Beyond Prisons

In the second episode of our series, Beyond Solitary, Kwame Shakur joins the show to talk about the need to develop inside-out revolutionary strategy, and the work already being done with that goal in mind by organizations like I.D.O.C. Watch, Prison Lives Matter, and the New Afrikan Liberation Collective. This is the second of two episodes with members of I.D.O.C. Watch, an organization of prisoners in Indiana and outside supporters dedicated to exposing abuses by authorities in the Department of Corrections. In our first episode, we spoke with longtime political prison Shaka Shakur about the history of the prison movement in Indiana. In this episode, Kwame shares his assessment of current struggles against police brutality, and the disconnect between the prison movement and the larger movement on the streets. Kwame also touches on the effects solitary has on prisoners’ mental health, and how restrictions implemented in the time of COVID have only exacerbated these harms.  Kwame Shakur is a New Afrikan political prisoner, currently held captive in solitary confinement, in the SHU, at Wabash Valley Correctional Facility. He is the co-founder and chairman of the New Afrikan Liberation Collective, as well as the national director for the Prison Lives Matter movement. Kwame’s essays have appeared in numerous publications, including San Francisco Bay View.  Episode Resources & Notes Prison Legal Support Network IDOC Watch Patreon New Afrikan Liberation Collective  Prison Lives Matter Revolution vs. Reactionary Reformism Kwame Shakur on COVID-19, Conditions & Repression in the SHU Lawsuit Won by Aaron Isby-Israel against Indiana D.O.C. Write to Shaka Shakur or Kwame Shakur:  Shaka Shakur:  Shaka Shakur #1996207Buckingham Correctional CenterP.O. Box 430Dillwyn, VA 23936 Kwame Shakur:  Michael Joyner (Kwame) #149677Wabash Valley Correctional FacilityP.O. Box 1111Carlisle, IN, 47838 Credits Created by Kim Wilson and Brian Sonenstein Hosted by anonymous, and edited by Ellis Maxwell Website & volunteers managed by Victoria Nam Theme music by Jared Ware Additional music by Alicia Lopez-Torres, Remy Erkel, and Ellis Maxwell Support Beyond Prisons Visit our website at beyond-prisons.com Support our show and join us on Patreon. Check out our other donation options as well. Please listen, subscribe, and rate/review our podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Play Join our mailing list for updates on new episodes, events, and more Send tips, comments, and questions to beyondprisonspodcast@gmail.com Kim Wilson is available for speaking engagements and to facilitate workshops. Please contact beyondprisonspodcast@gmail.com for more information Twitter: @Beyond_Prison Facebook:@beyondprisonspodcast Instagram:@beyondprisons

Beyond Solitary series | Episode 1 In the first episode of our new series, "Beyond Solitary," Shaka Shakur talks about the history of the prison movement in Indiana, and how the movement has evolved and responded to consistent repression from the carceral state. This is the first of two episodes featuring members of I.D.O.C. Watch, an organization of prisoners in Indiana and outside supporters, dedicated to exposing abuses by authorities in the Department of Corrections. Shaka begins with a comprehensive account of the prison movement in Indiana in the 1980s and 1990s, including the organizing of a lengthy hunger strike in 1991. Shaka then details the ways the prison system seeks to undermine revolutionary organizing, using tactics such as long-term solitary confinement, “diesel therapy,” and domestic exile. We talk about the importance of political education and coordination inside and outside of prisons. And finally, Shaka describes I.D.O.C. Watch’s vision of and commitment to build dual power.  Shaka Shakur is a New Afrikan political prisoner, and longtime revolutionary organizer within the Indiana and Virginia prison systems. Shaka was first imprisoned in Indiana, but was transferred to Virginia in 2019, via the Interstate Corrections Compact, a tool often used by the state to attempt to weaken the support networks and movement building surrounding political and politicized prisoners. Shaka is a member of numerous political organizations, including I.D.O.C. Watch, the New Afrikan Liberation Collective, and Prison Lives Matter. Shaka has written numerous essays and reports on prison conditions, including an article published in February of 2020 on the struggle against organized white supremacists in the Indiana Department of Corrections.  Episode Resources & Notes Prison Legal Support Network IDOC Watch Patreon New Afrikan Liberation Collective  Prison Lives Matter Shaka Shakur on the Struggle Against Organized White Supremacists in the IDOC Down: Reflections on Prison Resistance in Indiana Credits "Beyond Solitary" series theme music by Alicia Lopez-Torres, Remy Erkel, and Ellis Maxwell Hosted and edited by Ellis Maxwell Beyond Prisons Podcast is created by Kim Wilson and Brian Sonenstein Website & volunteers managed by Victoria Nam Theme music by Jared Ware Support Beyond Prisons Visit our website at beyond-prisons.com Support our show and join us on Patreon. Check out our other donation options as well. Please listen, subscribe, and rate/review our podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Play Join our mailing list for updates on new episodes, events, and more Send tips, comments, and questions to beyondprisonspodcast@gmail.com Kim Wilson is available for speaking engagements and to facilitate workshops. Please contact beyondprisonspodcast@gmail.com for more information Twitter: @Beyond_Prison Facebook:@beyondprisonspodcast Instagram:@beyondprisons

Beyond Prisons Editor Ellis Maxwell introduces a new series called "Beyond Solitary," exploring solitary confinement as a site of struggle and featuring interviews with currently and formerly incarcerated people and their loved ones. In recent years, due to tireless work from individuals and organizations around the world, we’ve seen a growing understanding of the horrors of isolation. Long-term solitary confinement—a practice widely used in U.S. prisons and hardly anywhere else in the world—is torturous, causing major physical and psychological harm to prisoners. In this series we dive deep into the importance of solitary as a site of struggle. Prison officials force people into solitary—which is often called “the prison within the prison,” or simply, “the box”—for many reasons: to silence influential voices, to deter movements towards consciousness and an abolitionist critique of the carceral state, to re-inscribe the rule of patriarchy and white supremacy, to suppress inside organizing, and to prevent uprisings. But the repressive elements of solitary breed resistance, from political education, inside prisons and in coordination with outside movements; to sustained collective legal battles; to strategic physical self-defense. This series includes conversations with currently and formerly incarcerated people, many of whom identify themselves as political or politicized prisoners, from across the country, with a rotating cast of hosts. The show notes for each episode will include information on how to learn more and get involved with campaigns led by organizations that our guests are affiliated with. Please bear with us as we navigate audio quality issues, and other challenges of recording through prison walls. We hope this series can be a fissure in the walls silencing the millions of incarcerated people in the United States. Credits Hosted and edited by Ellis Maxwell "Beyond Solitary" series music by Alicia Lopez-Torres, Remy Erkel, and Ellis Maxwell Beyond Prisons is a podcast created by Kim Wilson and Brian Sonenstein Website & volunteers managed by Victoria Nam Theme music by Jared Ware Support our work at patreon.com/beyondprisons Visit our website at beyond-prisons.com  

Andrea Ritchie joins the show to talk about her research with the group Interrupting Criminalization, specifically their new report looking back on the “Defund the Police” demand in 2020. Interrupting Criminalization describes itself as an initiative that aims to interrupt and end the growing criminalization and incarceration of women and LGBTQ people of color for criminalized acts related to public order, poverty, child welfare, drug use, survival, and self-defense, including criminalization and incarceration of survivors of violence. The discussion begins with a look at the work that Interrupting Criminalization does, and their findings on the various successes and failures activists have had with the “Defund” demand over the last year. Perhaps most importantly, we talk about how the state has tried to undermine abolitionist efforts. Toward the end, we speak about the need to fund experimental approaches to harm, including those that might fail. Andrea Ritchie is a Black lesbian immigrant whose research, litigation, organizing, and policy advocacy has focused on policing and criminalization of women and LGBT people of color. She is the author of “Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color,” and co-author of “Challenging Criminalization: A Call for A Comprehensive Philanthropic Response; Centering Black Women, Girls, and Fem(me)s in Campaigns for Expanded Sanctuary”; “Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality Against Black Women”; “A Roadmap for Change: Federal Policy Recommendations for Addressing the Criminalization of LGBT People and People Living with HIV”; and “Queer (In)Justice: The Criminalization of LGBT People in the United States.” A nationally recognized expert on policing issues, Andrea supports and advises numerous groups across the country. She is also a frequent author of opinion pieces making critical interventions in current debates around police sexual violence, policing of young women, responses to mental health crises, and more. Andrea is a current Researcher-in-Residence at Barnard’s Center for Research on Women.  Visit our website beyond-prisons.com to find episode notes, resources, transcripts, and more. 

Four women with loved ones incarcerated at the Correctional Training Facility in Soledad, CA join the Beyond Prisons podcast to talk about how prison officials are failing to respond to the pandemic.  Their names are Mary, Dawn, Crystal, and Alice. Nearly a year into this crisis, these women described conditions at CTF that expose a yawning gap between the picture painted in CDCR press releases and the experiences of incarcerated families.  They explain how cold and unaccountable prison officials and politicians have been in response to basic demands for PPE, testing, and quarantining. They underscore how the suffering at CTF reaches far outside the walls and into their homes as they struggle to defend their loved ones while holding down jobs, raising children, showing up for others, and more. They also talk about the power and support they draw from one another as a group, and the importance of building this community during this crisis.  If you haven’t heard our previous episodes on Soledad, it might help for you to go back and listen to those first. We’ve linked to them below. Families are planning a protest for January 16 at 10 AM in Sacramento. For more information, contact Alice at Strongertogether1229@gmail.com. Episode Notes & Resources COVID-19 Dispatch: The Crisis At Soledad (January 2021) https://www.beyond-prisons.com/home/covid-19-dispatch-the-crisis-at-soledad COVID-19 Dispatch From California Prison (April 2020) https://www.beyond-prisons.com/home/covid-19-dispatch-from-california-prison Credits Created and hosted by Kim Wilson and Brian Sonenstein Edited by Ellis Maxwell Website & volunteers managed by Victoria Nam Theme music by Jared Ware Support Beyond Prisons Visit our website at beyond-prisons.com Support our show and join us on Patreon. Check out our other donation options as well. Please listen, subscribe, and rate/review our podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Play Join our mailing list for updates on new episodes, events, and more Send tips, comments, and questions to beyondprisonspodcast@gmail.com Kim Wilson is available for speaking engagements and to facilitate workshops. Please contact beyondprisonspodcast@gmail.com for more information Twitter: @Beyond_Prison Facebook: @beyondprisonspodcast Instagram: @beyondprisons

Brian Sonenstein interviews a woman we’re calling “Alice” to protect her and her family from retaliation from California prison officials.  Alice was on Beyond Prisons in April 2020 to discuss the situation facing people enduring the pandemic while incarcerated at the Correctional Training Facility in Soledad, California. If you haven’t heard that episode yet, you may want to listen to it first for added context: https://www.beyond-prisons.com/home/covid-19-dispatch-from-california-prison In this conversation, Alice tells us about a recent protest held at Soledad and how women have been fighting for months for prison officials to improve health care measures inside the facility, which has one of the highest rates of COVID-19 infection in not just the state prison system, but in California.  She describes how corrections officers have refused to wear masks and retaliated against incarcerated people for getting CDCR to mandate them. She talks about how people are struggling to eat without access to the commissary and how unresponsive CDCR has been to family members throughout the pandemic. We also discuss how the public’s attention to COVID-19 in jails and prisons seems to be waning at a time when we’re seeing the highest case counts yet. Families are planning a protest for January 16 at 10 AM in Sacramento. For more information, contact Alice at Strongertogether1229@gmail.com. Episode Notes & Resources COVID-19 Dispatch From California Prison (April 2020) https://www.beyond-prisons.com/home/covid-19-dispatch-from-california-prison Shadowproof’s Marvel Cooke Journalism Fellowship https://shadowproof.com/2020/11/17/shadowproof-launches-marvel-cooke-journalism-fellowship/ Credits Created and hosted by Kim Wilson and Brian Sonenstein Edited by Ellis Maxwell Website & volunteers managed by Victoria Nam Theme music by Jared Ware Support Beyond Prisons Visit our website at beyond-prisons.com Support our show and join us on Patreon. Check out our other donation options as well. Please listen, subscribe, and rate/review our podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Play Join our mailing list for updates on new episodes, events, and more Send tips, comments, and questions to beyondprisonspodcast@gmail.com Kim Wilson is available for speaking engagements and to facilitate workshops. Please contact beyondprisonspodcast@gmail.com for more information Twitter: @Beyond_Prison Facebook: @beyondprisonspodcast Instagram: @beyondprisons

Garrett Felber joins the Beyond Prisons podcast to discuss Study and Struggle, which he helped launch in 2020 as “a bilingual political education program on abolition and immigrant justice which supports and collaborates with grassroots organizations in Mississippi.” (NOTE: This episode was recorded a few weeks before Felber was wrongfully fired by the University of Mississippi for speaking out against its racist donors and role in perpetuating the carceral state; you can find out more about what happened here.) Felber is a former assistant professor of history at the University of Mississippi and the author of Those Who Know Don’t Say: The Nation of Islam, the Black Freedom Movement and the Carceral State and co-author of The Portable Malcolm X Reader with the late Manning Marable.   He was the lead organizer of the Making and Unmaking Mass Incarceration conference and Project Director of the Parchman Oral History Project, a collaborative oral history, archival, and documentary storytelling project on incarceration in Mississippi. In 2016, Felber co-founded Liberation Literacy, an abolitionist collective inside and outside Oregon prisons.   Felber is currently a fellow at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University, where he will be working on his next book project: We Are All Political Prisoners: The Revolutionary Life of Martin Sostre.  Episode Notes & Resources Study And Struggle: https://www.studyandstruggle.com/ Those Who Know Don’t Say: The Nation of Islam, the Black Freedom Movement, and the Carceral State: https://uncpress.org/book/9781469653822/those-who-know-dont-say/ Follow Garrett on Twitter: https://twitter.com/garrett_felber Credits Created and hosted by Kim Wilson and Brian Sonenstein Edited by Ellis Maxwell Website & volunteers managed by Victoria Nam Theme music by Jared Ware Support Beyond Prisons Visit our website at beyond-prisons.com Support our show and join us on Patreon. Check out our other donation options as well. Please listen, subscribe, and rate/review our podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Play Join our mailing list for updates on new episodes, events, and more Send tips, comments, and questions to beyondprisonspodcast@gmail.com Kim Wilson is available for speaking engagements and to facilitate workshops. Please contact beyondprisonspodcast@gmail.com for more information Twitter: @Beyond_Prison Facebook: @beyondprisonspodcast Instagram: @beyondprisons

Vicky Osterweil joins the Beyond Prisons podcast to discuss her new book, “In Defense Of Looting: A Riotous History Of Uncivil Action.” Our wide-ranging conversation includes Vicky’s analysis of the claim that “real” and legitimate protests are nonviolent by nature, while rioting and looting constitute an act of hijacking by malevolent outside forces.  We talk about Black women and armed resistance, and their places within the historical legacy of these tactics, as well as the differences in how these tactics are used by groups that have different relations to power.  The conversation explores how these tactics threaten the perceived invincibility of property relations, we think about how prison riots fit within this framework, and a lot more. Vicky Osterweil is a writer, editor, and agitator based in Philadelphia. Her book, “In Defense of Looting: A Riotous History of Uncivil Action”, was released in August by Bold Type Books. Follow her on Twitter @Vicky_ACAB Episode Notes & Resources Buy “In Defense Of Looting” from Bold Type Books “I wonder if you fully understand why they’ve kept you so well hidden [...] It’s not just because they want this idea of yours. But because you are an idea. A dangerous one. The idea of anarchism, made flesh. Walking amongst us.” — Ursula K Le Guin, The Dispossessed Credits Created and hosted by Kim Wilson and Brian Sonenstein Edited by Ellis Maxwell Website & volunteers managed by Victoria Nam Theme music by Jared Ware Support Beyond Prisons Visit our website at beyond-prisons.com Support our show and join us on Patreon. Check out our other donation options as well. Please listen, subscribe, and rate/review our podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Play Join our mailing list for updates on new episodes, events, and more Send tips, comments, and questions to beyondprisonspodcast@gmail.com Kim Wilson is available for speaking engagements and to facilitate workshops. Please contact beyondprisonspodcast@gmail.com for more information Twitter: @Beyond_Prison Facebook: @beyondprisonspodcast Instagram: @beyondprisons

In this episode, Kim and Brian sit down with James Kilgore, a formerly incarcerated activist, researcher, and author based in Urbana, Illinois. Our conversation addressed a number of issues relating to e-carceration. We pushed back against the idea that electronic monitoring is better than prison and discussed the ways that e-carceration deprives people of liberty. We also talk about e-carceration and COVID-19, the ways that technology is being used by ICE and in pre-trial and post prison, and the ways that geofencing impacts communities.  James Kilgore is the director of the Challenging E-Carceration project of Media Justice’s #NoDigitalPrisons campaign. He is also the co-director of the First Followers Reentry Program and the author of five books, including Understanding Mass Incarceration: A People’s Guide to the Key Civil Rights Struggle of Our Time (The New Press, 2015). Find more of James’ work on his website ChallengingECarceration.org Follow him on Twitter @waazn1 Episode Resources & Notes “Electronic Monitoring Is Not The Answer: Critical Reflections on False Solutions” by James Kilgore “The End of the Ankle ‘Bracelet?’” by James Kilgore Chicago Community Bond Fund National Council for Incarcerated & Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls Other Books by James: Sister Mercy's Revenge (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016) Prudence Couldn't Swim (Switchblade) (PM Press, 2012) Freedom Never Rests (Jacana Media, 2012) We Are All Zimbabweans Now (Ohio University Press, 2011) Credits Created and hosted by Kim Wilson and Brian Sonenstein Edited by Ellis Maxwell Website & volunteers managed by Victoria Nam Theme music by Jared Ware Support Beyond Prisons Visit our website at beyond-prisons.com Support our show and join us on Patreon. Check out our other donation options as well. Please listen, subscribe, and rate/review our podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Play Join our mailing list for updates on new episodes, events, and more Send tips, comments, and questions to beyondprisonspodcast@gmail.com Kim Wilson is available for speaking engagements and to facilitate workshops. Please contact beyondprisonspodcast@gmail.com for more information Twitter: @Beyond_Prison Facebook:@beyondprisonspodcast Instagram:@beyondprisons

Beyond Prisons welcomes back Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law to discuss their new book, Prison By Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences Of Popular Reforms.  The book provides a comprehensive and thought-provoking critical analysis of popular reforms to policing and incarceration, such as electronic monitoring, diversion courts, so-called sex worker rescue programs, and a lot more. Importantly, it explores not only how these reforms fail to promote safety, but how they actually increase the size and scope of policing and incarceration. Our wide-ranging conversation touches on how electronic monitoring denies people the ability to do the basic things they need to do to live, and shifts the costs of incarceration away from the government and onto the individual and their family, harming those important relationships in a multitude of ways. We talk about the release of this book at a time of heightened skepticism around reform projects and a growing popular awareness of abolition.  We also discuss why community policing is anti-community, and why it’s important to remember that we don’t need a replacement response for everything for which people are policed and imprisoned; in some cases, it would be better to do nothing instead. This episode is dedicated to Maya’s sister, Keeley Schenwar, who passed away in February. Maya Schenwar is the editor-in-chief of Truthout. She is co-author of Prison by Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms, as well as the author of Locked Down, Locked Out, and the co-editor of Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect? She lives in Chicago with her partner and toddler. You can find Maya’s work at Truthout.org as well, MayaSchenwar.com.  Follow her on Twitter @mayaschenwar and Facebook. Victoria Law is a freelance journalist who focuses on the intersections of incarceration, gender, and resistance. She is the author of Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women and regularly covers prison issues for Truthout and other outlets. Her latest book, Prison By Any Other Name, co-written with Maya Schenwar, critically examines proposed “alternatives” to incarceration and explores creative and far-reaching solutions to truly end mass incarceration.  You can find more of Victoria’s work on her website, VictoriaLaw.net Follow her on Twitter @LVikkiml Visit our website Beyond-Prisons.com for episode notes, resources, and more.  Credits Created and hosted by Kim Wilson and Brian Sonenstein Edited by Ellis Maxwell Website & volunteers managed by Victoria Nam Theme music by Jared Ware Support Beyond Prisons Support our show and join us on Patreon. Check out our other donation options as well.