Rattling The Bars

After spending the past year and a half socially distancing, millions around the country will be coming together to celebrate the holidays this year with a renewed appreciation for seeing and being with loved ones. For those who are locked away in prisons and jails, however, the dehumanizing separation from family, friends, and community will continue. Having spent 44 years as a political prisoner...

In 2014, at the age of 15, Prakash Churaman was arrested at his home at 6AM without a warrant. After driving him around for a few hours, police brought Churaman to the 113th Precinct and, as Churaman and his attorney maintain, coerced a confession out of him for a crime he did not commit. As reported in the Queens Daily Eagle, “Prosecutors say Churaman was one of the gunmen in a robbery gone wrong...

According to a 2021 survey by the Pew Research Center, even though they have doubts about its administration, fairness, and usefulness as a crime deterrent, most Americans today still support the death penalty. Moreover, while it may seem like a brutal relic of a bygone era, capital punishment is still legal in 24 states, for the federal government, and for the military. As John Gramlich writes, “...

After spending nearly half a century in prison, leftist revolutionaries and political prisoners David Gilbert and Russell Maroon Shoatz (who also spent 22 years in solitary confinement) were released earlier this year. In this episode of Rattling the Bars, TRNN Executive Producer Eddie Conway speaks with Charles Hopkins, better known as Mansa Musa, about the historic occasion of Gilbert and Shoatz...

For years, prisoners, activists, and legal advocates have been drawing attention to the inhumane conditions at Rikers Island, New York’s most infamous jail complex. But the COVID-19 pandemic turned what was already a dire situation at Rikers into a full-blown humanitarian crisis. With cells grossly overcrowded, guards and medical staff largely absent, and an interior crumbling from disrepair, Rike...

Mansoor Adayfi, “Detainee No. 441,” was imprisoned in Guantánamo Bay for over 14 years without charges as an enemy combatant. As detailed in the description for Adafyi’s new book Don’t Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantánamo, “Arriving as a stubborn teenager, Mansoor survived the camp’s infamous interrogation program and became a feared and hardened resistance fighter leading prison riots and...

President Joe Biden signed a major $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package that provided funds to cities and states around the country to recover from devastating effects of the pandemic. Regardless of widespread condemnation and criticism, Alabama’s Republican Gov. Kay Ivey and the state legislature have pushed through plans to use a significant portion of those federal COVID-19 relief funds for th...

In the state of Louisiana, 786 inmates—none of whom were ever sentenced to death—died behind bars between 2015-2019 while serving out their prison sentences. Since Black people are already incarcerated at disproportionate rates, these deaths have been disproportionately among Black inmates. This information has not been publicly available until now, because no single authority in Louisiana is requ...

In October of 1966, the Black Panther Party was founded in Oakland, California. Since then, the Panthers have been a driving radical force for Black liberation, self-defense, and community organization and self-determination. In this special episode of Rattling the Bars commemorating the 55th anniversary of the founding of the BPP, TRNN Executive Producer and former Lieutenant of Security for the...

As we’ve covered previously on Rattling the Bars, prisons in the US have been a major source of COVID-19 infections throughout the pandemic, and experts have suggested that the reality is even worse than the limited data have shown. Now, as the more contagious Delta variant causes another surge in cases in prisons around the country, certain states have stopped sharing infection statistics with th...

In this episode of Rattling the Bars, TRNN Executive Producer and former Black Panther Eddie Conway discusses the differences between prisons in Cuba and in the United States. Of the two, only one incarcerates children, only one deliberately isolates prisoners from their families and communities, and only one uses long-term solitary confinement as a routine punishment—and it's not Cuba. "In Cuba y...

TRNN Executive Producer and former Black Panther Eddie Conway talks to author and activist Dominque Conway about Gloria Richardson, a fierce activist who led a multi-year campaign against segregation in Cambridge, Md. Richardson, who died July 15, 2021, was not as widely known as other civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. or Fannie Lou Hamer. Nevertheless, she was an important figure i...

In recent episodes of Rattling the Bars, TRNN’s weekly show on the violence and victims of the prison-industrial complex, legendary Black Panther and longtime political prisoner Eddie Conway and his guests have examined the 13th Amendment, the exploitation of prisoner slave labor in the US today, and the people who are fighting to put an end to this barbaric practice for good. As a crucial follow-...

To celebrate Black August, TRNN Executive Producer and former Black Panther Eddie Conway talks with Claude Marks about the life and legacy of revolutionary author and activist George Jackson 50 years after his assassination. Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and making a small donation: Donate: https://therealnews.com/donate-yt Sign up for...

Thanks to the 13th Amendment, slavery still exists in the US in the form of low- or no-wage prison labor. But organizers like Jeronimo Aguilar and John Cannon are working to end this practice for good. Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and making a small donation: Donate: https://therealnews.com/donate-yt Sign up for our newsletter: https:/...

After surviving a deadly pandemic, workers in the US are reluctant to return to unsafe workplaces for poverty wages. Rather than offer better pay, protections, and benefits, businesses are choosing to exploit prison labor. Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and making a small donation: Donate: https://therealnews.com/donate-yt Sign up for ou...

After Gov. Ned Lamont signed a new bill into law in June, Connecticut became the first state in the US to make phone calls free for incarcerated people, including those in juvenile detention facilities. Studies show that having access to phone calls reduces violence in prisons and prisoner recidivism rates, so why have prisons and private companies been allowed to charge such exorbitant prices for...

Kip Kinkel was publicly reviled when, suffering from undiagnosed paranoid schizophrenia, he shot and killed his mother and father before killing two of his classmates and wounding 25 others in a mass shooting at Thurston High School in Springfield, Oregon, in 1998. Kinkel pled guilty to murder and attempted murder and was sentenced to 111 years in jail without the possibility of parole. Since then...

Sonia Kumar, senior attorney at the ACLU of Maryland, explains the movement to restore the parole option to people sentenced for serious crimes in childhood. Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and making a small donation: Donate: https://therealnews.com/donate-yt Sign up for our newsletter: https://therealnews.com/nl-yt Like us on Facebook...

ACLU legal expert Sonia Kumar says the ruling slows but does not stop the movement toward more just sentencing for juveniles. Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and making a small donation: Donate: https://therealnews.com/donate-yt Sign up for our newsletter: https://therealnews.com/nl-yt Like us on Facebook: https://facebook.com/therealnews...

What does 'environmental racism' mean? What does it look like in practice? When researchers discovered that residents of the small, unincorporated, predominantly Black community of Tallevast, Florida, were experiencing abnormally high rates of cancer and miscarriages, it was clear that something was wrong. Tallevast, a town shaped by the legacy of segregation, is the site of the now-defunct Loral...

Eddie Conway talks to two experts about the latest infection rates, issues with transparency, and more. Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and making a small donation: Donate: https://therealnews.com/donate-yt Sign up for our newsletter: https://therealnews.com/nl-yt Like us on Facebook: https://facebook.com/therealnews Follow us on Twitter:...

The French government has renewed its attempts to extradite professor and exonerated terrorism suspect Hassan Diab. In this extended interview, we talk with Roger Clark of the Hassan Diab Support Committee and Monia Mazigh on the latest developments in Diab's case and why it's important to have all eyes on it. Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following...

Roger Clark of the Hassan Diab Support Committee and author and human rights academic Monia Mazigh say officials based their case against Diab on problematic evidence. They update TRNN host Eddie Conway about the latest information out of this long-winding case, and why they believe Diab should be freed. Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us an...

In this episode of "Rattling the Bars," we get an inside and outside view of the ongoing, slow-moving disaster happening in Maryland prisons, which have failed to adequately protect inmates, guards, and the surrounding communities from COVID-19. TRNN Executive Producer Eddie Conway speaks with Pamela Sessoms, whose incarcerated fiancé contracted COVID inside a Maryland prison, and Marc Schindler,...