Data Geek Series: Legal (Criminal InJustice) Systems with Attorney Karla Cruel

03/15/22 • 56 min

In this episode, Attorney Karla Cruel walks us through the components of the legal system for criminal law and the ways in which these different processes are flawed. "The very fact that we know there are frequent innocent convictions, in and of itself, tells us the system is flawed," she says. She walks us through various stages of bias and misjudgment, and how the are compounded over time.
Our guest, Karla L. Cruel, Esq. is a former educator, now social entrepreneur who launched Legal Empowerment Group to educate and support lower-to-middle income individuals. She worked as staff attorney for Tenant Union Representative Network (TURN), assisting with Philadelphia’s Eviction Prevention Project. Having grown up in West Philadelphia, attending academic programs created to help poor minority children go to college, now she holds three degrees. Throughout her schooling, she has been promoting social equality and racial and religious reconciliation. After living in Japan for 4.5 years, Ms. Cruel returned to the US to have a greater impact on the community in which she was raised. Through the encouragement of her students, Ms. Cruel attended and graduated from Drexel University’s Thomas Kline School of Law. She has practiced law in various areas including criminal law, family law, landlordtenant law, business law, charter school law and other civil transactional and litigation. Karla L. Cruel is admitted to practice in Pennsylvania. Ms. Cruel also holds a master’s degree from Saint Joseph’s University in criminal justice is a mentor, speaker, educator and community advocate. Karla has also given back to her community through volunteering with and serving as a member of Christian Legal Services’ Board of Directors, teaching at Temple University’s Pan-African Studies Community Education Program, serving on the Board of Directors of Imhotep Charter School, and teaching legal education workshops at Imhotep’s Communiversity. Even ran for a Philadelphia District City Council seat in 2019. She is the recipient of the Outstanding Law Student Award from the National Association of Women Lawyers and the Pro Bono Award from Drexel University Law School and First Judicial District in 2019 for her working in Landlord-Tenant court.

Resources mentioned on the show.
Overview of the Legal system book:
Scheb, J. M., & Sharma, H. (2020). An introduction to the American legal system. Wolters KluwerOrganizations:
Innocence Project Equal Justice Initiative

Data:
Wrongful Convict ionsExonerationInnocent Convictions Plea System

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Data:
Wrongful Convict ionsExonerationInnocent Convictions Plea System

Support the show

To recomend a guest contact us at: [email protected]
To support Collective Power join our Patreon

Previous Episode

DataGeek Series: The Music Business System is Designed to Keep Artists in Debt with Andrae Alexander

In this episode, we take a systems look at the music industry and how it sets up artists and composers to be in constant debt through the lack of fair and transparent contracts and the restrictions in regulations and contract terms. We envision a music industry where artists and composers are more informed about their contracts, their rights, and their fans.
Andrae is a Grammy-Nominated musician and professor who moved to Los Angeles in 2009 from Maryland and is a faculty member at the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music in the Music Industry Department, and is completing a PhD. in Leadership Studies . He is also a veteran of the United States Marine Corps and the United States Navy Band of Washington, D.C. He is also an Amazon best-selling author of the book, Build Your Music Career from Scratch, which is in its second edition, and has multiple Billboard #1s. An internationally traveled musician and clinician on the subjects of Music Business, Music for Film and Television, and Music Production, Andrae has been to over 40 countries. Andrae holds a Bachelor of Arts in Music, a Master of Arts in Music Industry Administration. Andrae is currently a voting member of the Recording Academy, member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame, a Songwriters of North America board member, a co-founder of the Songrise NFT Platform

As a musician, composer, and consultant, Andrae has worked on projects such as Empire, Detroit the movie, and The Birth of a Nation soundtrack. Some of the artists he has worked with include NeYo, BlackBear, George Drakoulias, Swae Lee, Mellissa Ethridge, Allee Willis, Meek Mills, Pusha-T, Kanye West, Jesse J., Rodney Jerkins, Lamont Dozier, No I.D. and more. Before teaching at USC, Andrae taught courses on Music Business, Music Production for Media, and Music Composition and Programming at the Los Angeles Film School in Hollywood.
Get in touch with Andrae:

Resources mentioned on the show:
Organizations:

Songwriters of North America - https://www.wearesona.com/

Articles:

Music Publishing in the US $6.4 Billion
Major Label Music Production in the US $9b
Only 2% on Spotify make over 1000 dollars a year,
870 artists make $1m
229 streams of Spotify to get $1
3 major labels. Warner, Sony, Universal - https://www.liveabout.com/top-major-pop-record-labels-3246997
Discrimination of Black artists

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Next Episode

Data Geek Series: Family Preservation Works! the Child Welfare System with Richard Wexler

In this episode, we look at data on racial bias in the child welfare system, and on the case for family preservation against the current family policing system and its biases, since COVID-19. We also talk about data collected in NYC, on how COVID-19 activated local networks and how the child welfare system can be changed to suit the data we know.

Our guest, Richard Wexler, is Executive Director of NCCPR. His interest in child welfare grew out of 19 years of work as a reporter for newspapers, public radio and public television. During that time, he won more than two dozen awards, many of them for stories about child abuse and foster care. He is the author of Wounded Innocents: The Real Victims of the War Against Child Abuse (Prometheus Books: 1990, 1995). Wexler has testified before Congress and State Legislatures and advised the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Children and Families in its 1995 rewrite of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act. Wexler’s writing about the child welfare system has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and other major newspapers, and he has been interviewed by The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Time, the Associated Press, USA Today, 60 Minutes, National Public Radio, CNN, Good Morning America, Today, CBS This Morning, ABC World News Tonight, the CBS Evening News, and other media. Wexler is a graduate of Richmond College of the City University of New York and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where he was awarded the school’s highest honor, a Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship. He was formerly Assistant Professor of Communications at The Pennsylvania State University — Beaver Campus.

Resources mentioned on the show:
National Coalition for Child Protection Reform website
Issue paper 1: Foster Care vs. Family Preservation: The Track Record on Safety
Issue paper 7: Family Policing and Race
Issue paper 11: Does Family Preservation Work?
New York's positive data on its 'unintended abolition'

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