Category: Podcast

Sing Sing is going on hiatus. John updates us on where he’s been transferred and what he has in store for the future.

Author/Journalist/Professor Ted Conover talks about his 2000 award winning book Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing and recounts his experience with the New York State correctional system by becoming a correctional officer for nearly a year.

John chats with award-winning poet/memoirist/teacher Reginald Dwayne Betts about their shared familiarity with the worlds of journalism and incarceration – as well as their thoughts on restorative justice and a reading from Reginald Dwayne Betts.

Opera composer-inmate Joseph Wilson tells how the Carnegie Hall Music Program inside Sing Sing sparked his love of classical music. He shares about being sexually abused as a child – the events that led him to incarceration – and his ongoing musical collaboration with his sister.

Veteran musician/producer/EAR HUSTLE contributor David Jassy talks about being released from prison during a pandemic – the difference between Swedish and American prisons – and developing the Y.O.P. Mixtape Program inside San Quentin State Prison.

John invites the voices of three men currently serving sentences inside Sing Sing: Self – Reginald “Arif” Stevens – and Abdul Aleem. They share their thoughts on systemic racism, the circumstances they grew up in, incarceration during the pandemic – and the current social and political climate in the United States.

Executive director of the Sentencing Project – Marc Mauer – discusses racial disparities in the US criminal-justice system – the high rate of American incarceration – and the 20 year sentence cap proposed in his book, Race to Incarcerate.

Author/lecturer/former inmate Shaka Senghor shares his journey from an abusive home in Detroit to spending seven years in solitary confinement to having his book listed on Oprah’s Super Soul 100.

PVO. Burgeoning musical artist Jack Morris talks about having a father inside Sings Sing prison and how it has impacted his songwriting.

John shares his mixed feelings about winning an Ellie award from the American Society of Magazine Editors for his part in the Washington Post 2019 prison issue The Apology Letter https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2019/10/28/ive-built-career-prolific-prison-journalist-so-why-did-it-take-me-so-long-write-letter-family-man-i-killed THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MAGAZINE EDITORS ANNOUNCES WINNERS FOR 2020 NATIONAL MAGAZINE AWARDS https://www.asme.media/the-american-society-of-magazine-editors-announces-winners-for-2020-national-magazine-awards