Beyond Prisons

The following talk was delivered by Dr. Kim Wilson at the DecARcerate Arkansas 2022 conference in Little Rock. The conference was an opportunity for abolitionist and other organizers to come together to listen as speakers from around the state and the country talked about their work. Kim interviewed organizers about their experience with boundary setting in movement spaces, and what they said illuminates a deeper problem that we seldom hear addressed, but that is nonetheless, important for liberation movements. As the mother of two sons currently sentenced to LWOP; as an organizer that provides education, direct support, and mobilizes resources for people in and out of prison; and as a Black disabled woman that is struggling with multiple health issues, she is emotionally, physically, and financially exhausted. The talk was a collaborative effort that included the voices of women and femmes in the movement who felt that these things need to be said, and Kim had the opportunity to use her platform to say them.

This is the first episode of our Creative Interventions series.  In this series, we will explore the Creative Interventions Toolkit, which provides tools, resources, and a model for community interventions in interpersonal violence. We’ll go section-by-section and talk to some of the folks whose work served as the source material for this project. You can find digital versions of the Creative Interventions Toolkit or purchase a physical copy by visiting www.creative-interventions.org. According to their website, “Creative Interventions provides vision, tools and resources to help anyone and everyone create community-based, collective responses to domestic, family, and sexual violence. The community-based approach centers those closest to and most impacted by harm, honors their expertise, and builds collective knowledge and power as the solution to violence.” The CI Toolkit has been around for a while now but AK Press released it in print for the first time last December. So, while we’ve talked about it in pre

This is the audio version of a panel discussion hosted on March 24 that explores the importance of physical mail in prison and how the prison industrial complex works to undermine imprisoned people's ability to meaningfully communicate with their loved ones. You can watch video of the panel here: https://www.beyond-prisons.com/home/video-why-physical-mail-matters Physical mail is a layered issue, and policies that eliminate physical mail are violent and cruel. They seek to destroy the loving and caring connections that people have. They “pile on” more separation than that which already exists and makes it even harder for people to remain in relationship and community with their support systems. They disproportionately affect poor people. They add another cost onto the already long list of things that prisoners and their loved ones pay for. They expand the surveillance mechanisms of the carceral state in ways that I’m not sure we have begun to grapple with. Letter writing has always been an important form of

In this episode, Kim sits down with Monica Cosby to talk about the draconian policy in the Delaware Department of Corrections to end all physical mail sent to prisoners.  Join us to take action on Friday, March 18, 2022, and on Monday through Wednesday, March 21-23, 2022. Details at: https://www.beyond-prisons.com/home/say-no-to-eliminating-physical-mail-in-delaware-prisons Kim and Monica discuss the cruelty of this policy, which would prevent prisoners from receiving sympathy cards, birthday cards, and even hand-drawn items sent by their children or other loved ones. They also get into the painful isolation that this policy will lead to for many prisoners, whose main way of connecting with loved ones on the outside is through the mail, because of the cost of phone calls and the hassle of traveling long distances for in-person visits. Finally, they touch on the Delaware DOC's flimsy claim that this policy is designed to reduce contraband--and the much clearer profit motive behind digital mail.  Monica Cosby

Christopher R. Rogers and YahNé Ndgo join us for a wide ranging conversation grounded in the book “How We Stay Free: Notes On A Black Uprising.” This anthology, which was published by Common Notions and edited by our guest Christopher as well as Fajr Muhammad, and the Paul Robeson House & Museum, brings together essays, timelines, poetry, photography, illustration, and other artwork to reflect on the George Floyd Uprisings of 2020 in Philadelphia.  Kim and Brian ask Chris and YahNé about the Paul Robeson House and the place of art and localized knowledge in Black liberation movements. We discuss how some of the testimonies featured in How We Stay Free explore the shifting terrain of “what’s possible,” the complexity of formulating, aligning on, and ultimately making demands, and a whole lot more.  Christopher R. Rogers is an educator and cultural worker from Chester, PA. He serves as Public Programs Director for the Paul Robeson House & Museum, where he has volunteered since 2015. Additionally, he is

This is a companion episode to our interview with Geo Maher. If you haven’t listened to that yet, you may want to put this on hold and check that conversation out first. Kim Wilson and Geo Maher dive deep into Chapter 5 of his book, A World Without Police: How Strong Communities Make Cops Obsolete. The chapter is entitled, “Building Communities Without Police,” and this discussion was originally prepared for one of Kim’s courses. Geo Maher is a Philadelphia-based writer and organizer, and currently Visiting Associate Professor of Global Political Thought at Vassar College. He is author of four books, including A World Without Police, and his next book Anticolonial Eruptions appears in March.  Episode Resources & Notes A World Without Police 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. Che

Geo Maher joins us to discuss his new book, "A World Without Police: How Strong Communities Make Cops Obsolete."  We touch on a number of subjects, including the context in which the book was written, cops and labor unions, and how Geo’s experiences in Venezuela influenced his work. We also touch on Alexandria Ocasio Cortez’s comment likening abolition to a suburb and rhetorical strategies with the mainstream, as well as examples of bottom-up abolitionist organizing around the world. Geo explains what he means by “strong community," the project of abolishing police and the border as being one in the same, and a whole lot more. In addition to this interview, we have published a companion episode featuring an in-depth conversation between Kim and Geo about chapter 5 of his book, “Building Communities Without Police.” Geo Maher is a Philadelphia-based writer and organizer, and currently Visiting Associate Professor of Global Political Thought at Vassar College. He is author of four books, including A World With

In this episode, adrienne maree brown discusses her recent book: Holding Change: The Way of Emergent Strategy Facilitation and Mediation. We talk about the structure of the book, Black feminist wisdom, breathwork as a facilitation practice, the importance of setting boundaries, the need to remain open to new ideas, and moving with grief. adrienne maree brown is the author of Grievers (the first in her novella series with the Black Dawn imprint), Holding Change: The Way of Emergent Strategy Facilitation and Meditation, We Will Not Cancel Us and Other Dreams of Transformative Justice, Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good, Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds and the co-editor of Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction from Social Justice Movements. She is the co-host of the How to Survive the End of the World and Octavia’s Parables podcasts. adrienne is rooted in Durham. Episode Resources & Notes Holding Change: The Way of Emergent Strategy Facilitation and Mediation Grievers Adrienne mare

Rory Elliott and Woods Ervin from Critical Resistance’s newspaper, The Abolitionist, join the show for a wide-ranging conversation on abolitionist media. According to their website, The Abolitionist, sometimes lovingly referred to as The Abbey, “launched in the spring of 2005 as a bilingual publication dedicated to the strategy and practice of prison industrial complex (PIC) abolition. It is distributed absolutely free of charge to thousands of people in prisons, jails, and detention centers throughout the US, who in turn share the paper with many more of their fellow prisoners.“ “From analyses of racial capitalism and imperialism, to housing, education, land struggles, mental health, confronting gender violence, fights to build life-affirming infrastructure for community self-determination and more, each issue is packed with fresh analytical articles, reflections, poetry, visual art, and organizing resources and tools for resistance inside and outside of prisons.”   This wide ranging conversation touches not

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 polit

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 Shaku

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 upri

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, l

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 f

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 commiss

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 incar

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 O

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 “Elect

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 communit

Kim Wilson is joined by Dr. Venezia Michalsen for a conversation about her research on women’s experiences with the criminal punishment system on the Beyond Prisons podcast.  Their conversation, which was recorded in February, touches on how women are impacted differently by the system than men and how criminology has focused on studying men’s experiences. They also discuss the ways that women’s survival strategies are criminalized, white carceral feminism and punishment, and much more. Dr. Venezia Michalsen is an American intersectional feminist criminologist whose work focuses on gender and imprisonment and reentry from incarceration.  Venezia received her B.A. in 1998 from Barnard College and her Ph.D. in Criminal Justice (2007) from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). She was the Director of Analysis and Client Information Systems (ACIS) at the Women’s Prison Association until she began her career as an academic in the Justice Studies Department at Montclair State University (MS