299 episodes

Kite Line is a radio program devoted to prison issues around the Midwest and beyond. Behind the prison walls, a message is called a kite: whispered words, a note passed hand to hand, or a request submitted to the guards for medical care. Illicit or not, sending a kite means trusting that other people will bear it farther along till it reaches its destination. On the show, we hope to pass along words across the prison walls.

Kite Line Kite Line

    • News
    • 4.9 • 47 Ratings

Kite Line is a radio program devoted to prison issues around the Midwest and beyond. Behind the prison walls, a message is called a kite: whispered words, a note passed hand to hand, or a request submitted to the guards for medical care. Illicit or not, sending a kite means trusting that other people will bear it farther along till it reaches its destination. On the show, we hope to pass along words across the prison walls.

    February 9, 2024: Studies in Dignity

    February 9, 2024: Studies in Dignity

    This week, we focus on two people who are studies in dignity in the face of state repression. Jack Mazurek was arrested in Atlanta yesterday and charged with arson. These allegations stemmed from an attack last July on police motorcycles, which was rooted in the movement against Cop City. He is standing strong despite the serious charges against him, as people around the country mobilize in his defense. After addressing Jack's charges, the rest of the episode features Leon Benson, who survived decades in Indiana prisons, organizing against the guards and admins despite terrifying repression, and who emerged unbroken and exonerated a year ago.

    • 29 min
    January 12, 2024: Leon Benson is Free

    January 12, 2024: Leon Benson is Free

    For our first episode of the new year, we wanted to begin sharing an interview with Leon Benson. In this conversation, he covers his release from prison, reflections on the treatment he received from the authorities, and his work on the outside.  This is a special privilege for Kite Line, since we have aired Benson's work and thought many times over the years, since he was a leading organizer and thinker inside the Indiana Department of Corrections.  We are thrilled that he has been released and are excited to share news of his ongoing work to challenge the prison system. In this segment, he shares the story of what led him to be arrested for a murder he didn't commit. We will continue this interview in our next episode.



    You can hear previous episodes with Leon and his family members:



    https://www.kitelineradio.org/podcast/you-cant-force-the-state-to-abide-by-the-law/



    https://www.kitelineradio.org/podcast/253-truth-never-dies/



    https://www.kitelineradio.org/podcast/leon-benson-in-his-own-words-part-one/



    https://www.kitelineradio.org/podcast/leon-benson-in-his-own-words-part-two/



    https://www.kitelineradio.org/podcast/staying-in-touch-a-conversation-with-leon-benson/



     



     



     

    • 29 min
    December 8, 2023: Written from the Inside

    December 8, 2023: Written from the Inside

    In this episode, we have our monthly round up of prison disturbances, as compiled by Perilous Chronicle. Afterwards, we have a conversation with Sophia Johnson, also known as Candle, who is an anarchist writer who currently serving a sentence in Oregon. In this conversation, she talks about writing in prison, and her ongoing struggle to receive adequate health care.

    • 29 min
    November 24, 2023: Block Cop City

    November 24, 2023: Block Cop City

    Since 2021, a diverse movement in has challenged the construction of Cop City, which is slated to destroy Atlanta's South River Forest.  The forest is also known by its Muscogee name, Weelaunee.  The movement has created new intersections between abolitionist and environmental politics, since it is defending a forest with important ecological elements for the surrounding Black community, in order to protest the creation of new police training facilities.



    In the movement's latest phase, a new coalition called Block Cop City made an ambitious proposal for mass, non-violent action.  That action forced the city to suspend construction that day- and as of our airdate- has not resumed in the days since.



    Here are selections from the statement issued by Block Cop City about the mobilization:



    On November 13th, a bold and joyful procession of roughly 500 people marched along a public road to the proposed Cop City construction site. Holding banners and giant puppets, and accompanied by drummers and a brass band, Block Cop City activists reclaimed Atlanta's rich civil rights legacy from politicians who continue to tarnish it with every voter disenfranchised and each tear gas canister thrown. Despite the violent response by police, activists minimized arrests and harm through careful planning, extensive preparation, and close attention to lessons learned from generations of revolutionary struggles against repression and authoritarianism.



    Despite numerous stated commitments from religious leaders and city officials to honor the right to protest, armed riot police terrorized the crowd with tear gas grenades, attack dogs, clubs and ballistic shields.



    As other protestors took to planting tree saplings in the Weelaunee Forest, journalists were forcibly separated from the crowd and threatened with arrest by police. We condemn this infringement of these journalists' rights as well as the arrest of protestors including the Indigenous activists arrested while visiting Tortuguita's altar in the Weelaunee Forest over the weekend.



    The movement to Stop Cop City and Defend the Atlanta Forest is undeterred by today's police aggression.







    Photo credit: Mia Beach



     

    • 29 min
    October 13, 2023: Surveillance and Social Media

    October 13, 2023: Surveillance and Social Media

    On today's Kite Line, we are sharing more research conducted collectively by Micol Seigel's Inside-Out class. Last spring, this course brought together students at Indiana University and students held by the Indiana Department of Corrections. This presentation is focused on the tension between surveillance and sousveillance, a term for when apparatuses like social media and smartphones are turned around and used against state violence and official abuses.



    Thanks to the students who wrote and recorded this project.

    • 29 min
    August 25, 2023: Transforming Trauma- Voices from Inside-Out

    August 25, 2023: Transforming Trauma- Voices from Inside-Out

    Content Warning: This episode contains references to sexual trauma and harm.



    We start off this episode with our monthly round up of prison disturbances, as compiled by Perilous Chronicle- followed by some recent prison news.



    We close our episode with a feature created by students as part of Dr. Micol Seigel’s Inside Out program at Indiana University. As mentioned on the show previously, the Inside Out program was started a means of bringing together campus-based students with incarcerated students for a semester-long course held in a prison, jail or other correctional setting. This feature was written, recorded, and edited by students inside and outside of the prison walls.



    Dr. Seigel would like to thank the staff of Plainfield Correctional Facility for their assistance in guiding the Inside-Out class.

    • 28 min

Customer Reviews

4.9 out of 5
47 Ratings

47 Ratings

JuneAdventure ,

Informational and Engrossing

Everyone should listen to this podcast.. it’ll open your eyes to the prison system, and to US American systems of injustice in general.

Chloe H Watlington ,

Best prisoner podcast hands down

I LOVE kiteline! It’s a woman-made syndicated radio program. They are so easy to listen to. Kiteline features interviews with prisoners, activists and professors which are as often funny and inspiring as they are sobering and sad. Interviews are paired with historical and sociological lessons on prison issues.

Elm Mill ,

Great Podcast

If only more people listened to this podcast and heard the stories of how prisons abuse their power. This podcast through interviews with scholars and people struggling in the system show the disastrous effects and harm produced by our prison system. Anyone interested in prison abolition should listen to this podcast.

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