Criminal Injustice began in 2015 as a collaboration between University of Pittsburgh law professor David Harris and NPR station WESA in Pittsburgh. A frequent guest on WESA programs, Harris approached staffer Josh Raulerson and former staffer Megan Harris (no relation) with an idea for a podcast: a weekly conversation about problems in the criminal justice system, drawing on his expertise and network of professional contacts. 

The project was born of a renewed sense of urgency surrounding the 2014 killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and the nationwide protest movement that emerged in the weeks and months that followed. Since then, the conversation around racial discrimination and use of force by police has only grown more intense and consequential, especially since the murder of George Floyd in 2020, and Criminal Injustice's audience has grown with it.

For its first two years the podcast was produced jointly by Harris and WESA, with content featured on local broadcasts. It became a fully independent production in 2018, though WESA continued to support Criminal Injustice through the use of its studios, and continues to feature Harris as in-house Legal Analyst.

After six years, 150-plus interviews, and hundreds of news and feature pieces, Criminal Injustice aired its final episode on April 19, 2022. Throughout its run, Criminal Injustice brought listeners important voices—advocates and activists, practitioners and academics, authors and authorities—from every corner, to examine different aspects of a criminal legal system sorely in need of reform and change. Although Criminal Injustice is taking an indefinite hiatus, you can still access the full catalog of episodes here.

THE TEAM

Professor David a. Harris

HOST

David A. Harris is the Sally Ann Semenko Endowed Chair at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. He studies, writes and teaches about search and seizure law, race and the legal system, and police behavior. Professor Harris is the leading national authority on racial profiling.

His 2002 book, Profiles in Injustice: Why Racial Profiling Cannot Work, and his scholarly articles in the field of traffic stops of minority motorists and stops and frisks, led to federal efforts to address the practice and to legislation and voluntary efforts in over half the states and hundreds of police departments. He has testified three times in the U.S. Senate and before many state legislative bodies on profiling and related issues. He gives speeches and does professional training for law enforcement, judges, and attorneys throughout the country, and presents his work regularly in academic conferences.

David also writes and comments frequently in the national and international media on police practices, including The Today Show, Dateline NBC, National Public Radio, the New York Times, and the Washington Post.

Click here for more information on Harris’ published works.

Josh RAULERSON

Producer

Josh Raulerson is a Pittsburgh-based multimedia producer and editor with deep roots in public radio, including stints as news director at Aspen Public Radio, anchor and weekend host at Iowa Public Radio, and most recently as Morning Edition host at WESA in Pittsburgh, where he developed and produced original programming and podcasts.

Raulerson holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Iowa. His adapted doctoral thesis, Singularities (Liverpool University Press 2013), was a finalist for the 2014 Science Fiction and Technoculture Studies Book Prize from the University of California, Riverside.

He currently serves as Director of Communications for the Pennsylvania Environmental Council and hosts the Pennsylvania Legacies podcast.