HV037- Prison
HV/Series/Episode/ Work by: Phillip Kent Bimstein · Chana Joffe-Walt · Radio Diaries · Sound Portraits
Hearing Voices from NPR®:
037 Prison— Life Behind Bars
Host— Joe Richman of Radio Diaries
Airdates— 11/12/2008 – 11/19/2008
Prison (53:00 mp3):
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John Mills is “Doing Time” (16:10) and Sergeant Furman Camel is “Serving 9 to 5″ (3:20 excerpt) two Prison Dairies (2001 CD | NPR series) from an inmate and a guard at Polk Youth Institution, North Carolina. John Mills is out now and co-hosts our hour with Prison Dairies producer Joe Richman. (Check the accompanying Picture Projects 360 Degrees, a multimedia “Perspectives on the U.S. Criminal Justice System.”
Voices and sounds of youth in “Lockdown!” (5:14) at Utah’s Washington County Crisis Center, a techno tone poem by composer Phillip Kent Bimstein (space).
Payton Smith’s calls her mom in prison to discuss “Not All Bad Things” (3:34), produced by Chana Joffe-Walt and Transom.
And “Tossing Away the Keys” (11:01) at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, Angola Prison, is stories of lifers from Sound Portraits.
Amazing. I want to reel off a string of cliches . . . “should be required listening”. But this is true.
I hear something like this and I wish I had done it. Can’t praise it enough.
One of those interviewed (probably more, wasn’t listening closely enough this morning) mentioned hope, reminding me of Bill Clinton’s “I still believe in a place called Hope” and Obama’s “Audacity of Hope”.
I doubt very much that either of them (certainly Clinton) understand what these prisoners understand about hope. Just as Oppenheimer and other participants in the Manhattan Project felt that world leaders should be required to witness an atomic blast, I believe Obama and leading politicians should be required to speak with people like the prisoners interviewed here.
I am struck that the right so easily demonizes so many who have been convicted of crimes and imprisoned. What does it say of the right-wing Christian foundation philosophy about the possibility of redemption or change?
Dear Sirs:
I have a person who I feel would be worth looking at for your Lock up series. This person has been locked up for over 17 years for a murder he was convicted of when he was 18 years old. He has become some what of a local celebrity having produced a prison workout video and has a few Ideas about how the State of Ohio could capitalize on the hidden talents of inmates. I will provide you with a link to his workout video on YouTube. He has also written a book and is really just an all around good story for T.V. Please feel free to contact me if you need any further information about him. His convicted name is Gary Boyd but he has changed it to Sol Amen Ra. He is currently being held at Warren Correctional Insitute in Ohio. freegaryboyd.blogspot.com/2006/09/my-story.html http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=36355346
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