Longtime abolitionists, thinkers, writers, activists, militants: Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Kim Wilson, and Amanda Alexander discuss revolutionary survival amidst pandemia and how abolitionist struggle is making the 'impossible' become possible.

“I’m fighting for my life right now”

Apr 7th, 2020 5m 19s

This past weekend we spoke again with our friend-comrade Bruce X at Macomb correctional facility in Michigan. Bruce X has been warning us of this tragedy for weeks now. Last time we spoke with him, he refused to go back to his cell because his

Updates about the dire situation inside Macomb prison in Michigan

Mar 27th, 2020 6m 40s

As of today (3/27/2020), there are 24 confirmed cases of Cov-19 inside Michigan prisons. Two weeks ago, we spoke with Bruce “X” Parker about the situation inside Macomb prison and he warned us about what would happen if no action was taken. The

Why are so many Michigan prisoners on quarantine?

Mar 10th, 2020 4m 59s

Prisoners in several Michigan prisons are currently on quarantine — being subjected to the absolute and arbitrary sovereign will of the MDOC with little to no possibility of redress. We hear from Bruce X — a comrade quarantined at Macomb correc

Crimmigration and Internationalist Abolition

Feb 26th, 2020 27m 42s

In this episode the Asian Prisoner Support Committee, an internationalist abolitionist organization, speaks about their fight against criminalization. They discuss how a rejection of “good immigrant” versus “bad immigrant” narratives takes form

Prisons on Hunger Strike in Argentina

Dec 24th, 2019 8m 52s

Thousands of prisoners in Argentina are on hunger strike. We speak with militant intellectual Liliana Cabrera about her experience inside Argentinean jails, her involvement with the organization Yo no fui, and also about this extraordinary even

Abolitionist Study with Steve Wilson

Nov 22nd, 2019 23m 15s

Black and queer abolitionist writer Stevie Wilson, held captive by the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, was recently released from solitary confinement. He speaks about the importance of abolitionist study as a space of common encounter

A strategy of disruption: Thinking through the prison strike as an abolitionist tactic

Oct 1st, 2019 28m 27s

Three years after the nationwide September 2016 prison strikes, abolitionist intellectual "HH" re-joins us on the show. "HH" speaks about what the few months before the prison strikes looked like from inside Michigan’s Kinross prison and we dis

Ohio Prisoners Speak! A Year After the 2018 Nationwide Prison Strike

Sep 9th, 2019 15m 40s

In this special bonus episode, released on the anniversary of the 2018 nationwide prison strike, we speak with two Ohio prisoners-- David Easley and Mark Houston (aka Mustafa) -- who called us from inside Toledo Correctional Institution. Both E

Democracia y Dictadura: el estado carcelario Chileno y resistencias abolicionistas

Aug 7th, 2019 37m 22s

Hablamos con Patricio Azócar Donoso sobre los aparatos carcelarios que se despliegan dentro de los territorios que hoy se conocen como Chile -- desde la dictadura hasta la llamada transición democrática. Patricio traza tanto la emergencia del p

Prison Labor and Industrial Penology

Jun 26th, 2019 28m 56s

Charlie Bright speaks about the re-articulations of carceral narratives: from the era of Fordism through discourses on modernization and the desperate rehabilitation of the rehabilitative model. Bright discusses how a century’s worth of constan

The Death Penalty, Sovereignty, and Abolition

May 29th, 2019 31m 40s

Lisa Guenther, currently a professor of philosophy at Queen’s University in so-called Ontario, Canada, deconstructs the state’s right to kill or let live within settler-colonial & racial capitalist social relations. We also discuss abolitionist

Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments Feat. Saidiyah Hartman

Apr 24th, 2019 26m 36s

Saidiya Hartman speaks about her latest book, Wayward Lives: Beautiful Experiments Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval, and the beauty, autonomy, anarchy, fugitivity, queerness, and errancy in forms of Black sociality — what she calls wayward

Pill or Punishment: Involuntary Medication at a Michigan's Women's Prison

Mar 27th, 2019 30m 9s

On January 2019, more than two thousand women confined at Michigan’s only women’s prison were put in quarantine. The quarantine comes in the wake of a possible scabies outbreak at the facility -- which has a long history of abuse and multiple c

Abolish Risk Assessment

Feb 28th, 2019 33m 32s

"Predictive" instruments are common currency within the carceral reform movement. In this episode we speak with three abolitionists --Rodrigo Ochigame, Chelsea Barabas, and Hamid Khan-- to contextualize the use of pre-trial assessments and algo

Letters from inside: The 2018 Prison Strike

Jan 28th, 2019 27m 23s

In the thick of the 2018 prison strike, we published a notice in the San Francisco Bay View -- the extraordinary monthly Black newspaper which circulates through hundreds of prisons and other centers of detention in the United States -- asking

Ni Una Menos en las Cárceles

Dec 12th, 2018 34m 52s

Nos encontramos frente a la difícil tarea de entablar un diálogo más allá del rustbelt, más allá del “cinturón oxidado,” más allá de esos territorios y poblaciones como Detroit y Flint, zonas de abandono organizado y violencia organizada del Es

Riots, Crisis, and Prisons

Nov 14th, 2018 25m 52s

In this episode, we speak with Joshua Clover, author of Riot. Strike. Riot: The New Era of Uprisings and professor of literature and critical theory at the University of California Davis, about the ongoing crisis of racial capitalism and its re

Anti-Fascism and Carceral State feat. Lorenzo Ervin and JoNina Abron-Ervin

Oct 17th, 2018 31m 42s

In this special bonus episode, we present a conversation between True Leap Press and Lorenzo Ervin and JoNina Abron-Ervin, recorded in Chicago earlier last month. Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin is an anarchist writer, organizer, and former political pri

Political Organizing Behind the Walls

Oct 10th, 2018 28m 56s

In this episode, we speak with Michigan-based writer and activist Dennis Boatwright. Dennis was held captive by the state for 24 years of his life and has written about the strategies and politics of the prisoner resistance movement. We speak

Reports from the 2018 Prison Strike

Sep 12th, 2018 29m 1s

As reports of the 2018 prison strike actions and state retaliation continue to come in, we speak with Amani Sawari, organizer and media contact with Jailhouse Lawyers Speak, about ways to support prison rebels. We also hear from J, a prison reb

Prelude to the 2018 Prisoner Strike

Aug 8th, 2018 28m 20s

Preparing for the upcoming 2018 Prisoner Strike -- slated to take place between August 21st and September 9th -- we speak with members of the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee of the IWW about the lead-up to the strike and how you can

Native Resistance and the Carceral State

Jul 11th, 2018 28m 11s

Nick Estes identifies the anti-Indian origins of the carceral state within the U.S. settler colonial project and argues that indigenous liberation offers critical frameworks for understanding how to abolish it. Estes is a co-founder of The Red

Abolishing Electronic Incarceration

Jun 13th, 2018 30m 37s

In this episode, “Abolishing Electronic Incarceration”, co-producer a Maria speaks with Myaisha Hayes and James Kilgore about the movement to challenge the widening use of “electronic monitoring devices,” or ankle shackles. Myaisha is the Natio

Specters of Attica: Reflections from Inside a Michigan Prison Strike

Jun 10th, 2018 29m

On the 45th anniversary of the Attica prison uprising, hundreds imprisoned inside Michigan’s Kinross Correctional Facility refused to report to work or lock down in their barracks. Instead, they joined the largest prisoner labor strike in U.S.