Rattling The Bars

Jessup, Maryland is home to the state's only women's prison, the Maryland Correctional Institute for Women, commonly known as "The Cut". For years, advocates fought for a women's pre-release center, which would house prisoners eligible to go out on work release, receive an income, and take family leave. Despite passing a bill into law mandating the construction of a women's pre-release center, the...

Former President Donald Trump is facing 34 felony counts in New York State and an additional 37 felony federal charges. None of this prevents him from freely campaigning for President and appearing before the media. Yet the reality for most people targeted by the criminal justice system is far different. Take Rikers Island Jail—where more than 80 percent of inmates have not been convicted of a cri...

The system of mass incarceration extends into the public education system. Known as the school-to-prison pipeline, policies that criminalize youth and their families, from the presence of police in schools to discriminatory and punitive practices that push youth to drop out, disproportionately affect communities of color. Kentucky State Rep. Keturah Herron joins Rattling the Bars to discuss the sc...

Juneteenth has become a federal holiday—yet prison slavery under the 13th Amendment continues. Uprooting the prison industrial complex is vital to completing the abolition of slavery. In California, the Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB) coalition aims to close 10 state prisons in the next 5 years as part of the People's Plan for Prison Closure. CURB Executive Director Amber-Rose...

On April 27, 2023, the United States Sentencing Commission submitted to Congress amendments to the federal sentencing guidelines that would recommend lower sentences for certain defendants. If these changes are applied retroactively, some 18,775 people in federal prison could become eligible for a sentencing reduction—including 3,288 individuals who could be eligible for immediate release. Mary Pr...

The topic of solitary confinement was the focus of a recent episode of John Oliver's Last Week Tonight on HBO. Thanks to the hard work of activists organizing against solitary confinement for decades, awareness of the brutality of this practice has begun to enter the mainstream. Its history as a counterinsurgency tactic, however, has yet to be fully examined in the light of day. TRNN Editor-in-Chi...

While the underlying logic of the cash bail system in the US may sound convincing on paper, in practice it has become a means of denying justice to, and destroying the lives of, people who have not even been convicted of a crime. “The US Constitution prohibits ‘excessive bail’” The Bail Project notes on their website. “Excessive bail forces people to stay in jail—even though they’ve not been convi...

*Editor's note: At 00:56, host Mansa Musa misspeaks when quoting a report and says that 55 million people are in the system of mass incarceration; the correct number is 5.5 million. Over 1.9 million people are incarcerated in the US today, and even greater 5.5 million people are subjected to the wide-ranging system of mass punishment from parole, probation, and beyond. One organization, JustLeader...

The death of Khader Adnan in Israeli detention during a hunger strike on May 2 of this year sparked mourning worldwide and a general strike in occupied Palestine. The 45-year-old Adnan was on his 87th day of hunger strike while serving a sentence for his 12th arrest by the Israeli state at the time of his death. A baker by trade and a father to nine children, Adnan was the first Palestinian to die...

The call for prison abolition has been popularized over the last decade of popular movements against police violence, many of which have operated under the banner of Black Lives Matter. But what does abolition mean, and who gets to define it? Thus far, much of the conversation has been steered and curated by mainstream media. A new initiative from Scalawag Magazine tentatively titled 'Project Abol...

May Day, also known as International Workers' Day, is celebrated around the world by labor unions, socialist parties, and anarchists. May Day's origins go back to the 1886 Haymarket Affair, when hundreds of thousands of US workers walked off the job, and 40,000 went on strike in Chicago for an eight-hour workday. Despite its origins, May Day is largely unknown in the US today. TRNN Editor-in-Chief...

Click here to read the transcript Marshall "Eddie" Conway was framed for the murder of a police officer and incarcerated for 44 years—but even behind bars, he continued to organize. In the early 1970s, Maryland's state prisons were overcrowded and lacked education opportunities for incarcerated people. As a form of intervention, Eddie organized a university-level education program with fellow pris...

Click here to read the transcript. Even though he was framed for the killing of a local police officer, sentenced without a fair trial, and imprisoned for 44 years, former Black Panther and dearly departed TRNN Executive Producer Marshall “Eddie” Conway never stopped organizing. In 1980, while incarcerated himself as a political prisoner, Eddie helped organize a prisoners’ educational outreach pro...

Click here to read the transcript: https://therealnews.com/jalil-muntaqim-the-time-to-end-prison-slavery-is-now In 2021, the International Tribunal On US Human Rights Abuses Against Black, Brown, and Indigenous Peoples found the United States government guilty of genocide. The tribunal drew upon the legacy of the 1951 petition submitted to the United Nations by the Civil Rights Congress: "We Charg...

Read the transcript of this podcast: https://therealnews.com/the-pendleton-2-saved-a-mans-life-a-judge-sentenced-them-to-200-years-for-it On Feb. 1, 1985, prison guards at the Indiana State Reformatory (now Pendleton Correctional Facility) affiliated with a KKK-splinter group known as the Sons of Light chained prisoner Lincoln Love in their office and began to mercilessly beat him. John "Balagoon"...

Marshall "Eddie" Conway joined the ancestors on Feb. 13, 2023 after a yearlong battle with illness. Born in Baltimore in 1946, Eddie joined the the Black Panther Party in 1968. The Baltimore BPP chapter, with Eddie’s support and leadership, built strong community ties through efforts like a free breakfast program, a system of robust internal political education, and an increasingly widespread loca...

The new one-woman play 'The Road to Damascus' reinterprets the biblical story of Saul and the tale of Little Red Riding Hood as an allegory for white complicity in the US prison system and the possibility of redemption through anti-racism. Creator and performer Kathy Randels joins Rattling the Bars to discuss her new work. Studio/Post-Production: Cameron Granadino Read the transcript here: https:/...

Incarcerated people across the US could find their commissary funds depleted by a new proposed policy from the Bureau of Prisons to automatically deduct three quarters of all funds prisoners receive from loved ones on the outside. If you'd like to help stop this new proposal from the BOP, click here for instructions on how to submit a public comment—Monday, March 13 is the last day to act. Tim Cur...

The growth of the US prison population under a system of mass incarceration has now gone on for 50 years, according to The Sentencing Project . While awareness and political discourse about US prison expansion has grown in the last decade, we are still far from dismantling this violent and inhumane system of captivity. Nicole Porter from The Sentencing Project joins Rattling the Bars to explain he...

Feb. 21, 2023, marks the 58th anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X. We honor his life and legacy by recalling his revolutionary message to the downtrodden peoples of the world and committing to carrying on his fight for liberation. In this special commemorative episode of Rattling the Bars, Mansa Musa speaks with freedom fighters Paulette Dauteuil and Ashanti Alston about how Malcolm X sh...

Across the US, some 50,000 incarcerated people are kept under conditions of solitary confinement. Advocates and prisoners have pushed to define the practice as a form of torture, pointing to the devastating psychological and physical effects it has on victims. In Texas, dozens of prisoners are now hunger striking against the use of solitary confinement in the state's prisons, which they say dispro...

Read the transcript of this podcast: https://therealnews.com/exclusive-interview-from-prison-carla-j-simmons-on-what-an-inhumane-carceral-system-does-to-human-psyches In this urgent, exclusive interview for Rattling the Bars , Mansa Musa speaks with Carla J. Simmons from inside the Georgia prison system, as well as Page Dukes of the Southern Center for Human Rights . Simmons, who has been incarcer...

Read the transcript of this interview: https://therealnews.com/these-women-are-fighting-nevadas-prison-system-and-winning The start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 exacerbated the existing crisis of incarceration in the US, which has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world. During this time, a group of women with loved ones incarcerated in Nevada’s prison system founded the org...

Editor's note: This interview was filmed on Dec. 1, 2022. A 19th person, Edgardo Mejia, died at Rikers on Sunday, Dec. 11. 19 people have perished at Rikers Island in 2022, making this the deadliest year in the jail's history. Rikers Island's previous deadliest year was just last year, when 16 people died at the notorious pretrial detention center. NYC Mayor Eric Adams has rejected calls to close...

Read the transcript of this podcast: https://therealnews.com/how-private-developers-profited-from-tax-subsidies-in-baltimore-intended-to-revitalize-poor-neighborhoods For 50 years, Baltimore city officials have trumpeted the use of tax subsidies for private developers as a way to catalyze economic development. As more and more public funds have gone into the pockets of the rich, the city’s prospec...