In celebration of recently completing 300 consecutive episodes, we are airing some of our Kite Line crew’s favorite clips from our archive of hundreds of episodes. After we hear a round up of prison disturbances as compiled by Perilous Chronicle, we play a clip from episode 119, in which Talila Lewis (TL) describes some of the challenges to being Deaf in prison.

Afterwards, we return to Renford Farrier, a Canadian prisoner who we heard from last week. Last week, we heard the beginning of his story. This week, he finishes up by talking to us more about his struggles to get released. Farrier was given a life sentence for killing a man, and he believed he’d be out on parole after 10 years. Now, it’s been 30 years, and Farrier is still inside.

Something common between this conversation and the one we heard with TL is misconceptions about the experience of others. Farrier talks about the false perceptions of the Canadian prison system- namely that people think that Canadian prisons are somehow nicer and less racist than in the US. He walks us through how he initially understood his sentence to be ten years, but in practice, each time he comes up for parole he is denied. The life-10 sentence is misleading, since many prisoners do not get paroled after ten years, given that in order to do so you need to basically have a spotless record inside. To make matters worse, when they actually are paroled, it’s nearly impossible to stay out. The parole system is so controlling that parolees are often accused of parole breaches, landing them back inside while they await a parole board’s decision.

As a Black prisoner, Farrier feels like he’s been unfairly denied parole repeatedly, and talks to us about his feelings leading up to his next parole hearing- which is at the end of this year.

Thanks to Renford Farrier for sharing his story, to Perilous for their headlines, and to everyone who helped with the show. You can find out more about the recent prison disturbances at perilouschronicle.com

You can listen to our shows about being Deaf and disabled in prison here:

https://www.kitelineradio.org/podcast/being-heard-prison-and-the-deaf-community/

You can find out more about Renford’s case, hear other interviews he has given, and learn how to support him at: https://www.freefarrier.ca/