Kite Line is a weekly radio program and podcast that focuses on issues in the prison system and beyond.
On the inside, a message is called a kite: whispered words, a note passed hand to hand, or a request submitted to guards for medical care.
Illicit or not, sending a kite means trusting that other people will pass it farther along, until it reaches its destination.
We make this show to pass along words, across the prison walls
312 | Incarceration’s Burden
We are sticking close to home this week. We share the first part of a panel on the effects of incarceration on families. Max E. Smith, Becky Harris, Stacy Flynn, and Ashley C. Ford speak on their experiences of having incarcerated loved ones or how their time inside affected their family members. All Indiana residents,...
311 | The Old Atlanta Prison Farm
This week on Kite Line, we return to Atlanta’s proposed “Cop City”- a police training facility set to be built over a vast urban forest. People from across the city and the country have been organizing against its construction, which would make it the largest police training facility in the United States. People have been...
312 | Echoes of the 2018 Prison Strike
We recently marked our 300th consecutive episode, and in honor of that we have been airing our favorite selections from previous shows. As we approach the upcoming 4 year anniversary of the most recent National Prison Strike, we wanted to air these calls from two prisoners inside South Carolina, who risked their own safety to send...
310 | No Reforming Them- Jarrod Shanahan on Rikers Island
This week, we share the final part of a conversation about Rikers Island between Bella Bravo and Jarrod Shanahan. Shanahan is a writer, activist, and professor of Criminal Justice based in Chicago. He has previously appeared on Kite Line to discuss mass incarceration and the George Floyd rebellion. We are speaking again today about his...
309 | Captives with Jarrod Shanahan, Part One
This week, Bella Bravo speaks with Jarrod Shanahan, a writer, activist, and professor of Criminal Justice based in Chicago. Shanahan has been on previous episodes, discussing mass incarceration and the George Floyd rebellion. We are speaking today about his new book Captives: How Rikers Island Took New York City Hostage. Captives recounts the last seventy years of...
308 | A Great Moment to Push Further
Interview with Maru Moro Villalpando of La Resistencia, a project that organizes against the Northwest Detention Center. In this conversation, Maru passes a kite along on behalf of immigrants housed in the facility. As they point out, facilities like this are “black boxes” where extra effort must be taken to shed light on conditions inside....
307 | Holding on to Your Humanity
This week we return to our conversation between Baye Sylvester and Focus Initiatives’ Jok Huerta. Both formerly incarcerated in Indiana, they described the circumstances that brought them to prison in a previous episode. In this segment, they talk about the way the prison system strips people of their humanity- and the struggle to retain one’s...
- 91.3 FM South-Central Indiana
- 98.1 FM Bloomington
- 100.7 FM Nashville/Brown County
- 106.3 FM Ellettsville
- Carbondale, Illinois (On WDBX)
- Louisville, Kentucky (On Forward Radio)
- New Orleans, Louisiana (On WHIV)
- Richmond, Indiana (On WECI)
- Minneapolis, Minnesota (On KRSM)
- Columbus, Ohio (On WCRS)
313 | Prison’s Impact on Families
We are again sticking close to home this week. We share the second part of a panel on the effects of incarceration on families. Max E. Smith, Becky Harris, Stacy Flynn, and Ashley C. Ford speak on their experiences of having incarcerated loved ones or how their time inside affected their family members. All Indiana...