74: How Public Defenders can Take Back the Public Safety Narrative w/Emily-Galvin Almanza and Danielle Hopkins

In this episode, Hunter is joined by two inspiring guests from Partners for Justice, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing support services to people facing criminal charges while helping public defenders protect people from incarceration and other criminal penalties.

Emily Galvin Almanza is the Founder and Co-Executive Director of Partners for Justice, as well as an advocate in the Harris County Public Defender Office. Starting this organization, which is the only one of its kind in existence, she brings insights into its mission and goals. She’ll share how holistic representation affects recidivism rates and why it is so effective.

Then, you’ll hear from Client Advocate Danielle Hopkins about how she supports her clients by telling their stories and putting the narrative back into their hands. By forcing judges and prosecutors to see her clients as whole people, carceral outcomes have declined.

Finally, you’ll learn about cash bail in Harris County and why it is so problematic. In fact, it’s causing some innocent people to sit in prison for over a year! 

Emily and Danielle dream of a world where people in the indigent system always have top-notch representation. Overall, their work helps people become unstuck from the legal system, turning lives around and saving valuable resources. 

[Editoral Note: At the end of the episode, Danielle mentioned SB 26. She was actually refering to SB 6. Furterhmore, the amount of time people spend in Pre-Trial is now commonly ranging from 160-250 days]

Key Topics and Takeaways:

• Emily and Danielle’s background. [4:17]
• What Emily looks for in a client advocate. [12:31]
• What Danielle has learned from her time as a client advocate. [18:02]
• Danielle shares success stories. [28:02]
• How holistic representation has affected recidivism rates. [31:40]
• Pushback to holistic representation. [36:36]
• Danielle’s advice to people who want to work in her role. [39:53]
• Where Emily wants the program to go and the roadblocks to getting there. [42:52]
• Assigned council. [47:36]
• Problems with cash bail. [54:05]

Guests:

Emily Galvin Almanza, Founder and Co-Executive Director Partners for Justice

Danielle Hopkins, Partners for Justice Advocate

Resources:

Partners for Justice 

Follow Emily on Twitter

Memorable Quotes:

“Once you see the sausage getting made, I think it's hard to ever want to eat it again.” (20:51, Hunter)

“People who are sitting in jail today cannot wait for policy approaches that accept their suffering as a necessary cost of system change. I think part of an abolitionist approach has to be fighting for radical change, the erasure of an oppressive and racist system in a way that does not accept the non-consensual suffering of others as a necessary cost.” (22:37, Emily)

“I feel that this work is actually crucial to undermining the system's ability to perpetually exist as it does. And I feel that we are dismantling it. We're just dismantling it in ways that perhaps are too subtle for people to notice.” (26:40, Emily)

“Governments are willing to invest in their public defender once they fully understand what public defenders can do.” (36:16, Emily)

“I like completing things and like achieving something and doing this role, I feel like I'm tangibly doing something for clients as opposed to like feeling like I'm just constantly not able to do anything.” [40:29, Danielle)

Contact Hunter Parnell:

[email protected]

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www.publicdefenseless.com