A companion limited series podcast to the documentary film MISSING PERSONS. The first podcast of its kind — activating full-length interviews as complete podcast episodes to maximize the depth and reach of every conversation gathered for this initiative.
Missing by Design goes beyond the film. Each episode is a feature-length conversation with a researcher, advocate, or person with lived experience, unpacking the science and the humanity behind what incarceration actually does to people.
The series takes its name from a central argument of the film: that the harms of the carceral system are not accidents or failures. They are built in. They are features, not bugs. And understanding that is the first step toward dismantling them.
Episodes release in tandem with production milestones, giving audiences a deeper connection to the research and the people driving it. Hosted by director EL Sawyer.
The audio version of Missing by Design will be made available and accessible to incarcerated people within participating state and county prison systems — with a mission to expand access to all incarcerated individuals everywhere, in multiple languages.
What isolation, chronic stress, and sensory deprivation actually do to brain structure. The damage outlasts the sentence.
Why substance use is a response to psychological pain. Punishment-based approaches accelerate the crisis they claim to solve.
What scientists studying Antarctica, space, and deep-sea missions have learned about isolation, and what it tells us about prison.
The neurological and psychological barriers that make coming home from prison one of the most dangerous transitions a person can face.
Direct testimony from formerly incarcerated people, their families, and advocates. The human ground truth beneath the data.
Programs, policies, and practices that actually work. The science of why connection, purpose, and agency rebuild what confinement destroys.
The neuroendocrinologist behind some of the most important research on stress and the brain explains what chronic environmental stress does at a cellular level. The prison environment is a near-perfect stress machine.
Research from Antarctica's most isolated research stations reveals how the brain physically changes under prolonged confinement, and what those changes mean for people released from long sentences.
NASA has spent decades studying what happens to people in isolated, confined environments. Dr. Johnson discusses the psychological countermeasures developed for space travel, and why prisons do the opposite of all of them.
Brain-derived neurotrophic factor is the protein that allows the brain to grow, heal, and adapt. Dr. Smeyne explains how chronic stress shuts it down, and what that means for millions of people cycling through the carceral system.
The landmark Rat Park experiments changed how scientists think about addiction, proving it is a response to environment, not a property of the substance. What does that mean for how we treat people who use drugs in prison?
"It seems like we have been sentenced to trauma." Eric VanZant reflects on his own experience with the carceral system, the psychological damage, the re-entry struggle, and what it actually takes to come home.
The former Surgeon General who declared loneliness a public health crisis speaks directly to what incarceration does to social bonds, and why addressing disconnection is central to any meaningful criminal justice reform.
New episodes drop throughout production. Subscribe on your platform of choice or join the email list for updates.
Or join the email list
No spam. Updates only when there's something worth saying.