Focus Initiatives

329 | Perspectives on Prison with Sincere and Jok

In our previous episodes, Sincere paints a picture of life in a women’s prison. Today, they wrap up by talking about prison conditions- such as poor food, exploitative practices, and overly harsh punishments- such as losing visits as retaliation for saying “I love you” to another inmate. They also answer audience questions about a wide…

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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…

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327 | How it is with Us – Women and Incarceration

This week, we share part of a  conversation between Focus Initiatives’ Jok Huerta and Sincere. Sincere, who spent 13 years in Indiana prisons, and now organizes in Indianapolis with other formerly incarcerated people. Sincere speaks to the experience of  arriving and getting settled into prison.  She also movingly addresses the frequent abuses she witnessed and…

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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…

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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…

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300 | Bargaining in Bad Faith

Over the upcoming weeks, we will be sharing some of our favorite moments from our archive of shows, but we encourage you to go to our website, kitelineradio.org, to browse the other 299 episodes and find some favorites of your own. On our end, we will be sharing moments that the Kite Line team have found…

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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…

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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…

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