30 episodes
Why Don’t We Know Podcast whydontweknow
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- News
We expect government secrecy from the Pentagon or the CIA — not from our universities and our schools.
But in many cases, institutions designed to protect our children are instead hiding critical information.
It leaves us asking a lot of questions. One of which is simple … Why Don’t We Know?
Over the following episodes, we are trying to figure that out.
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We actually won a FERPA appeal
We close out Why Don't We Know with a huge victory - a win against the abuse of FERPA, the federal privacy law that often leads to harmful secrets in schools. In this episode, we beat FERPA to get a video of an encounter between a school police officer and a student in Jeannette, Pennsylvania.
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The unintended consequence of police in schools
The complicated and misunderstood history of having police officers in schools, and one group of students first-hand stories of what it means to have them in their hallways.
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Why do children end up in juvy?
In our final drop of episodes for Why Don’t We Know, we explore the secrecy of the juvenile justice system, starting with how kids are often punished with fees and fines.
More than 30 states allow kids to be fined while in the juvenile system, and it’s very difficult to figure out how many children are affected because there is such poor data. -
Whistleblower
What happens when a police officer breaks the silent code and speaks out about misconduct? This is the story of Cariol Horne, a former Buffalo cop who tried to do the right thing and is paying the price.
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Why Is Data Collection So Darn Difficult?
In May of 2015, shortly after the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown by a Ferguson, Missouri police officer, former President Barack Obama traveled to Camden, New Jersey to announce a new program that was supposed to help repair the broken relationship between police and communities of color. This Police Data Initiative was to take poorly kept data and make it better, more uniform, and more accessible to the general public. The notion was that better data on policing would ultimately improve transparency and accountability between police and citizens. But today, if you visit the website for the police data initiative, what you’ll find is, “sadly, it's on life support,” it’s director says. “And I would say we're probably planning the funeral service for it.”
It’s not alone.
Across the country, government initiatives aiming to collect better data for the criminal justice system have failed or are struggling.
Host: Sara Ganim. Reporters: Trey Ecker, Hannah Himmelgreen, Dana Cassidy. Guests: Jim Burch, Scott Carver, Gipsy Escobar, Eddie Brown.
Editors: Amy Fu, James Sullivan. Original score: Pete Readman. Research: Brittany Suzsan. Produced by The Brechner Center for Freedom of Information at The University of Florida. -
Who Are Body Cameras Really For?
After the nationwide protests following George Floyd’s death, we did a little experiment to see if we could get body worn camera footage from officers at the scene of protests where we knew there were injuries.
Host: Sara Ganim. Reporters: Kristin Moorehead, Thomas Holton. Guests: Mary D. Fan, Dan Adams, Sarah Jensen, Patrick Michaud, Lauren Bonds, Gideon Oliver.
Editors: Amy Fu, James Sullivan. Original score: Pete Readman. Research: Brittany Suzsan. Produced by The Brechner Center for Freedom of Information at The University of Florida.