This week, we speak with Dan from Michigan Abolition and Prisoner Solidarity. MAPS is an exemplary grassroots abolitionist group, which arose out of the 2016 National Prison Strike and, specifically, the Kinross uprising in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Dan lays out this history, and gives us an inventory of COVID-19 in Michigan prisons, based on…
Read MoreThis week, we air an interview with WFYI reporters Lauren Bavis and Jake Harper in Indianapolis. They co-host the podcast called Sick, the second season of which focuses on health care issues in the Indiana Women’s Prison. As they share on the show, the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic ignited their interest in IWP and…
Read MoreThe explosive spread of the Omicron variant has brought our focus back to the COVID-vulnerability the prison system imposes on its captives. This week, we speak to two people — one outside and one inside the walls — dealing with the effects of COVID on California prisoners.. We start off with an interview with Olivia…
Read MoreThis week, we continue talking to David Campbell, former anti-fascist political prisoner who recently did a year on Rikers Island. In our last conversation with David, he discussed the circumstances of how he ended up in the Rikers facility- the short of it being that he was sentenced to his time after a fight with…
Read MoreThis 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…
Read MoreThis 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…
Read MoreMwalimu 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…
Read MoreThis 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…
Read MoreHappy 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…
Read MoreToday, 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…
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