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Crosscurrents

How It Feels To Go Up For Parole For The 13th Time

Steve Drown
Damon Cooke in the radio lab at Solano State Prison.

From the series Uncuffed:

Damon L. Cooke recently attended his thirteenth parole suitability hearing. He’s been incarcerated for 28 years. His fellow Uncuffed reporters, Spoon Jackson, Steve Drown, and me, Brian Thames, anxiously awaited his return to ask him about the process and results.

"I feel for my family. Not for me. It's really not about me. It's about the work that I put in to get a parole date."

Uncuffed is produced by men at Solano State Prison. Learn more about them here.

Our radio training program at Solano State Prison is supported by the California Arts Council, with funding from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. All content is approved by an information officer.
 
Uncuffed is a project in which KALW editors train incarcerated people to report stories from inside prison. A CDCR official listened to and approved the audio for this story prior to broadcast.

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Crosscurrents From The Producers Of UncuffedFrom The Producers Of Uncuffed
Brian “bf” Thames has published five non-fiction books while incarcerated over the last 30 years. A pending 6th book advocating self-reliance and better decision making in potentially dangerous encounters is on the way. Learning languages is an exciting pastime for him. He’s become reasonably fluent in French, conversational in Spanish, and learned ASL during the Covid-19 pandemic. His favorite animals are Great Danes, and any variation of parrots/parakeets. Acquiring general knowledge and education about the world and existence tends to make him giddy.
Spoon Jackson is a producer of KALW's Uncuffed, presenting stories that show the humanity of incarcerated people.
Steve Drown is a producer of KALW's Uncuffed, presenting stories that show the humanity of incarcerated people.