How the coronavirus is punishing prisoners, prisons, and staff.
This session was available to ticket holders of the 2020 Texas Tribune Festival for the duration of the monthlong event.
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Crews is a storyteller and author of the New York Times best selling memoir “Burn Down the Ground,” a book about her chaotic childhood with deaf parents, published in 2012. She owns and operates the performance venue Q.E.D. in Astoria, Queens. Crews has been vocal on demanding changes to the criminal justice system after her father, a Texas prison inmate, contracted COVID-19 in July and died of lung cancer.
Gonzalez has served as Harris County sheriff since 2016, where he leads 5,000 employees in the largest sheriff’s office in Texas. Previously, he served 18 years in the Houston police department as a police officer, sergeant and investigator. Gonzalez also served as the vice mayor pro tempore of Houston from 2010 to 2012 and as mayor pro tempore of Houston from 2012 to 2016.
Trivedi is a senior staff attorney in the Criminal Law Reform Project, working closely with the ACLU’s campaign for Smart Justice. Previously, he served as a trial attorney at the Department of Justice’s fraud section and the U.S attorney’s office in Washington, D.C. Trivedi serves on the board of the Innocence Project of Texas and has been featured in The New York Times, LA Times and The Marshall Project.
