challenges and a longer term assessment to help criminal justice leaders develop policies for the future.

The guests on this podcast discuss what they discovered, the type of guidance the council offered leaders in the criminal justice system and what needs to change to prepare for the next catastrophe.

Our guests are Abby Walsh, the council’s vice president for strategy and operations, and Thomas Abt, director of the task force and an expert on criminal justice policy. He is also the author of “Bleeding Out: The Devastating Consequences of Urban Violence—and a Bold New Plan for Peace in the Streets.”

Social isolation and loneliness are topics most of us have first-hand experience with after a year of a pandemic has left us unable to spend time with family and friends. The ill effects of such isolation are not just on our mental health but also can affect our physical health just as much as cigarette smoking or obesity.

Our guests are Julianne Holt-Lunstad, a professor of psychology at Brigham Young University in Utah, and Lori Gerhard, director of the Office of Interagency Innovation at the U.S. Administration for Community Living.

Holt-Lunstad, who has studied the topic for decades, discusses groups in society most at risk for social isolation and how public policy can help address the problem. Gerhard addresses particularly how social isolation affects older Americans and how policies at the federal and state level can help them with these challenges.

• OAS Episode 122 Transcription
• "Sustaining Behavioral Health Services Through the Pandemic"
• “The Double Pandemic of Social Isolation and COVID-19: Cross-Sector Policy Must Address Both,” by Dr. Julianne Holt-Lunstad
• U.S. Administration for Community Living

HIV/AIDS has killed about 700,000 people in the U.S. since it first emerged more than 40 years ago. But deaths have dropped dramatically since the mid-‘90s as new treatments have beome available. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in 2019 launched the Ending the HIV Epidemic Initiative that aims to eliminate the disease in this country.

On this podcast, we talk with Dr. Jonathan Mermin, director of the National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He discusses the range of treatments available to fight HIV/AIDS, strategies to prevent spread of the disease and the role state policymakers can play in helping eradicate the disease.

Our other guest if Charlie Severance-Medaris, a policy expert at NCSL. Charlie explains the steps states are taking to help people to get access to critical medications, changes in laws that have criminalized some behaviors for people with HIV/AIDS, and other efforts at the state level to end the epidemic.

The ability to negotiate skillfully is critical to a well-functioning legislature. On this episode, our guest makes the point that negotiation skills are not only crucial to the legislature, they are similarly important in just about everything you do in life.

Our guest, Monica Giannone, is a consultant and trainer specializing in negotiation and conflict resolution. She also runs the Harvard Kennedy School Negotiation Project and is an adjunct lecturer in negotiation at Babson College.

Every state in the country is involved in distributing and administering the two COVID-19 vaccines now approved for use by the US. Food and Drug Administration. Each state is working with a plan that it created in consultation with the federal government.

On this podcast we discuss how those plans were created, how they’ve had to change as the pandemic has progressed and what lies ahead.

Our guests are Hemi Tewarson, an expert in state plans to distribute the COVID-19 vaccines. She is a visiting senior policy fellow at the Margolis Center for Health policy at Duke University. As a health policy expert, she has studied the state vaccine plans and discusses how those are working, changes in federal guidance and when everyone will have access to the vaccine.

Our other guest is Tahra Johnson, a policy expert at NCSL. Tahra discusses state legislative action related to vaccine plans and how legislators can get involved in the planning process.

A new category of gene therapies is offering life-changing treatments to people with some forms of cancer and other rare disorders. These revolutionary treatments, however, come with a large price tag, sometimes exceeding millions of dollars for a single patient. Often, these costs fall on state Medicaid systems.

On this podcast we discuss how states are dealing with this challenge. One of our guests is Anne Winter, a Medicaid strategist with the national research and consulting firm Health Management Associates. Winter, who has particular expertise in pharmacy benefit management, discusses some of the strategies state are employing.

Our other guest is Colleen Becker, a policy expert at NCSL, who lays out the scope of the challenge facing states.

After a year like no other, legislators face some unprecedented challenges when they return to work in the 2021 sessions. COVID-19 and its effects on every aspect of society—the economy, the health care, education, criminal justice and more—will be front and center for every legislature in the nation.

Tim Storey, executive director of NCSL, is the guest on the podcast and offers his perspective on what it all means. We discussed how legislatures will meet, what their priority lists look like, how budgets are shaping up and what a new administration in Washington, D.C., means for states.

Possibly the most underreported story during the November 2020 election was the effect it would have on redistricting, the once-a-decade effort to draw congressional and state legislative districts.

On the podcast, Ben Williams, an NCSL policy expert on redistricting, explains how the election sets up legislatures to start the redistricting process, and discusses when the U.S. Census Bureau will supply states with the data they need to do both reapportionment and redistricting. He also fills us in on upcoming three-day redistricting seminar offered by NCSL that will take legislators and legislative staff through the various challenges involved in the process.

As the 2021 legislative sessions begin, about 15% of the lawmakers will be first timers. As with any new job, a little advice from more seasoned colleagues can be helpful.

On this podcast, I’m joined by Alabama Representative Debbie Wood and former Maine Representative Matt Moonen. They bring different perspectives. Wood, a Republican, was elected in 2018, and is completing her first term. Moonen, a Democrat, was first elected in 2012 and retired this year because of term limits. He served as House majority leader.

They talked about what surprised them the most when they first arrived in the legislature; how they handle relationships with colleagues, lobbyists and constituents; and their best piece of advice for new legislators.

An estimated 700 women will die from pregnancy-related complications in the U.S. this year, and most of those deaths are preventable. In addition, Black and Indigenous women are two to three times more likely to die of pregnancy related issues than White women.

On this podcast, the focus is on maternal mortality. I talk with Dr. Wanda Barfield, the director of the Division of Reproductive Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She discusses efforts by the CDC to reduce the number of deaths, including sharing strategies with state legislators as they try to craft solutions that work best in their states.

My second guest is Khanh Nguyen, a policy expert at NCSL who tracks legislation related to maternal mortality. She shares examples of specific legislation and approaches employed by states, including a focus on helping Black and Indigenous women.