Fighting Crime: Field Notes

Fighting Crime: Field Notes

Field Notes is the podcast that dives into the details behind some of the most interesting ideas to improve public safety. In this series, hosts Jennifer Doleac, Julie James, and Kevin Ring are talking to the researchers, practitioners and innovators from all sides who are actually making America safer, and wrestling with some of the hardest problems our society.

Episodes

How Governments Measure What's Working, with Gloria Gong

October 8, 2026 • 39 mins
State and federal governments spend billions on programmes designed to fix serious social problems. But good policy and effective policy are not the same thing. In this episode, Julie James is talking to Gloria Gong. She's the Executive Director of the Government Performance Lab at Harvard's Kennedy School. Her team embeds directly with state and local governments to understand why well-intentioned programmes so often fail to deli...
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How cheap phone calls reduce violence in prison, with April Feng

September 24, 2026 • 46 mins
Making a phone call from prison in America can be costly. Video calls, messaging, staying in touch with a lawyer, accessing education - all of it has historically come with a price tag that many prisoners and their families simply can't afford. In this episode, Julie James talks to April Feng. She’s the CEO of Ameelio, a tech nonprofit that provides free communication services to prisoners across the country. They believe th...
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Why the Pre-trial System Needs Change, with Alison Shames

September 10, 2026 • 35 mins
The American pretrial system - the period between arrest and trial - affects hundreds of thousands of people every year. How it works, and whether it's working well, is one of the most contested debates in criminal justice. Alison Shames is a director at the Center for Effective Public Policy, and she's spent years researching pretrial reform. In this episode, we talk about how the current system operates, what the evidence shows ...
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Rethinking Healthcare in Prison: A Public Safety Perspective, with David Ryan

August 27, 2026 • 42 mins
The relationship between healthcare access and public safety is an area of growing interest for researchers and policymakers. In particular, the question of what happens to people's healthcare when they enter and leave the justice system. In this episode, Jennifer Doleac talks to David Ryan from the Health and Reentry Project, HARP, about how healthcare in the prison system can improve public safety. They cover the current challe...
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How to Use DNA to Catch Criminals, with Ashley Spence

August 13, 2026 • 34 mins
Content warning: This episode contains discussions and descriptions of rape and violence. DNA testing has been used in criminal cases since the late 1980s. Many of us assume it's just part of how police investigations work - routine, widespread, and reliable. But Ashley Spence says the reality is far more complicated. Ashley knows this issue better than most. She founded the DNA Justice Project in 2022, motivated by her personal ...
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The Truth About Crime Data, with Jeff Asher

July 30, 2026 • 44 mins
Could recording statistics help make our communities safer? Jeff Asher, thinks they can. Understanding crime trends in America is harder than it sounds. Data is collected inconsistently, reported late, and often incomplete, which makes it difficult for policymakers and communities to respond effectively. Jeff Asher spent years at the CIA and the New Orleans Police Department before moving into research. He's the creator of th...
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How to reduce crime, with Greg Newburn

July 16, 2026 • 45 mins
Greg Newburn is the Director of Criminal Justice Policy at the Niskanen Center in Washington DC. Niskanen’s a think tank that sits outside the usual political divides - and use evidence to guide smart policy decisions. We talk about why the debate over criminal justice has become so polarised, whether that's actually useful for making people safer, and why he thinks clearance rates - the number of crimes that actually get so...
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The Crisis in America’s Prisons, with Andy Potter

July 2, 2026 • 41 mins
Staffing America's prisons has become one of the hardest challenges in the corrections system. Recruitment is down, keeping staff is difficult, and facilities across the country are looking for answers. Yet it’s an issue the public knows very little about. Andy Potter spent 30 years as a corrections officer before founding One Voice United, an organisation that represents corrections staff in criminal justice conversations.&...
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How lead exposure in children can be fixed, with Robbie Barbero

June 18, 2026 • 35 mins
Robbie Barbero, a senior fellow at Renaissance Philanthropy, has spent years on the science of childhood lead exposure: what it does to the developing brain, how it shows up decades later in school failure, lost earnings and violent crime, and why roughly half a million American children still have elevated lead levels today. If we took lead out of paint and petrol, why is it still here? Where is it coming from now? And if the f...
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Fixing broken prisons, with Mike Thompson

June 4, 2026 • 41 mins
Prisons are meant to keep communities safe. But what happens when the prisons themselves aren't functioning properly? Staffing in America's prisons has become one of the biggest problems facing the justice system. Recruiting and retaining officers is increasingly hard, and the impact reaches far beyond the prison walls. Jennifer Doleac talks to Mike Thompson from the Keystone Restituere Center for Justice. It’s a Pennsy...
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Introducing... Field Notes

May 21, 2026 • 1 min
The best ideas in public safety don't always reach the public. Every other week, hosts Jennifer Doleac, Julie James, and Kevin Ring sit down with the researchers, practitioners, and innovators wrestling with the hardest problems in crime and public safety, and finding the answers that are actually making America safer. New perspectives. Fresh ideas. Listen or watch every other week.
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