First, I am really glad that Crosscut put resources into this podcast. It was extremely well done and I learned a lot from David and Sara. I thought it provided a useful systems-level view of policing and especially the intersection of policing and public/mental health.
That said, I wish Crosscut didn't advertise this as a podcast "about the Defund movement." I was kind of shocked that the first 3-4 episodes (most of the series) included long interviews with police. After a year where the public has grown to distrust police and police have been caught lying over and over, I was a little unsettled to see them being given a mic to talk into at length without activists being given the same amount of interview time. I might have been less unsettled if it hadn’t been branded as a podcast “about the Defund movement.” There was really only one episode dedicated to talking to activists about solutions and their experiences with policing.
I also wish there was at least one interview with someone living with a mental illness who could talk about their experience with law enforcement —it was a little disconcerting to see so many "professionals" talking about how these systems negatively impact people (often unsheltered people), without the voice of those people really present throughout the podcast. In my opinion, the podcast is more about policing and mental health, which is it's own very important topic, than it is about the "defund movement," which is a movement rooted in Black liberation and led by Black organizers, yet race was not central to the conversations in the podcast. I hope that if Crosscut does follow-up episodes, articles, or interviews about this —that they invite more voices of people impacted by policing to the table.
