Bloomington IN

346 | We Have To Stick Together

During a dramatic week of action in the Atlanta forest this past week, hundreds of forest defenders sabotaged a construction site for the unpopular “Cop City” development.  Police responded with an act of extreme collective punishment against the entire movement, attacking a nearby Stop Cop City music festival, tasing, beating, and arresting concertgoers at random. …

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321 | Marius Mason- The Last Green Scare Prisoner

This week, we share a recorded discussion hosted by the Civil Liberties Defense Center.  CLDC has been at the forefront of anti-repression legal work for decades now, working on many of the Green Scare cases, in which the FBI infamously hounded and smashed radical environmental organizing between 2000 and 2008.  In this discussion, Chava and…

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313 | 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,…

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293 | Freedom for Leonard Peltier

We begin this episode with our monthly round up of prison disturbances, generously compiled by Perilous Chronicle. Afterwards, we share a piece by IU graduate student Kayan Tara about the death of Malik Ali Malik, who died during a police chase in Bloomington last spring. Then, we return to the topic of long-term prisoner Leonard…

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270 | A Slightly Bigger Cage – Jail Expansion for Monroe County

In 2008, Monroe County moved to build a new, expanded jail -framed as a “justice campus” using humanitarian rhetoric.  In response, a diverse group of local residents founded an organization called Decarcerate Monroe County (DMC).  Here is how they later summarized their activities:“DMC’s framework included embracing alternatives to punitive justice, promoting ways to decarcerate, and…

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255 | Marius Mason and Eric King

Our show this week returns to June 11th, the international day of solidarity with long-term anarchist prisoners. The focus of June 11th is overcoming the isolation that these long-term prisoners face, as the movements they participated in years ago give way to new struggles and new generations of radicals.  The day of solidarity works to…

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220 | Are Incarcerated People Disposable?

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…

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202 | Re-Entry into an Uprising

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. …

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176 | Winning Back Your Voice

This week, we speak with two writers, Laura Lasuertmer and Wendy Lee Spacek. Spacek and Lasuertmer run a writing workshop in the local jail. They tell us about the writing program, what led them to do this project, and its impact on folks in the inside. Then, we share a selection of writings that came…

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174 | The Human Cost of E-Carceration

This week, we share a recent round table on e-carceration here in Bloomington. This event was part of a series across southern Indiana, as community members hurt by e-carceration and their families come together to discuss their experiences and work together to understand this complex web of social control. E-Carceration involves local jails, county governments, and…

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