This week, we interview a participant in Perilous, a new prison history project. Perilous launched its website earlier this year, with a goal of compiling all the grassroots, collective mobilizations that have happened in US prisons since the prisoners’ movement seriously kicked off again in 2010. With this interview, we got a sense of their…
Read MoreFirst, we have updates on the Vaughn 17 and hunger strikes and noise demonstrations from immigrant detention centers around the country. After the news, we share a conversation with Phillip Roberts and Debra Des Vignes. Des Vignes is the founder of the Indiana Prison Writers Workshop, and Roberts participated in the project for almost a…
Read MoreThis week, we share the final story from the Voices of the Formerly Incarcerated panel that took place during the Fight Toxic Prisons conference in Pittsburgh. After we hear updates on Kevin Rashid Johnson and Keith Malik Washington, we close with anecdotes from Wendell Caldwell. Caldwell speaks on his time inside, its impact on his…
Read MoreThis week, we will focus on a specific story about an immigrant detention case in Pittsburgh- and hear firsthand from family impacted by these harsh repercussions for undocumented immigrants. Martin Esquivel-Hernandez was detained after a traffic stop, held by ICE, and eventually deported, leaving his family behind in Pennsylvania. Today, we will hear his story…
Read MoreFirst, we hear part of a panel from the recent Fight Toxic Prisons conference, which was held last week in Pittsburgh. Saleem Holbrook shares his experiences after doing nearly three decades inside, with a focus on what it’s like to organize behind the walls. Coming into the system when he was young, he describes the…
Read MoreLast April, the Indiana Department of Corrections banned all correspondence to it’s 25,000 prisoners, except that which is handwritten on lined white paper. The official explanation is that this is an attempt to block trafficking of synthetic marijuana which can be applied to paper. But many prisoners and advocates have pointed to a long series…
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 MoreThis week on Kite Line we feature Arianna Staiger, daughter of Marius Mason, an anarchist prisoner who used to live and organize in Bloomington. Ariana speaks about how she experienced Marius’ arrest and persecution, her thoughts on ongoing support and about June 11, a day set aside every year to support and honor Marius and…
Read MoreThis week, we hear some prison-related news and then return to the topic of pregnancy in prison. We continue our discussion with Dr. Alicia Suarez, a sociologist who researches pregnancy and childbirth as it relates to incarcerated women. She continues the discussion from our Pregnancy in Prison episode, and walks us through the process of…
Read MoreThis week’s episode is the second installment of our Families and Prison series. We speak with April, a formerly-incarcerated mother who works with House of Hope in Martinsville, Indiana. She shares her experiences and thoughts about the issues facing women in prison, as well as the work she has been doing since her release. We…
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