Kite Line

On this episode, we have a letter from a prisoner at Pendleton Correctional Facility about his experiences with COVID-19 there. We share a short PSA about street safety during protests, and a message from Keith “Malik” Washington.

On June 3rd, Bloomington residents occupied the courthouse square in order to support the movement for black lives.  This tent city is just one of hundreds of ways that people across the country are building and fighting for a world beyond the grip of white supremacy and police violence. When we visited on Thursday night, dozens of tents provided shelter, and an open mic speak-out was underway.  We interviewed Abdul Wasi, a Bloomington resident participating in the movement.  He was recently released from prison, and he reflects on his time inside, his personal growth, commitment to his family and to organizing for a better world, and on the national uprising currently underway.

Please keep sharing the number for our coronavirus hotline. We will continue to air messages from prisoners who call in from the inside. You can call in on behalf of a loved one, or they can call in to record a message at (765) 343-6236.

This week, we broadcast updates on a riot in Macon State Prison, and two calls from mothers of prisoners at Westville Correctional Facility. After a rebellion by prisoners on April 22, over a dozen prisoners have been moved to a new segregation unit and are being subjected to a variety of tortures and abuse. The two women on this week’s episode speak about these tortures, and what it is like not knowing about the health and safety of their sons.

We  close the episode with a conversation with Lauren Brinkley-Rubenstein, an Assistant Professor working on the COVID Prison Project. The COVID Prison Project is a group of interdisciplinary, public health scientists who identified the need to create a public-facing database that provides up-to-date data on the state of the COVID-19 pandemic inside United States correctional facilities.

You can visit the COVID Prison Project here.

You can find out more on how to help via the Westville phone zap here.

Please keep sharing the number for our coronavirus hotline. We will continue to air messages from prisoners who call in from the inside. You can call in on behalf of a loved one, or they can call in to record a message at (765) 343-6236.

Welcome to the 200th episode of Kite Line.

This week, we revisit the important intersection of incarceration and higher education. Barriers to higher education are a key way the incarcerated and the formerly incarcerated are trapped by the system in a cycle of unemployment, low-wage work, and recidivism. We are proud to again host an interview conducted by Anastazia Schmid, who visited Michelle Jones at home.

You may remember Michelle from previous episodes of Kite Line, both from inside and outside of the Indiana Women’s Prison. In the installment this week, Michelle tells Anastazia about the difficulties in applying for college while incarcerated. She also shares shocking stories of being accepted to multiple institutions who then revoked her admission because of her criminal record.

These interviews on barriers to higher education were made possible by the Lumina Foundation.

This core of this week’s Kite Line is a conversation between Anastazia Schmid and Jennifer Fleming about trying to get an education before, during, and after incarceration.

You’ve likely heard Anastazia before on Kite Line, both while she was inside at the Indiana Women’s Prison, and since she was released last year. We will be sharing more of these conversations about prison’s barriers to higher education in upcoming episodes. The interviews on barriers to higher education that we will be airing were made possible through a grant from the Lumina Foundation.

You can listen to previous episodes with Anastazia here, here, and here.

The country might be locked down, but struggles inside prisons and out continue to develop chaotically and unexpectedly intersect with the COVID-19 crisis.  Prisoners in Stateville in Illinois report that they continue to suffer from a full lockdown, restricting their programming and access to phones.  Yet, guards are patting them down without washing their hands between each person, making transmission likely, and prisoners are regularly crowded together in bullpens.  The lockdown conditions allow for total repressive control but do nothing to stop the virus.

On the outside this week, Indianapolis cops killed a young black man named Sean Reed.  Indianapolis residents organized a mass call-in to demand that the city not tear gas demonstrators during a respiratory disease epidemic.  Blockades have continued for two days at the site of Reed’s murder.

Since the coronavirus pandemic hit the United States, we have been sharing updates from prisoners and their supporters on how COVID-19 is impacting their time in prison.  Mark “Mustafa” Hinkston called in to us from Toledo CI on May 5th. What follows is his statement, which was recorded through a mask. As of the 5th, he was on his 13th day of hunger strike.

We continue with a recording was sent into us by a listener, who shares a conversation with a prisoner in Rockville, a women’s prison here in Indiana. Afterwards, we share part of a video that was released by a prisoner in Ohio’s FCI Elkton, who begs for people to help those suffering inside. You can see that video here.

We end this week’s episode with a Mother’s Day poem that was recorded from Bertie Correctional in North Carolina by James S. Morgan, Jr.