Indiana

364 | Organizing on Both Sides of the Walls with Leon Benson

After our news, we are sharing the final installment of our conversation with Leon Benson, who was recently exonerated and released after decades in the Indiana prison system.  Leon is an inspiring organizer who fought for freedom for other prisoners, organized self-education circles inside, and has, since release, jumped into important community empowerment projects.  We…

Read More

361 | Studies in Dignity

This week, we focus on two people who are studies in dignity in the face of state repression. Jack Mazurek was arrested in Atlanta yesterday and charged with arson. These allegations stemmed from an attack last July on police motorcycles, which was rooted in the movement against Cop City. He is standing strong despite the…

Read More

328 | Women and Incarceration, Part 2

We start this episode with our monthly round up of prison disturbances, compiled by Perilous Chronicle. You can find out more at perilouschronicle.com. This week, we share the second part of a conversation between Focus Initiatives’ Jok Huerta and Sincere. Sincere spent 13 years in Indiana prisons, and now organizes in Indianapolis with other formerly incarcerated…

Read More

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…

Read More

314 | 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…

Read More

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,…

Read More

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…

Read More

305 | The Problem of Politicization

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 responds to politically-engaged prisoners. When prisoners become conscious and organized, the…

Read More

291 | Uncovering White Supremacist Violence

In this week’s episode, we air the second part of a conversation between Jok Huerta from Focus Initiatives and Rodney Jones, known as Big R. Big R was a witness to the beating that sparked the the 1985 Pendleton prison uprising here in Indiana. This conversation is part of a series put on by IDOC Watch and…

Read More

290 | Life in a Maximum Restraint Unit

In this week’s episode, we air the first part of a conversation between Jok Huerta from Focus Initiatives and Rodney Jones, known as Big R. Both men share stories of their own incarceration, and describe life in a Maximum Restraint Unit. As Big R puts it, when you leave general population for the MRU, “you’re…

Read More