Tag Archives: prison

This week, we are trying something new so that we can cover the full range of increased prisoner struggles. We will be teaming up with Perilous Chronicle at the beginning of each month to give you headlines tracking disturbances in prisons, jails, and detention centers. Perilous is a project seeking to gather and track information on prison uprisings, riots, protests, …

This week, we return to an important conversation about grand juries and state repression. Recently, Steve Martinez, an Indigenous and Chicano Water Protector who opposed the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) on the Standing Rock reservation in 2016, was held on charges of civil contempt of court for his refusal to cooperate with a federal grand jury. In order to learn …

This week, we brought together three segments that focus on ways the system attempts to repress participants in collective struggles and those who fight for a better world. In a segment that originally aired on KPFA, we hear about the punitive measures Malik Washington is facing after speaking out about the COVID-19 outbreak in a Geo Group run halfway house. …

Mwalimu Shakur, who spoke in last week’s episode about COVID-19 protocols in his facility, returns this week to share more reflections. He shares first-hand experiences of gladiator fights and organizing against the SHU (Secure Housing Unit) from the inside. Corcoran State Prison was the first prison to develop the ultra-repressive SHU.  He also talks about using his time inside to …

This week, we followup on the COVID-19 conditions at Corcoran Prison in California and share news from the uprising in the St. Louis Jail. Afterwards, we finish a conversation between Dr. Jeffrey Ian Ross and Dr. Micol Seigel. Ross is a Professor at the University of Baltimore, and has researched, written, and lectured extensively on policing, political crime, state crime, …

On January 30th, guards attacked Robert Earl Council, and beat him until he was unconscious.  Council, also known as Kinetik Justice, is a longtime imprisoned organizer and cofounder of the Free Alabama Movement.   Outside supporters have urged as many people as possible to call the Donaldson Correctional Facility and express concern for Council’s welfare.  The prison’s phone number is (205) …

This week, we share audio in support of Dan Baker and Loren Reed, and from Panagioti Tsolkas, who tells us about the important #CagingCOVID campaign and their upcoming February 1st day of action. As we’ve previously documented on Kite Line, facilities across the country have systematically failed to protect prisoners from COVID-19 and its uncontrolled spread.  We are sharing two …

  On Kite Line this week, we share two interviews with advocates working on the physical well-being of those locked inside. The first conversation we hear is with Olivia, who is part of a group trying to get the word out about unsafe conditions at the California Medical Facility, or CMF, a prison for inmates with medical conditions. This facility …

Happy New Year! This week, we broadcast kites from Strawberry Hampton in Illinois and Daniel Dawson in Saskatchewan, who both called in this week to update us on their conditions. Strawberry Hampton, a Black transgender woman and niece of Fred Hampton, shares the horrific abuses she has suffered inside. Hampton received a rare transfer to an all-women’s facility after she …

Today, we broadcast Part 2 of our series on Compassionate Release. Compassionate Release is the principle that sentences should be adjusted given “particularly extraordinary or compelling circumstances which could not reasonably have been foreseen by the court at the time of sentencing”. We now continue to hear from Alison Guernsey, who tells us about the barriers thrown up against this …