CONTENT WARNING: SEXUAL VIOLENCE, CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE Sarah K. Tyson joins Beyond Prisons for a conversation about her work as a philosopher, anti-violence advocate, and prison educator. We explore the contradiction between anti-violence work and its reliance on the criminal punishment system, what it's like to do philosophy in prison, the importance of building relationships with people inside, and so much more. Sarah Tyson is an Associate Professor of Philosophy and Affiliated Faculty of Women ...
May 07, 2019•1 hr 12 min
Maya Schenwar returns to Beyond Prisons to discuss voting rights, the current political landscape, and her forthcoming book. Maya is the Editor-in-Chief of Truthout. She is also the author of "Locked Down, Locked Out: Why Prison Doesn't Work and How We Can Do Better" and the co-editor of the Truthout anthology "Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect? Police Violence and Resistance in the United States." She has written about the prison-industrial complex for Truthout, The New York Times, The Guard...
May 02, 2019•1 hr 14 min
Kim Wilson interviews Dr. Kimberly Robertson on her work on Native feminisms and practices, use of beadwork and zine making to generate knowledge, and the uncompensated emotional labor of Black and women of color in the academy and liberatory work. Kimberly Robertson is a citizen of the Mvskoke nation, an artivist, scholar, teacher, and mother who works diligently to employ Native feminist theories, practices, and methodologies in her hustle to fulfill the dreams of her ancestors and to build a ...
Apr 19, 2019•1 hr 23 min
The following is a quick message delivered on behalf of our friends at Liberation Through Reading. They have an event coming up in Philadelphia, PA on Saturday, April 13th at the A-Space (4722 Baltimore Avenue) from 12PM-4PM, gifting Black children with free Black books. Details are below. Contact Erica Caines at ericacaines@gmail.com -- In almost 2 years, #LiberationThroughReading has gifted well over 1000 BRAND NEW representative books to Black children of all reading levels. Each book gifted ...
Apr 11, 2019•2 min
Rachel Herzing joins Beyond Prisons for a conversation on political education, transformation, and more. Rachel is the co-director of Center for Political Education, a resource for political organizations on the left, progressive social movements, the working class and people of color. She has been an organizer, activist, and advocate fighting the violence of policing and imprisonment for over 20 years. She is a co-founder of Critical Resistance, a national grassroots organization dedicated to a...
Apr 03, 2019•56 min
Taylar Nuevelle joins the Beyond Prisons podcast to talk about her experiences knitting while incarcerated. In particular, we talk about her love of knitting, the space it created for her in prison, as well as how it was used to punish her. Ms. Nuevelle is a writer and advocate for justice-involved women. In 2017 she created a writing program at the Central Treatment Facility (CTF), the women’s jail in DC, “Sharing Our Stories to Reclaim Our Lives”. She is credited for creating the concept of th...
Mar 22, 2019•1 hr 7 min
Connie Grier joins Beyond Prisons to discuss a new policy in Pennsylvania prisons targeting materials brought in by educators, religious practitioners, recreational and therapeutic facilitators, and others. Connie is a mother of twin sons, a career educator, a mentor, and a social justice advocate. She is also the founder of The RESPECT Alliance, an organization which has, as one of its core tenets, the addressing of justice issues that impact marginalized populations both pre and post-incarcera...
Mar 04, 2019•1 hr 4 min
In the first episode of 2019, hosts Kim Wilson and Brian Sonenstein begin a conversation on transformative justice by discussing the concept of “Pods” and the process of “Pod-mapping.” These exercises involve developing skills and identifying relationships that are key to intervening in harm and providing the kind of support that accountability can demand. Listeners can learn more and follow this conversation more closely via the following materials: Pods and Pod-Mapping Worksheet by Mia Mingus ...
Jan 18, 2019•57 min
Nabil Hassein joins the Beyond Prisons podcast to give an update on the campaign to close Rikers Island and the fight to oppose new jail construction in New York City. Nabil is a technologist, organizer and educator based in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. He has worked professionally as a software developer and a teacher in both public schools and private settings. Nabil also works with grassroots police and prison abolitionist campaigns in NYC including Shut Down Rikers, Abolition Square and No New J...
Nov 22, 2018•1 hr 3 min
Kim and Brian share their thoughts and best practices for journalists looking to improve their reporting on incarceration and related issues. Even if you’re not a journalist, we think this is a conversation you should be in on because it may help you read between the lines and evaluate media sources that cover these issues on your own. Consider this a starting point for getting these thoughts and ideas out into the open, for developing a new paradigm for this particular kind of journalism, and f...
Nov 08, 2018•55 min
Kim Wilson speaks with formerly incarcerated activist Kempis “Ghani” Songster about the black liberation group MOVE in the second part of episode 29. (Listen to Part 1 here ). MOVE's Philadelphia home was bombed by a police helicopter in 1985. The attack killed eleven people—including five children—and resulted in the destruction of 65 houses in the neighborhood. There were only two survivors. Ghani and Kim also talk about plans to rename a block of North 59th Street for Mayor Wilson Goode—Phila...
Oct 11, 2018•28 min
Kim Wilson interviews formerly incarcerated activist Kempis "Ghani" Songster in part one of Beyond Prisons episode 29. In 1987, at the age of 15, Ghani was imprisoned for homicide. Despite his age, he was certified as an adult, convicted of first degree murder, and given a mandatory life sentence without parole, or what is increasingly known today as death by incarceration. Thus, he became one of America’s many juvenile lifers/condemned children. While in prison, he developed and facilitated pro...
Oct 04, 2018•1 hr 14 min
Jared Ware joins episode 28 of Beyond Prisons to discuss this year's prison strike. Recorded in the midst of the strike on August 30, co-hosts Brian Sonenstein and Kim Wilson have a conversation with Ware about the strike's progress, as well as the challenges of organizing and why the press is woefully unprepared to report on the action. Support our show and join us on Patreon . Please listen, subscribe, and rate/review our podcast on iTunes , Spotify, and on Google Play Join our mailing list fo...
Sep 18, 2018•1 hr 18 min
Activist and paralegal Sean Damon joins episode 27 of Beyond Prisons. Sean is a legal worker and organizer with twenty years of experience in union, community and social movement organizing. He works for Amistad Law Project , a West Philadelphia-based public interest law center focused on the human rights of incarcerated people. He is also a co-founding member of the Coalition to Abolish Death By Incarceration. Follow Sean on Twitter: @seanwestwispy Support our show and join us on Patreon . Plea...
Aug 07, 2018•54 min
TRIGGER WARNING: Content includes discussion of suicide. John Gillespie Jr. (aka swim.) is an incoming PhD student in UC Irvine’s Comparative Literature program, a poet and a recording artist hailing from Newark, Delaware currently based in Orange County, California. His research interest are in Black suicide, the relationship between scientific development (specifically the Internet and Medicine) and anti-Black racism, as well as theories of Black aesthetics. He recently released his first sing...
Jul 20, 2018•50 min
Panagioti Tsolkas, an organizer with the Campaign to Fight Toxic Prisons, joins the Beyond Prisons podcast for a discussion of prison ecology and the intersection between the criminal legal system and the environment. We talk about how his organization came into existence and he gives us some examples of issues they're working on in Florida (where they're based) and around the country, like access potable water, excessive heat and cold, mold and mildew, sewage problems, and toxic land use. This ...
Jun 07, 2018•29 min
Bret Grote, legal director for the Abolitionist Law Center, joins the Beyond Prisons podcast to tell us about his organization's work and what an abolitionist approach looks like for lawyers. The conversation touches on the impact the Abolitionist Law Center has had in Pennsylvania and the work it's done on solitary confinement, juvenile life without parole, health care, and more. We talk about political and politicized prisoners and the dangerous but common practice of withholding medicine and ...
May 11, 2018•1 hr 8 min
Victoria Law returns to the Beyond Prisons podcast to talk about prison publications and curating art and writing by incarcerated people. Victoria tells us about the zine she's organized for nearly 16 years, Tenacious , which is a DIY publication featuring the work of incarcerated women from around the country. She talks about her introduction to zines, her experiences curating content from incarcerated people, and how she's had to deal with obstacles to communication in putting the zine togethe...
Apr 05, 2018•59 min
In a special two-part episode of Beyond Prisons, we discuss communicating with incarcerated people and interview pen pal and activist Ciara Kay. Ciara Kay joins us in Part 2 to tell us about how she got involved with pen palling and her experience corresponding and organizing with Michael Young, who is incarcerated in Louisiana. She talks about their friendship over the past few years, as well as their work and the challenges they've faced countering retaliation Michael has experienced for deman...
Mar 21, 2018•1 hr
In a special two-part episode of Beyond Prisons, we discuss communicating with incarcerated people and interview pen pal and activist Ciara Kay. In Part 1, we talk about forming relationships with people on the inside through email, phone, or snail mail and the obstacles you face attempting each. We also discuss how pen palling, building relationships, and maintaining communication with people on the inside is an abolitionist practice. Finally, we cover the importance of earning each others' tru...
Mar 21, 2018•30 min
Today is the 150th anniversary of W.E.B. Du Bois’s birth. To mark this occasion, I interviewed Du Bois scholar, Dr. Tony Monteiro. In this conversation, Dr. Monteiro talks about the year long project he and his colleagues launched in Philadelphia including a weekly radio show on WURD, where works of Du Bois are read. As part of The Year of Du Bois, Dr. Monteiro has helped form Du Bois reading groups throughout the city at historically Black churches such as Mother Bethel AME Church and The Churc...
Feb 23, 2018•47 min
Hosts Kim Wilson and Brian Sonenstein discuss Operation PUSH: a nonviolent prison labor strike and boycott in Florida that began on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Brian talks about what he's learned from reporting on the action and the intense retaliation by state prison official against suspected organizers. We go over the goals and demands of Operation PUSH and how prison officials are denying the strike is even happening. We talk about what has happened to Kevin "Rashid" Johnson, a political pri...
Feb 05, 2018•55 min
In Episode 19 of Beyond Prisons, hosts Brian Sonenstein and Kim Wilson catch up with activist, writer, and educator Mariame Kaba. Mariame shares her experiences advocating on behalf of Bresha Meadows , a teenage girl who killed her abusive father and was detained while facing the possibility of trial as an adult and a lifetime of incarceration. She recount's Bresha's story and explains how activists worked to make sure the family's needs were met and help them navigate the collateral consequence...
Jan 05, 2018•55 min
Professor Alex S. Vitale joins the Beyond Prisons podcast to discuss his book, "The End Of Policing," which provides a historical analysis of law enforcement and police reform in the United States and argues for alternatives. Vitale tells us about how he came to write this book and walks us through the early history of police in the United States. He discusses the popular myths surrounding policing, underscoring their conflicts with the roles police have played as managers of inequality from col...
Dec 12, 2017•47 min
Dr. Breea Willingham joins the Beyond Prisons podcast to discuss her prison research, her writing workshops with incarcerated women, and her experiences as someone with family directly impacted by the system. Dr. Willingham talks about how her experiences inform her work despite the traditional resistance of the academy to approaches that are not considered "objective"—even if it is highly relevant to the research. We talk about the farce of objectivity in both academia and journalism, and the n...
Nov 30, 2017•1 hr 8 min
Dr. Walter Greason joins the podcast to discuss his Racial Violence Syllabus , which attracted worldwide attention following the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Dr. Greason's syllabus was translated into seven languages and reached millions of people, driving the public debate surrounding the removal of Confederate memorials across the United States. Dr. Greason tells us what motivated him to share the syllabus as well as his experiences in the early 2000's teaching it in a...
Nov 17, 2017•33 min
Artist, writer, and organizer Devyn Springer joins the Beyond Prisons podcast for a special two-part episode. In part two, Devyn speaks with hosts Kim Wilson and Brian Sonenstein about hip hop scholarship and pedagogy as liberatory approaches to education. We also discuss his photography, writing, and poetry. Devyn explains his scholarship focuses on hip hop as a means of resistance. He talks about how, as one of most influential art forms of the past century, hip hop has always been about race,...
Nov 09, 2017•47 min
Artist, writer, and organizer Devyn Springer joins the Beyond Prisons podcast for a special two-part episode. In part one, Devyn speaks with hosts Kim Wilson and Brian Sonenstein about his work with mental health response networks in Atlanta. Through Rise UP, Black Lives Matter, and other groups, Devyn has worked to confront mental health emergencies through deescalation and by building relationships in the community. We discuss how the presence of police, and threat of violence that accompanies...
Nov 02, 2017•40 min
Journalist Victoria Law joins the Beyond Prisons podcast to discuss her work with imprisoned women and her book, "Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles Of Incarcerated Women." Law talks about how and why she wrote the book, which centers women’s struggles against incarceration and describes women’s resistance and organizing in prison. From this perspective, she also discusses the challenges and importance of compiling testimony from women on the inside, as well as the risks women have to take to...
Sep 14, 2017•1 hr 3 min
Beyond Prisons is on a brief hiatus until the end of August, when we'll return with a great episode featuring journalist Victoria Law. But before we go, we wanted to share our conversation with members of Jailhouse Lawyers Speak ahead of the historic Millions For Prisoners Human Rights March in Washington, DC on August 19. Jailhouse Lawyers Speak is a national collective of incarcerated people who fight for human rights by providing other incarcerated people with access to legal education, resou...
Aug 10, 2017•24 min
