Listen and follow ‘The Kids of Rutherford County’
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In April 2016, 11 Black schoolchildren, some as young as 8 years old, were arrested in Rutherford County, Tenn. The reason? They didn’t stop a fight between some other kids.
What happened in the wake of those arrests would expose a juvenile justice system that was playing by its own rules. For over a decade, this county had arrested and illegally jailed hundreds, maybe thousands, of children. It would take years, but eventually one lawyer, a former juvenile delinquent himself, asked: Why? The answer would lead back to a powerful judge, the jailer she appointed and a county that treated this astronomical number of arrests as normal.
From Serial Productions and The New York Times, “The Kids of Rutherford County” is a four-part narrative series reported and hosted by Meribah Knight, a Peabody-award winning reporter based in the South.
In the podcast, Knight explores the world of one county’s juvenile court — a court shrouded in confidentiality and privacy, which in turn allowed something secretive and illegal to grow. How did this happen? What does it take to stop it? And will the people in charge face any consequences?
Behind the Series
Your Host
Meribah Knight is a senior reporter and producer at Nashville Public Radio. She is the host, reporter and producer of the Peabody Award-winning podcast “The Promise,” an immersive series about inequality and the people trying to rise above it. Her work has appeared in publications including The New York Times and The New Yorker. Her reporting on juvenile justice for ProPublica was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the Goldsmith Award and a National Magazine Award.
About the Music
The Blasting Company is the project of J.R. Kaufman and Justin Rubenstein, brothers best known for their work on the Emmy-winning animated series “Over the Garden Wall.” Starting as a two-man street band in Nashville, the brothers busked their way to Los Angeles, where an accommodating farmer’s market and kindly word of mouth led to unexpected adventures into film, television and, as of this year, podcasts and video games. Outside of composing, the brothers continue to perform and release their own music, the most recent of which was a collaboration with one of their musical heroes, Van Dyke Parks, for the single “Old Summer Reckoning.”
Credits
“The Kids of Rutherford County” is a production of Serial and The New York Times in partnership with ProPublica and Nashville Public Radio.
Reported and hosted by Meribah Knight
Additional reporting by Ken Armstrong at ProPublica
Produced by Daniel Guillemette
Additional production by Michelle Navarro
Edited by Julie Snyder and Jen Guerra
Additional editing by Anita Badejo, Sarah Blustain, Tony Gonzalez, Ken Armstrong and Alex Kotlowitz
Supervising Producer, Serial Productions Ndeye Thioubou
Research and fact-checking by Ben Phelan
Additional fact-checking by Naomi Sharp
Music supervision, sound design and mixing by Phoebe Wang
Standards review by Susan Wessling
Legal review by Dana Green and Al-Amyn Sumar
Original score by The Blasting Company
Additional production by Jenelle Pifer
Executive Assistant, Serial Productions Mack Miller
Art by Pablo Delcan
Deputy Managing Editor, The New York Times Sam Dolnick
Special thanks to Elizabeth Davis-Moorer, Nina Lassam, Susan Beachy, Kitty Bennett, Alain Delaquérière, Sheelagh McNeil, Kirsten Noyes, Jeffrey Miranda, Mahima Chablani, Renan Borelli, Kelly Doe, Anisha Muni, Kimmy Tsai, Jordan Cohen, Victoria Kim and Ashka Gami.
And to Katie Mingle, Mike Comite, Aaron Reiss, Bianca Giaever, Stephen Engelberg, Charles Ornstein, Susan Carroll, Emily Siner, Alex Mierjeski, Hannah Fresques, Julie Whitaker, Katie Fuchs, Peter DiCampo, Alissandra Calderon, Kassie Navarro, Kenda Lovecchio, Rachel Iacovone, Dan Petty, Chris Morran, Alexis Stephens, Kengo Tsutsumi, Mack Linebaugh, Suzanne Bond and Nicole Kemp.