On today’s episode, we share two perspectives on the role of study, as practiced in the face of repression and directly against repression.  First, we complete our interview with Garrett Felber, with a focus on his termination by the University of Mississippi in retaliation for his outspoken criticism of its white supremacist structure and how he and others have worked to ensure that the  anti-prison work of Study and Struggle can continue despite his firing.  Just as Garrett must also study and navigate these academic power structures, our next guest, Mwalimu describes carefully tracking the changing dynamics at the California prison where he is caged.  Mwalimu discusses the careful measures he and his New Afrikan comrades
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This week, we share the second part of a conversation between Garrett Felber and Micol Seigel. Felber has been on the show before, discussing the Nation of Islam and its relationship to the origins of the modern prisoners’ movement. His new book, Those Who Know Don’t Say: The Nation of Islam, the Black Freedom Movement, and the Carceral State, is an important contribution to this history. In this episode, Micol and Garrett introduces the role of the “scholar-activist” and its tenuous relationship with the university. Garrett organizes with the Study and Struggle program to fight against criminalization and incarceration in Mississippi, understanding that study is a moment of political struggle. You can listen to
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This week, we share the first part of a conversation between Garrett Felber and Micol Seigel. Felber has been on the show before, discussing the Nation of Islam and its relationship to the origins of the modern prisoners’ movement. His recently released book, Those Who Know Don’t Say: The Nation of Islam, the Black Freedom Movement, and the Carceral State, is an important contribution to this history. In this episode, Micol and Garrett talk about the dialectics of discipline- a term Garrett coined to describe the relationship between disciplined, collective Black protest and escalating punitive state discipline. You can listen to previous episodes with Garrett
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In this episode, we share information about the recent disturbances in St. Louis. Afterwards, we have the second part of a conversation with Balagoon, an Indiana political prisoner who has been locked up for almost 43 years, 31 of those in isolation. In this episode, he first describes the context of the 1985 uprising in the Indiana reformatory, now called Pendleton Correctional Facility. He describes the lockup units as “our schools of thought and consciousness” prior to the uprising. He tells of guards beating his dear comrade with an illegal baton so hard that it cracked. The guards then dragged his comrade in front of the other inmates, telling them that quote “they
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Up first, we have a comprehensive overview of prisoner protests compiled by Perilous Chronicle, who are collecting information about the many prison uprisings and disturbances now occurring regularly. They will be sharing these updates with us each month. For our feature this week, we share the first part of a conversation with Balagoon, an Indiana political prisoner who has been locked up for almost 43 years, 31 of those years in isolation. Now, at age 61, he is seeking a sentence modification due to his worsening health conditions, as well as the fact that – as he puts it- after 43 years inside he simply isn’t the person he used to be. Balagoon
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Our show this week returns with the second part of a conversation between Kite Line’s Micol Seigel and three members of the Carbondale, Illinois community:  Chastity, Kim, and Nick. They speak about the ongoing struggle for the use of the Eurma C Hayes Community center. Originally opened by the city as a space for youth, the city later defunded the Eurma C Hayes center and put the responsibility on community groups to steward the building.   Now Carbondale politicians are proposing converting it to a police substation. This sequence is familiar to Bloomington residents, where a community environmental hub was replaced with the police substation now looming over Switchyard Park. These Carbondale residents speak
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For our show this week, we have the first part of a conversation between Kite Line’s Micol Seigel and three members of the Carbondale, Illinois community:  Chastity, Kim, and Nick. They speak about the ongoing struggle for the use of the Eurma C Hayes Community Center Originally opened by the city as a space for youth, the city later defunded the Eurma C Hayes Center and put the responsibility on community groups to steward the building.   Now Carbondale politicians are proposing converting it to a police substation. In this first of two parts, three Carbondale residents speak about why they oppose police being put there, and the conflation of an idea of “security”
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This week, we are trying something new so that we can cover the full range of increased prisoner struggles. We will be teaming up with Perilous Chronicle at the beginning of each month to give you headlines tracking disturbances in prisons, jails, and detention centers. Perilous is a project seeking to gather and track information on prison uprisings, riots, protests, strikes, and other disturbances within public and private jails, prisons, and detention centers in the US and Canada since 2010. In this process, they rely on crowdsourced information in addition to local news outlets and our own reporting. In this segment, we share the events that Perilous tracked for January and February 2021. After
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This week, we return to an important conversation about grand juries and state repression. Recently, Steve Martinez, an Indigenous and Chicano Water Protector who opposed the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) on the Standing Rock reservation in 2016, was held on charges of civil contempt of court for his refusal to cooperate with a federal grand jury. In order to learn more about Steve’s situation, Perilous Chronicle editor Ryan Fatica spoke with Lauren Regan, lead attorney and executive director of the Civil Liberties Defense Center in Oregon, who has dedicated her life to defending those facing charges for their participation in social movements. Last week, she laid out the fundamentals of Steve’s case by
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This week, we brought together three segments that focus on ways the system attempts to repress participants in collective struggles and those who fight for a better world. In a segment that originally aired on KPFA, we hear about the punitive measures Malik Washington is facing after speaking out about the COVID-19 outbreak in a Geo Group run halfway house. We air audio from Cory Cardinal, an Indigenous activist imprisoned at the Saskatoon Correctional Center in Saskatchewan, Canada. Cory spoke with Perilous Chronicle editor Ryan Fatica earlier this week, and says that this week he was sent to solitary confinement after he organized a protest at the prison. The protest
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Mwalimu Shakur, who spoke in last week’s episode about COVID-19 protocols in his facility, returns this week to share more reflections. He shares first-hand experiences of gladiator fights and organizing against the SHU (Secure Housing Unit) from the inside. Corcoran State Prison was the first prison to develop the ultra-repressive SHU.  He also talks about using his time inside to educate other, younger prisoners through reading groups on classics like George Jackson and lessons in language, Marxist theory, and
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This week, we followup on the COVID-19 conditions at Corcoran Prison in California and share news from the uprising in the St. Louis Jail. Afterwards, we finish a conversation between Dr. Jeffrey Ian Ross and Dr. Micol Seigel. Ross is a Professor at the University of Baltimore, and has researched, written, and lectured extensively on policing, political crime, state crime, and crimes of the powerful for over two decades. Last week, they discussed the concept of “convict criminology”. Convict criminology is the study of crime and prisons by formerly imprisoned academics and associated critical and radical scholars. Now, their conversation moves into a vital discussion of police violence and use of
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On January 30th, guards attacked Robert Earl Council, and beat him until he was unconscious.  Council, also known as Kinetik Justice, is a longtime imprisoned organizer and cofounder of the Free Alabama Movement.   Outside supporters have urged as many people as possible to call the Donaldson Correctional Facility and express concern for Council’s welfare.  The prison’s phone number is (205) 436-3681. This week, we sit in on a conversation between Dr. Jeffrey Ian Ross and Dr. Micol Seigel. Ross is a Professor in the School of Criminal Justice, College of Public Affairs, and a Research Fellow in the Center for International and Comparative Law, and the Schaefer Center for Public Policy at the
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This week, we share audio in support of Dan Baker and Loren Reed, and from Panagioti Tsolkas, who tells us about the important #CagingCOVID campaign and their upcoming February 1st day of action. As we’ve previously documented on Kite Line, facilities across the country have systematically failed to protect prisoners from COVID-19 and its uncontrolled spread.  We are sharing two testimonies on this horrific failure, both collected by the #CagingCOVID campaign, one from Kevin Rashid Johnson in Indiana and the other by Ricardo Pena III in Texas. You can find out more about Dan Baker here, and Loren Reed here. You can hear more audio from the #CagingCOVID
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On Kite Line this week, we share two interviews with advocates working on the physical well-being of those locked inside. The first conversation we hear is with Olivia, who is part of a group trying to get the word out about unsafe conditions at the California Medical Facility, or CMF, a prison for inmates with medical conditions. This facility has been overrun by the coronavirus, as a result of carelessness by the administrators. Our second call is with Peter, who talks to us about his advocacy for a friend in the DuPage County Jail. His friend, Strawberry Hampton, who was recently featured on the show, suffered abuse at the hands of prison staff
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This week on Kite Line, we have a wide variety of ongoing prison news- ranging from the recent executions of prisoners in Terre Haute to a prison disturbance in St. Louis. Afterwards, we share a conversation that was sent to us from an outside supporter of the ongoing Saskatoon Correctional Facility hunger strike. In this conversation, Cardinal explains what led to the hunger strike, and how outside support has been helpful to those
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This week, we share an urgent statement from the Free Alabama Movement about their ongoing hunger strike and economic blackout. Afterwards, we speak with David Pellow, Fabiana Lake, and Camber Wilson, who recently coauthored a report on ‘Environmental Justice Struggles in Prisons and Jails Around the World,’  via the Prison Environmental Justice Project.  Environmental justice is an even more important question now, as toxicity and health deficits render prisoners even more vulnerable to the ravages of the pandemic. You can find their report here. You can find more information about the Free Alabama Movement
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Happy New Year! This week, we broadcast kites from Strawberry Hampton in Illinois and Daniel Dawson in Saskatchewan, who both called in this week to update us on their conditions. Strawberry Hampton, a Black transgender woman and niece of Fred Hampton, shares the horrific abuses she has suffered inside. Hampton received a rare transfer to an all-women’s facility after she was abused in a men’s unit. She is back inside, and continuing to face verbal and physical abuse. Content warning for descriptions of assault. In our second conversation Daniel Dawson gives important updates on their hunger strike in Saskatchewan. It was originally called last month as COVID-19 spread uncontrollably inside the facility.  Prisoners
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Today, we broadcast Part 2 of our series on Compassionate Release. Compassionate Release is the principle that sentences should be adjusted given “particularly extraordinary or compelling circumstances which could not reasonably have been foreseen by the court at the time of sentencing”. We now continue to hear from Alison Guernsey, who tells us about the barriers thrown up against this form of sentence reduction, such as excessively long sentences due to mandatory minimums. While it is usually considered from the perspective of individual prisoners suffering, for example, from a terminal illness, compassionate release has become an urgent, collective demand in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, as it spreads within
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We begin this week with a follow-up conversation with Cory Cardinal, who has spoken with us on our past two episodes regarding a hunger strike at the Saskatoon Provincial Correctional Centre in Saskatchewan, Canada. Previously, Cory detailed his experiences during and after the hunger strike. And now, he gives us some updates and tells Perilous about the inmates’ rights issues that led up to the hunger strike, and how these changes in the system have been impacting prisoners. Afterwards, we talk about compassionate release, as Alison Guernsey tells us about the history and barriers involved in this form of sentence reduction. Compassionate Release is the principle that sentences should be adjusted given “particularly
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This week, we hear from two people who explain the rapidly deteriorating COVID-19 situation in facilities in both Saskatchewan and Indiana. As we reported last week, prisoners at the Saskatoon Provincial Correctional Centre in Saskatchewan, Canada organized a hunger strike last week to protest the rapidly-spreading COVID-19 outbreak at the facility. The hunger strike lasted several days and ended Monday, November 30th. Cory Cardinal, an Indigenous prisoner and a leader in the hunger strike, spoke with us again about the facilities response to the hunger strike. Afterwards, we speak with Kelsey Kauffman, who details how the various IDOC protocols are seeding COVID-19 outbreaks in facilities across Indiana. In addition, Kauffman
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This week, we share two interviews with prisoners confronting rampant COVID-19 infections in their facilities. Cory Cardinal, imprisoned at the Saskatoon Provincial Correctional Centre in Saskatchewan, Canada speaks about the hunger strike they organized last weekend to protest the rapidly-spreading COVID-19 outbreak at the facility. Prisoners at the Charles Egeler Reception and Guidance Center (RGC) in Jackson, Michigan protested “deplorable” conditions and the Michigan Dept. of Corrections’ dangerously inadequate response to the COIVD-19 pandemic. In an interview with H.H. Gonzales, a prisoner at RGC, he speaks on the protest and the current conditions inside the facility due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Special thanks to Perilous Chronicle, you can see links
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For our episode this week, we share more from Florida Prisoner Solidarity. Recently, they told us about the drastic retaliatory measures prisoners were being subjected to in the Florida Department of Corrections. These punishments were often given as a response for prisoners advocating for themselves in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. This week, they continue to shine a light on the conditions, including how prisoners are targeted and punished for speaking out. You can find out more about their work at
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This week, share an update sent to us from Michelle Freeman about her husband, Vernell. Michelle’s impassioned plea on behalf of her partner is both urgent and inspiring, and we will continue to air messages from her in the future, as Vernell’s situation evolves. You can hear our episode about Vernell here. Afterwards, we speak to two people from Florida Prisoner Solidarity, who detail the methods of retaliation and silencing that the Florida Department of Corrections has been deploying against prisoners and outside supporters. This includes the disappearance of several inmates in the Florida prison system, new laws directed against outside advocates, the implementation of new and brutal “pandemic safe” weapons that
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This week, we return to stories of electronic monitoring also known as e-carceration. Micol Seigel talks to Cody, who says he spent about half his life locked up. He’s 26 now, and spent time in Pendleton Correctional Facility and Wabash Valley Correctional Facility, both in Indiana. He tells Seigel first hand about e-carcerations disruptions to work, financial, and family life. He talks about the new ankle bracelet he has to wear, which he describes as the size of a soda can, and also the traps used by the system to return people to incarceration based on technical violations, and the consistent confusion on both sides of  e-carceration regarding how the process actually
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After news, we share a conversation between Christina and Leslie about their experiences obtaining an education while in prison. Both women reflect on the barriers to getting a degree on the inside, and how effective the degree was in helping them once they got out. They also talk about some of the differences in educational options between male and female facilities. These interviews with formerly incarcerated people on the barriers they face in obtaining an education was made possible by a grant from the Lumina
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This week, we are airing two kites- the first from a woman advocating for her brother, Billie Allen, who is on death row here in Indiana, despite his fight to prove his innocence. We will talk to Yvette more in the coming weeks, but in this conversation, she introduces us to her brother’s case, and talks more generally about death row’s impending executions. We then follow with a piece, recorded from the inside, from Shaka Shakur. A former Indiana prisoner, Shaka was recently moved to Virginia, an example of interstate transfer, which is a problem you might recall from Malik Washington’s recent interview. We’ve shared Shaka’s story in a previous episode of Kite
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This week, we are talking about youth in detention. We are laying the groundwork to continue to talk to current prisoners who were placed in facilities while young, including people who are still locked up to this day, about how the impact of incarceration since childhood has shaped them into adulthood. We start with an impassioned piece reflecting on the recent deaths of adolescents in two different states- Cornelius Frederick’s death at a youth facility in Michigan, and Gynnya McMillen in Kentucky. Following that, we share a conversation we had with Heather D’Aoust, who is incarcerated in California. She’s been inside since she was a teen and talks about navigating this difficult terrain
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This week on Kite Line, we share a call from a prisoner located in Seattle, who exposes his facility’s careless treatment of prisoners in the face of COVID-19, and how medical isolation and punitive isolation function similarly. Afterwards, we finish our conversation with Keith Malik Washington. Malik was recently released from prison after many years, and has been telling us about life on the outside- and the importance of supporting those still behind prison walls. He talks about his comrade, Kevin Rashid Johnson, and the way that the prison system has used the interstate compact agreement to transfer Rashid to many facilities in several states as a form retaliation for exposing inhumane prison
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We begin this week with a short piece by WFHB reporter Aaron Comforty, who reports on an alleged instance of attempted suicide in the local jail, and one mother’s attempts to find out the status of her son. We also speak with Ted Smith, an Associate Professor of Environmental Medicine at the University of Louisville who tells us about a new study his time is working on- testing wastewater from prisons in an effort to track potential coronavirus outbreaks. Lastly, we return to our conversation with Malik Washington, recently released from prison after many years. In last week’s episode, he spoke about his own experiences inside, but began talking about the current plight
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After this week’s news and updates, Kite Line sits down with Keith Malik Washington, who was released from prison last month. We’ve shared many of Washington’s essays and audio dispatches over the years, as he exposed the ongoing injustices and hazards he faced alongside others behind the prison walls.  Even though Washington is now on the outside, he spends much of his time advocating for his comrades who are still inside, such as Kwame Shakur and Kevin Rashid Johnson. You can see Washington’s post on FB about Kevin Rashid Johnson here. You can see more from the folks at Perilous
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This week, we hear from Michelle Freeman, who describes the horrifying conditions in which her husband, Vernell Freeman, is being held in Miami Correctional Facility, here in Indiana. Speaking on behalf of her partner, Michelle tells Kite Line about the repeated incidents of medical neglect and retaliatory violence Vernell has been subjected to within the prison. We also have updates on the situation of west coast prisoners, who are suffering from their own crises of medical and housing neglect amid the wildfires and evacuations in Oregon and elsewhere. You can see more about the call-in campaign for
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Last week marked the 49th anniversary of the Attica prison rebellion. In this episode of Kite Line, we finish our conversation with Dr. Orisanmi Burton. A professor at American University, Dr. Burton introduces us to the diverse demands of the Attica rebels, as well as misconceptions about the demands and the rebellion itself. He also speaks to the legacy of Attica today and its continued role in prisoner struggles. Dr. Burton’s interview with Funambulist Magazine and his presentation at the Making/Unmaking Mass Incarceration conference both introduce additional dimensions of the Attica Rebellion. His presentation is during the Prison Activism panel is here. and his article in Funambulist
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This week marks the 49th anniversary of the Attica Uprising, when 1300 prisoners in New York state overcame physical, social, and political barriers to accomplish their revolt. We spoke with Orisanmi Burton, a professor at American University, who has interviewed many participants in the uprising and is currently preparing a book on the event. Professor Burton insists on prioritizing the voices and self-activity of the prisoners who were involved, leading him to take seriously their strategies and demands, rather than accepting either the state narrative which celebrates the massacre carried out by police to end the revolt, or the liberal narrative which treats the prisoners as victims. While the massacre
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This week, we share important news from around the Midwest and more updates from the struggles in Louisiana’s immigrant detention centers.  Kevin ‘Rashid’ Johnson is facing threats on his life inside the Indiana Department of Corrections.  An abolitionist in Madison, Wisconsin has chosen to enter solitary confinement rather than violate his ethics and testify against other activists in a secret Grand Jury.  At Winn Correctional, in Louisiana, ICE detainees have risked retribution from guards to speak to Perilous Chronicle about indefinite confinement, poor conditions, and COVID-19 vulnerability.  We are grateful to Perilous for sharing this important story with us and our listeners.  You can find out more about Perilous’ efforts to document prisoner organizing across the
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ICE detainees are a week into a hunger strike at Pine Prairie, Louisiana.  This week, we broadcast audio of a call between an anonymous Pine Prairie ICE detainee, and a member of Perilous Chronicle. More information on the struggle there can be found at perilouschronicle.com. The strike at Pine Prairie is not an isolated incident, but the continuation of a year of protest in ICE facilities on the part of African immigrants, who have been trapped by the failure of the global community to grant them refuge as they flee war and environmental disruption. The hunger strike this month at Pine Prairie is at least the fourth
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Today, August 21st, is the 49th anniversary of George Jackson’s murder by San Quentin guards.  Jackson was a leading theorist and militant in the prisoners’ movement which had emerged over the previous decade in close relationship to the rise of Black Power.  His books, Soledad Brother and Blood in my Eye, remain touchstones for prisoners’ discussions across the US.  Jackson famously organized within a collective of other courageous prison rebels. After that, we finish last week’s conversation between Bella Bravo and abolitionist researchers Zhandarka Kurti, and Jarrod Shanahan. Kurti is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Tennesee in Knoxville, and also works with Face to Face Knox, a campaign to restore in-person visitation
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This week, Bella Bravo speaks to Zhandarka Kurti and Jarrod Shanahan. Kurti is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Tennesee in Knoxville, and also works with Face to Face Knox, a campaign to restore in-person visitation to Knox County detention centers.  Shanahan is an assistant professor of criminal justice at Governors State University. They have collaborated on a number of projects dealing with class, the racial order in America, and abolition, including a recent article in the Brooklyn Rail, Prelude to a Hot American Summer, about the George Floyd Uprising. Today, we share the first part of their conversation about the current movement, its relationship to the Black Lives Matter
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This week marks our 4-year anniversary, and we would like to thank all those who have contributed their stories, labor, and expertise to Kite Line, making it possible to air news and experiences of incarceration for 211 consecutive episodes. Thank you! — In this episode, we share news from a major prison riot in Georgia, before airing the final part of Kristina Byers and Anastazia Schmid’s conversation on education in prison. In this segment, we learn more about the biases incarcerated people face while attempting to secure a degree. In a system rife with obstacles preventing prisoners from achieving their goals, Schmid describes applying for an advanced degree while in
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This week, we share the voices of three prisoners in Florida. Choosing to speak anonymously due to repression, they told us about horrible conditions inside the Florida prison system. They explain the racial injustice in the prison system, the importance of letting lifers out, the prevalence of moldy, rancid food, poor hygiene in the face of COVID-19, rats and cockroaches in their cells, inadequate health care, and the lack of a working grievance system that leaves prisoners to fend for themselves. Additionally, we’ve received reports that people imprisoned at Dekalb County Jail in Georgia have tested positive for COVID-19. They say jail staff are not taking appropriate measures to protect the people inside
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We return this week to the second part of the conversation between Kristina Byers and Anastazia Schmid. Schmid is an award-winning, formerly incarcerated scholar who went to extraordinary lengths to complete her education on the inside. We last heard Schmid describe the impact of Ball State University, which she attended while in the Indiana Women’s Prison, choosing not renew its contract with the Indiana Department of Corrections. This week, she expands on the research she and other prisoners did with the Indiana Women’s Prison History Project, and how their lived experience as prisoners allowed them to uncover dynamics other researchers had overlooked. In future episodes, we will hear more from both of them
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We will continue the final installment of the interview between Kristina Byers and Anastazia Schmid next week, as they talk about barriers to education while incarcerated. This week, though, we received urgent calls. Faheem Shabazz is a longtime whistleblower and militant inside the Indiana prison system, who was released in 2018. He has been targeted many times by both guards and parole officers for his organizing, landing him back in prison last year.  He has since spoken out against neglect during the COVID-19 pandemic.  He is once again being targeted by guards, as he details in the message we are sharing today. We end this episode with a call we received from Andre
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This week, we broadcast an interview digging into the problem of barriers to higher education during incarceration. This interview is between Kristina Byers and Anastazia Schmid, both  former inmates at the Indiana Women’s Prison. Anastazia speaks to the difficulties accessing a successful educational experience behind prison walls. These interviews conducted on the barriers to higher education are made possible by a grant from the Lumina Foundation. In today’s news, we share the words of prisoners at Indiana Women’s Prison who are suffering from extreme conditions and deprivations there.  The related petition can be
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In this episode, we have two updates from prisoners in California on their conditions amidst the COVID-19 crisis. Afterwards, we speak with Max Felker-Kantor, historian and professor at Ball State University. Felker-Kantor’s particular focus of study is policing and anti-police violence post WWII. He’s been on Kite Line before, talking about the history of policing in Los Angeles, and about the racially biased national Weed and Seed Program. Today, he talks to us about rebellions, past and present- from Watts, to Liberty City in 1980, to the George Floyd rebellion- and how, although these uprisings are usually sparked by specific instances of racially-motivated police violence, they are indicative of long-term problems in
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This week, we share a phone conversation between Kijana Tashiri Askari and C, one of their outside supporters. Askari is incarcerated in the California Medical Facility- a male-only state carceral medical institution.The recorded this conversation earlier this week, about the conditions Kijana and others are facing, including improper COVID-19 protocol on the part of the prison, retaliatory cell searches, secret transfers of COVID-positive prisoners, and the need to release the elderly. They also describe the importance of providing a platform for prisoners to speak out about their inhumane conditions, their needs, and how acting as their own “reporters” can help give them voice. They stress the importance of continuing to support those prisoners who speak out,
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The whole country is in upheaval as a vast Movement for Black Lives continues to challenge white supremacy and the institutions of policing and prison. As monuments fall and precincts are seized in Minneapolis to Seattle, the lies and hidden truths of American society are being revealed. We’ve been reminded of James Baldwin’s line that “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” On this Juneteenth, the movement is forcing America to face the persistence of anti-black racism, and we are amplifying the words of prisoners in struggle against the persistence of prison slavery. We share Keith “Malik” Washington’s 2018 Juneteenth statement on organizing
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In the wake of uprisings across the world in response to the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, this week’s episode shares thoughts on these revolts and their demands, along with considerations on police reform. We broadcast a June 11th message from Marius Mason’s lawyer, a call from long-term prison rebel Shaka Shakur, and a statement from hunger striking ICE detainees. We close our episode with an essay entitled, Reject Reform, which analyzes the different demands put forward to curb racist police violence. Not all demands carry the same weight, or create the same potential for positive
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On this episode, we have a letter from a prisoner at Pendleton Correctional Facility about his experiences with COVID-19 there. We share a short PSA about street safety during protests, and a message from Keith “Malik” Washington. On June 3rd, Bloomington residents occupied the courthouse square in order to support the movement for black lives.  This tent city is just one of hundreds of ways that people across the country are building and fighting for a world beyond the grip of white supremacy and police violence. When we visited on Thursday night, dozens of tents provided shelter, and an open mic speak-out was underway.  We interviewed Abdul Wasi, a Bloomington resident participating in
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This week, we broadcast updates on a riot in Macon State Prison, and two calls from mothers of prisoners at Westville Correctional Facility. After a rebellion by prisoners on April 22, over a dozen prisoners have been moved to a new segregation unit and are being subjected to a variety of tortures and abuse. The two women on this week’s episode speak about these tortures, and what it is like not knowing about the health and safety of their sons. We  close the episode with a conversation with Lauren Brinkley-Rubenstein, an Assistant Professor working on the COVID Prison Project. The COVID Prison Project is a group of interdisciplinary, public health scientists who identified
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Welcome to the 200th episode of Kite Line. This week, we revisit the important intersection of incarceration and higher education. Barriers to higher education are a key way the incarcerated and the formerly incarcerated are trapped by the system in a cycle of unemployment, low-wage work, and recidivism. We are proud to again host an interview conducted by Anastazia Schmid, who visited Michelle Jones at home. You may remember Michelle from previous episodes of Kite Line, both from inside and outside of the Indiana Women’s Prison. In the installment this week, Michelle tells Anastazia about the difficulties in applying for college while incarcerated. She also shares shocking stories of being accepted
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This core of this week’s Kite Line is a conversation between Anastazia Schmid and Jennifer Fleming about trying to get an education before, during, and after incarceration. You’ve likely heard Anastazia before on Kite Line, both while she was inside at the Indiana Women’s Prison, and since she was released last year. We will be sharing more of these conversations about prison’s barriers to higher education in upcoming episodes. The interviews on barriers to higher education that we will be airing were made possible through a grant from the Lumina Foundation. Click her tag below to listen to other episodes featuring
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The country might be locked down, but struggles inside prisons and out continue to develop chaotically and unexpectedly intersect with the COVID-19 crisis.  Prisoners in Stateville in Illinois report that they continue to suffer from a full lockdown, restricting their programming and access to phones.  Yet, guards are patting them down without washing their hands between each person, making transmission likely, and prisoners are regularly crowded together in bullpens.  The lockdown conditions allow for total repressive control but do nothing to stop the virus. On the outside this week, Indianapolis cops killed a young black man named Sean Reed.  Indianapolis residents organized a mass call-in to demand that the city not tear gas
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