The Incarceration Transparency Project with Andrea Armstrong

When someone dies in jail, the system that failed them is often the same one investigating the failure. As part of our Make Them Known campaign remembering the now 70 people who died in the Shelby County Jail since 2018, this episode considers what accountability could look like when someone dies in custody. We spoke with Andrea Armstrong, a 2023 MacArthur Fellow and professor of law at Loyola University New Orleans College of Law, whose Incarceration Transparency Project has documented deaths in custody across Louisiana since 2019.

Our Executive Director Josh Spickler talked with Andrea about what her research shows, why deaths in custody are undercounted, and what Memphis and Shelby County can do to bring transparency to the process. They also discussed why a new jail won’t save lives on its own, and what families like Linda Franks’s have taught her about building community and demanding better.