Prison Radio Show

Today's show focuses on the demands of prisoners in Block 8, organizing against racism and ableism inside Kenora jail. The majority of those incarcerated in Kenora jail come from the surrounding Indigenous communities. We speak with Trish, who through the Prison Project has been supporting and amplifying the voices of those organizing in Block 8. Trish, is an anarchist, abolitionist, formerly incarcerated person, who is a co-lead on the Disability Justice Network of Ontario's – Prison Project, centering and engaging racialized and disabled folks inside jails, prisons, and detention centers all across Ontario.

This episode features audio from a book launch that happened in Montreal on March 14, 2023. The launch was for the book 1312 raisons d'abolir la police by Gwenola Ricordeau. The event was hosted by Étienne Simard from Revue Ouvrage. Gwenola Ricordeau, Jessica Quijano from Defund the SPVM, and Malina May and Adore Goldman from the Comité Autonome du Travail du Sex also spoke. The event took place in French and thus, this episode is mostly in French.

This show featured audio from an interview that Kiteline Radio did with Jarrod Shanahan about his book called Captives: How Riker's Island Took New York City Hostage. We share this audio in part because of a news story in Montreal. In December, newspapers in Montreal announced that the province will be building a new prison for women on the island of Montreal.

We then share two interviews about the death of Nicous D'Andre Spring. Nicous died after being pepper sprayed by guards while wearing a spit mask on December 26, 2022. It later came out in the news that he had been granted bail the day before, but was not released. His family held a vigil in Notre Dame de Grace in late December with over 100 people in attendance. We talked to Alain Babineau with the Red Coalition, an organization that held a press conference on January 7th hoping to push for justice for Nicous. We also talked to Amanda from DESTA Black Youth Network about the annual New Years Eve Noise Demonstration, which went to Bordeaux jail where Nicous was killed. Nicous was an aspiring rapper and we share some of his music on the show.

This episode features Gita Madan from Education not Incarceration in Toronto talking about the school to prison pipeline. Gita is a teacher in the Toronto school system. Education Not Incarceration (ENI) is a team of youth, students, parents/ caregivers, educators, researchers, journalists, and community organizers in Toronto who have come together to address the school-to-prison pipeline. They successful campaigned to end the presence of police in TDSB schools by ending the School Resources Officer program.

Decided to put up a show from our archives on the podcast. Enjoy. It's from February 27, 2015. At the time, we would record live and download our episodes from the CKUT archives so there's a bit of the jazz show's tail end at the beginning. Our show starts at 1m16s!

This show featured two live interviews – one with Soffiyah Elijah of the Correctional Association of New York about changes to New York State youth justice legislation and one with Ralph from Head & Hands here in Montreal. Ralph talked to us about youth incarceration in Montreal and Project X, a project which helps youth in finding creative ways to survive institutional racism and racial profiling. We also played a song by Peter Collins and included an update about his health. (Peter died in August 2015).

This show features a bunch of new audio from Muti Ajamu-Osagboro that we recorded between August and October 2022. We also air a new podcast from a Montreal org called DESTA Black Community Network. The podcast is called Stories from the Inside Out and you can listen to it directly from DESTA here: https://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/show/525c3a8e-ffb5-4c28-9793-da73ea3bca57/id/24545991

Audio from August 10th, 2022 Prisoner Justice Day event in Montreal. Featuring Johanne Wendy Bariteau, Kiyha, audio from the inside, and more!

This episode features a long interview with Ardath Whynacht. Ardath teaches at Mount Allison University and wrote the book Insurgent Love: Abolition and Domestic Homicide. In the interview, we took a deep dive into questions the book brings up such as what is the difference between intimate terrorism and other kinds of intimate partner violence, what role could disarmament play in the fight against both police violence and intimate terrorism, and how does Ardath commemorate Prisoner Justice Day. Content warning: the book and therefore, the interview, are about violence in intimate relationships, including murder and murder-suicide.

Today on the programme, we share with you a book launch event that took place at Ausgang Plaza earlier this month on May 3rd. The book is titled "Delivrez-nous de la prison Leclerc! un temoignage de l'interieur" and is by author Louise Henry, published by Ecosociete. It is about women provincial prisoners who were transferred in 2016 from Maison Tanguay to Leclerc, a former federal penitentiary for men that had been shuttered by the Canadian Government, deemed unfit for men, and now holds women in deplorable conditions. The book launch is a denunciation of the provincial government's shameful incarceration of women in a condemned penitentiary and the event is also a celebration.

We will hear the voices of Maria Nengeh Mensah, a professor at UQAM, Catherine Chesnay from CASIFQ or the Coalition d'action et de surveillance sur l'incarceration des femmes du Quebec, we will hear from the book's author Louise Henry, Camille from ecosociete, soeur Marguerite a long-time activist and defender of women prisoners' rights, Nancy, Genevieve, and finally, a song performed by Claudette Plante. Le programme aujourd'hui va être presenté en français.

This show features Matthew, who is currently incarcerated at Riviere des Prairies prison on the island of Montreal. He shared news with us about the situation in RDP two years into the covid 19 pandemic. After that we heard from authors of the book Disarm, Defund, Dismantle: Police Abolition in Canada, which just came out with Between the Lines press. Editor Abby Stadnyk and authors of the chapter called Defund to Abolish spoke to us about what's in the book, what it was like to write it, and why they think you should read it.