“What Kilmar Abrego Garcia's family is going through is just unimaginable,” says Baltimore-based journalist Baynard Woods, “but it is also what we've all allowed to happen over generations of letting the drug war and our deference to police departments erode the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, which should protect us all from illegal search and seizure, such as these seizures that ICE is committing all around the country right now.” In this episode of Rattling the Bars, Mansa Musa and Woods discuss the US government’s case against Abrego Garcia—whom the Trump administration finally returned to US soil from El Salvador in June—and what the government can do to citizens and non-citizens alike when our right to due process is taken away.

Guest:

• Baynard Woods is a writer and journalist based in Baltimore. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post, Oxford American Magazine, and many other publications. He is the author of Inheritance: An Autobiography of Whiteness and coauthor, with Brandon Soderberg, of I Got a Monster: The Rise and Fall of America's Most Corrupt Police Squad.

Additional resources:

• Baynard Woods, Baltimore Beat, “Government’s case against Abrego Garcia is based on PG County Cop who was on the SA’s do not call list”
• Baynard Woods, Baltimore Beat, “A Maryland man’s life is at stake. Trump and Salvadoran president Bukele could not care less”

Credits:

• Producer / Videographer / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino

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President Trump’s Executive Order calling for incarcerated transgender women to be housed in men’s prisons and halting gender-affirming medical care for prisoners has put one of the most vulnerable segments of the prison population in even greater danger. In this episode of Rattling the Bars, host Mansa Musa investigates the violent realities trans inmates face in the US prison system, and the impact that Trump’s attacks on LGBTQ+ rights is having inside prisons.

Guest(s):

• Dee Deidre Farmer, Executive Director of Fight4Justice. In 1994, Farmer’s landmark Supreme Court case, the unanimous Farmer v. Brennan decision, established that prisoners have a right to be protected from harm and that prisons are responsible for their safety.
• Ronnie L. Taylor, Advocacy, Policy, & Partnerships Director of FreeState Justice in Maryland.

Additional resources:

• Amy Harman, The New York Times, “Judge blocks Trump effort to end treatment for transgender inmates”
• Kaley Johnson & Sam Levin, The Guardian, “Trans women transferred to men’s prisons despite rulings against Trump’s order”

Credits:

• Producer / Videographer / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino

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Private companies and state governments have long exploited the 13th Amendment to create a profitable agribusiness system that runs on prison slave labor. “If you look at the history of agriculture in the United States, it’s built on dispossession, it’s built on enslavement,” says Joshua Sbicca, director of the Prison Agriculture Lab, and the legacy of that violence lives on in the big business of “agricarceral” farming today. In this episode of Rattling the Bars, host and former political prisoner Mansa Musa speaks with Sbicca about the prisoners farming our food, the parties profiting from their exploitation, and the ongoing fight to uphold the basic rights and dignity of incarcerated workers.

Producer / Videographer / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino

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Mansa Musa, host of Rattling the Bars, spent 48 years in prison before his release in 2019. At the invitation of the UMD College Park Young Democratic Socialists of America, Mansa delivered a lecture on his life behind bars and the political struggles of prisoners.

Produced and edited by Cameron Granadino.

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Maryland's Second Look Act has passed the State House, and now awaits a vote in the Senate. The bill would allow prisoners to request judicial review of their sentences after serving 20 years of prison time. Advocates say Maryland's prison system is in desperate need of reform; parole is nearly impossible for longterm inmates, and clear racial disparities in arrest and incarceration are immediately evident—72% of Maryland's prisoners are Black, despite a state population that is only 30% Black. Meanwhile, opponents of the Second Look Act charge that the bill would endanger state residents and harm the victims of violent crimes. Rattling the Bars digs deeper, speaking with activists, legislators, and formerly incarcerated people on the real stakes and consequences of the Second Look Act.

Produced and edited by Cameron Granadino.

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The fingerprints of antebellum slavery can be found all over the modern prison system, from who is incarcerated to the methods used behind bars to repress prisoners. Like its antecedent system, mass incarceration also fulfills the function of boosting corporate profits to the tune of $80 billion a year. Bianca Tylek, Executive Director of Worth Rises, joins Rattling the Bars to discuss her organization's efforts to combat prison profiteering across the country, and expose the corporations plundering incarcerated people and their communities to line the pockets of their shareholders.

Producer: Cameron Granadino

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Across Maryland’s prison system, incarcerated workers assemble furniture, sew clothing, and even manufacture cleaning chemicals. In spite of making the state more than $50 million annually in revenue, these workers are compensated below the minimum wage in a system akin to slavery. But how does the system of forced prison labor really work, and how do state laws keep this industry running? Rattling the Bars investigates how Maryland law requires government institutions to purchase prison-made products, and how legislators like State Senator Antonio Hayes are working to change that.

Producer: Cameron Granadino

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Popular representations of the Black Panthers often focus on their armed self-defense activities, but medical services and health justice were a tremendous part of the party's work. This legacy continues today as Black activists work to transform the medical industrial complex and its relationship to the prison system. Erica Woodland (he/him), co-author of Healing Justice Lineages, joins Rattling the Bars to discuss this history, his current activism, and the role of The Real News's own beloved Eddie Conway in influencing his path.

Studio/Post-Production: Cameron Granadino


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President Biden’s decision to pardon his son, Hunter Biden, has drawn criticism from across the political spectrum. Among these critics are opponents of the War on Drugs and mass incarceration, which President Biden played a personal role in architecting throughout his political career. Jason Ortiz, Director of Strategic Initiatives at the Last Prisoner Project, joins Rattling the Bars to discuss Hunter Biden’s pardon and what it means for Biden’s legacy.

Studio / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino

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Five incarcerated people in Alabama are fighting to push forward a lawsuit, Stanley v. Ivey, challenging the state's power to punish prisoners who resist forced labor. Despite a state constitutional provision abolishing slavery that was passed in 2022 by referendum, Montgomery County Circuit Court dismissed the plaintiffs' lawsuit, arguing Governor Kay Ivey and Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner John Hamm were protected by state sovereign immunity. Emily Early, Associate Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights' Southern Regional Office, joins Rattling the Bars to discuss the lawsuit and the plaintiffs' ongoing fight to have their case appealed. 

Studio / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino

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