Uncuffed is KALW's award-winning podcast hosted by people in San Quentin and Solano State Prisons. Our first new season since the pandemic launches today.
The season features stories of struggle and resilience through the COVID pandemic, including a hunger strike to protest life-threatening conditions, family relationships rekindled over letters, and even – despite all odds – a wedding.
Uncuffed Season 2 also explores alternatives to the American system of mass incarceration. After three Uncuffed hosts are released from San Quentin, they travel to Norway and tour prisons designed with re-entry as the top priority. They speak with incarcerated Norwegians and find out what’s working, and what isn’t, in a system that Californian officials consider a model for reform.
I thought that they threw me away because of what I did that put myself in prison.Steve Drown, from Uncuffed Season 2
KALW began working at San Quentin State Prison in 2012, where we taught the creators of the hit podcast Ear Hustle. In 2017, the Uncuffed training program earned support from Arts In Corrections, a partnership between the California Arts Council and the California Department of Corrections, and expanded to Solano State Prison in Vacaville. KALW has aired over 80 stories produced inside the walls, and the work has been recognized with multiple awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, the Public Media Journalists Association, and the San Francisco Press Club.
Uncuffed is a founding member of Prison Radio International, and attended the first ever international prison radio conference in Oslo this June.
In the coming year, Uncuffed will expand to the California Institution for Women in San Bernardino County, offer audio storytelling workshops for formerly incarcerated people, and launch a broadcast DJ training program at Solano State Prison.
Episodes of Uncuffed can be heard in podcast players, on KALW’s daily news program Crosscurrents, and can be found online at WeAreUncuffed.org. It is also played on TV channels within California prisons, and on prison-issued tablet computers.
THE DETAILS:
Release Date: August 2
Episodes every other Tuesday through December
Listen to the trailer
WeAreUncuffed.org
CONTACT:
Contact Uncuffed at uncuffed@kalw.org.
