Michele Dietch is a senior lecturer at UT and the director of the LBJ School Prison Innovation Lab. In this interview, Michele discusses the importance of transparency in the carceral system. In November of 2020, Michele, with the help of UT LBJ students, published a report documenting COVID-19 deaths in Texas prisons and juvenile facilities. She goes on to speak about the harms of pretending that prisons are isolated and separated from the rest of society, and how in the case of a pandemic, it can increase spread and impact a community's safety. Michele believes that the opaqueness of Texas prisons is protecting negligence and abuse within the prison walls and she calls for policy makers and prison officials to become more transparent. Michele also discusses her journey into incarcerated rights advocacy and how she continues to show up and care for her community through research and data-driven revelations. This interview was conducted via Zoom on April 9, 2021with interviewers Murphy Anne Carter and Brooken Jones and narrator Michele Dietch.