As season three of the Radical Imagination podcast draws to a close with just two more episodes to go, we return to one of our nation’s biggest and most intractable concerns: the criminal-legal system and its disproportionate impact on Black and Brown people. There is such an urgent need to reimagine this unjust system that the podcast has had to revisit it multiple times over the course of the past three seasons. In season one we broached the idea of police abolition with Jessica Disu aka FM Supreme and Rachel Herzing, and the innovative violence prevention work of Advance Peace. Season two saw us delving deeper into police abolition with Derecka Purnell as the topic moved into mainstream discourse in light of last summer’s Black Lives Matter uprising, as well as highlighting San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin’s demonstration of how prosecutors are in a critical and uniquely powerful position to be a force for positive change and reform. 

We must continue to push ourselves to think more expansively about community safety and justice by pursuing transformative alternatives to the violence of policing and incarceration. In this penultimate episode of the season, we explore the juvenile “justice” system, asking ourselves, “If justice meant care instead of incarceration, what kinds of futures might be possible for our nation's youth?” Last November, Los Angeles County voted to dismantle the largest youth juvenile system in the country, upending a system that punishes young people in need and turning it into one that promotes health and wellbeing. Host Angela Glover Blackwell speaks with grassroots organizer Kent Mendoza, who was incarcerated at the age of 15 and is now involved in the redesigning of the youth probation department. We also hear from James Bell, founding president of the Haywood Burns Institute and a consulting partner on LA County's Youth Justice Reimagined Planning Team.

As always, please listen, subscribe, and share. Radical Imagination is available on all podcast platforms. You can also join Angela on Clubhouse every third Friday of the month at 12 pm PT / 3 pm ET for an interactive discussion that allows you, the listener, to engage with the podcast topics and guests. 

In solidarity,

Team Radical Imagination