This week we share the first part of a lecture by Elizabeth Hinton delivered at IU on October 12. In her talk, she traces the creation and rise of mass incarceration as a strategy of America’s ruling class. Her historical research, which culminated in a book last year called “From the War on Poverty to…
Read MoreThe phenomenon of mass incarceration has made the United States the world leader in carceral punishment. With only four percent of the world’s population, the United States accounts for 20% of the world’s incarcerated persons. In fact, the U.S. Is the pioneer of mass incarceration and the attendant police militarization and prison industry that are…
Read MoreThis week, we have two contributions –one closer to home and one many more miles away- but both aim to describe an unfair relationship of power each contributor’s community faces. We first hear an essay from a prisoner in Southern Illinois, followed by a statement sent to us from a member of the community of…
Read MoreThis episode is an interview with Kwame Shakur, who is currently incarcerated at the Pendleton Correctional Institution. On August 11th , Indiana prison activists held a demonstration at the state capitol building in Indianapolis opposing new Indiana department of corrections regulations restricting incoming prisoner mail. The new policy prohibits all mail which is not hand…
Read MoreIn this episode, we continue our conversation with Ray Luc Levasseur. He is a former underground combatant with the United Freedom Front, which carried out a campaign of attacks from 1975-1984 against South African Apartheid and US intervention in Central America. He spent 13 years in solitary confinement after his capture. This week, he shares…
Read MoreRay Luc Levasseur is a former underground participant in the United Freedom Front, which carried out a campaign of attacks from 1975-1984 against South African Apartheid and US intervention in Central America. He spent 13 years in solitary confinement after his capture. In the first episode of our series on Ray Luc’s experiences in prison…
Read MoreThis week’s story is that of Kara Wild. An anarchist prisoner from Chicago, Kara is a trans woman who has been in a French prison for over a year and a half. We first give some background on her case, and then hear from her friends and loved ones, who share some stories about Kara….
Read MoreWe cover a range of news in this week’s episode- from a brief history of Black August and the upcoming August 19th prison demonstrations, to current prison conditions in regards to education, visitation, and forced sterilization. We then read a letter from prisoner Keith Malik Washington about the continued suffering from extreme heat in Texas…
Read MoreWe start this episode with a message from Angaza, a prisoner in the IDOC system who describes recent unfair changes in prison correspondence and what people on both the inside and outside are trying to do about it. As of April first, the Indiana Department of Correction is no longer accepting any correspondence for inmates…
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