In this episode, OJRC re-launches its weekly Trail Blazing Justice podcast with an introduction to two of its new contributors, Zach Winston and Justin Low. Zach, Justin, and Bobbin Singh, OJRC's Executive Director, discuss their background in criminal justice issues and goals for upcoming episodes of the podcast.

The Trail Blazing Justice podcast is a production of the Oregon Justice Resource Center.

Listen in to an interview from one of the community members that was on the frontlines during the 2020 George Floyd protests in our special Stop Tear-Gaslighting Us series. We are sitting down with community members who hit the streets in 2020 in Portland to look back and look at where we are now. 

This week, Beatrix Li, our Communications & Policy Associate, takes a break from interviews to sum up the 2020 summer of protests for racial justice, shares their own experience, the police budget, reviews where the issue of policing is at now since, and abolition.

(She also talks about cyberpunk at some point.)

The Trail Blazing Justice podcast is a production of the Oregon Justice Resource Center.

Listen in to an interview from one of the community members that was on the frontlines during the 2020 George Floyd protests in our special Stop Tear-Gaslighting Us series. We are sitting down with community members who hit the streets in 2020 in Portland to look back and look at where we are now. We are joined this week by Jahdi, an artist, youth mentor, and community activist who was present at the demonstrations.

Jahdi recalls his experience, the police violence he endured, and the trauma the community experienced. 

The Trail Blazing Justice podcast is a production of the Oregon Justice Resource Center.

Alice Lundell, our Communications Director talks with two civil rights attorneys to ask them about their perspective on the recent Supreme Court decisions and its' implications on Oregonians. Juan Chavez, our Civil Rights Project Director & Attorney, and Athul Acharya, Public Accountability Executive Director & attorney share their thoughts on the overturning of Roe, Miranda rights, ability to sue the federal government when federal officers violate constitutional rights, and other concerning issues from the aftermath of the SCOTUS claims. Juan and Athul weigh in on how important taking our fight to the district courts are, and what they foresee in the next term.

The Trail Blazing Justice podcast is a production of the Oregon Justice Resource Center.

Bobbin is joined by our Investigative Research Associate, Justin Low, who was behind our recently published reports on  Crime and Safety in Oregon in 2022: Myths, Facts, and Solutions and  ODOC: Agency in Crisis. Bobbin and Justin unpack why it's important for elected officials and media outlets to be driven by data, not fear-mongering tough-on-crime rhetoric that is not based in research. They talk about the correlation between police budgets and crime rates (hint: there is none!). Justin talks about what he has learned in his research on ODOC and the 436 media reports on civil right violations and concerning issues raised that the agency is responsible for.

Read our reports here: https://ojrc.info/reports

The Trail Blazing Justice podcast is a production of the Oregon Justice Resource Center.

Join us for our fifth interview in our special Stop Tear-Gaslighting Us series. We are sitting down with community members who hit the streets in the 2020 George Floyd protests in Portland to look back and look at where we are now. We are joined this week by Eliza Y., community member who was present at the demonstrations.

Eliza recalls their experience, the violence they endured, and the trauma the community experienced. 

The Trail Blazing Justice podcast is a production of the Oregon Justice Resource Center.

Bobbin is joined by our Prison Outreach Coordinator and Policy Associate, Trevor Walraven and formerly incarcerated advocates Dr. Scott Spencer-Wolff and Kyle Hedquist. Reflecting on our recent report, ODOC: Agency in Crisis, Bobbin leads the conversation on their pipe dream of the “Norway model,” which is an attempt to humanize prisons, which poses the question of that’d even possible? They talk about the failures of ODOC which are often sanitized in untruthful language, like when ODOC Director Collette Peters called the disastrous wildfire evacuations of 2020 as an “absolute success.” Dr. Scott Spencer-Wolff, Kyle, and Trevor share about their experiences and insights as formerly incarcerated people.

The Trail Blazing Justice podcast is a production of the Oregon Justice Resource Center.

Join us for our forth interview in our special Stop Tear-Gaslighting Us series. We are sitting down with community members who hit the streets in the 2020 George Floyd protests in Portland to look back and look at where we are now. We are joined this week by Simona, community member who was present at the demonstrations.

Simona recalls her experience, the violence she endured, and the trauma the community experienced. 

The Trail Blazing Justice podcast is a production of the Oregon Justice Resource Center.

Join us for our third interview in our special Stop Tear-Gaslighting Us series. We are sitting down with community members who hit the streets in the 2020 George Floyd protests in Portland to look back and look at where we are now. We are joined this week by Seemab Hussaini, a local Muslim community organizer. 

Seemab shares about a vivid, unforgettable memory of teargas Tuesday and recounts the amount of violence that we saw from law enforcement that has gone unaccounted for. Seemab and Beatrix talk about the conversations that were happening in immigrant and refugee communities about protests, and he shares his experience with bridging an anti-fascist movement with the Muslim community in Portland. They talk about why the protest community fractured, the specific role community organizations play in movements (hint: we need diversity of tactics!), the political aftermath, and his feelings towards Mayor Wheeler.

The Trail Blazing Justice podcast is a production of the Oregon Justice Resource Center.

Bobbin is joined by Zach Winston, Policy Director at OJRC to open Oregon's junk drawer only to find the Oregon Department of Corrections recent presentation at the legislature. In an assortment of bad practices, your hosts talk about the now well-understood Trumpian tactic of misdirection and sanitization that agencies like ODOC too frequently employ. They talk about much harm was done to 12,000+ incarcerated Oregonians during the historic yet expected 2020 wildfire season and 2021 heatwave, of which Peters called their lack of and a disaster of an evacuation plan "an absolute success" because no was killed. As ODOC operates as an unchecked agency, by design, Bobbin and Zach riff off some more failures of the Oregon prison system, and how adults in custody ultimately suffer and are not thought of or cared for by elected officials.

The Trail Blazing Justice podcast is a production of the Oregon Justice Resource Center.