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Tag Archives: Focus Initiatives

November 11, 2022: 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 range of experiences. This talk …

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June 10, 2022: 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 sense of self. You can …

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May 27, 2022: 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 prison ramps the level of …

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April 22, 2022: Bargaining in Bad Faith

Welcome to the 300th episode of Kite Line. 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 …

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February 25, 2022: The 1985 Pendleton Uprising

In this week’s episode, we air the final part of a conversation between Jok from Focus Initiatives and Rodney Jones, known as Big R. Big R was a witness to the beating that sparked the 1985 Pendleton prison uprising here in Indiana. In previous episodes, they discussed the circumstances that led up to the beating, including a gang of white …

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February 18, 2022: 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 other organizations, including Focus Initiatives, LTD. We …

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February 11, 2022: 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 in a whole different place …

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