By Casey Zhu (LLB III)
Ronnel Draper, also known as Rauch, is a hopeless animal lover. The connection he experiences with animals is unlike any relationship he has developed with another human being throughout his entire life. Over the years, Rauch has had a countless number of pets, or ‘critters’ as he fondly calls them, but not the kind one would ordinarily expect, like a Golden Retriever or a Tabby; instead, Rauch has kept insects of all kinds, such as spiders, moths and bees, as well as larger animals like mice, squirrels (sparrows?) and frogs. Rauch is happy with anything he can get his hands on and can keep inside discreetly. Subtlety is key – he has lost many of his critters in the past, because pets are forbidden in prison.
Rauch is serving a sentence of 15 years to life for second-degree murder at San Quentin State Prison, a maximum-security correctional facility in California. I heard of Rauch’s story in an episode of Ear Hustle, a podcast launched in 2016 that interviews men currently incarcerated in San Quentin on their daily lives in prison, as well as those who have been released, as they re-adjust to life outside. ‘Ear hustling’ is prison slang for eavesdropping, and that is exactly what co-founders and hosts Nigel Poor, a visual artist living in California, and Earlonne Woods, who formerly served a 31 year to life sentence for attempted second-degree robbery at San Quentin, do. They participate in ‘yard talk’, striking up conversations with inmates (and sometimes prison guards) and listening out for any interesting stories that can be recorded and produced in the prison’s media lab for their audiences. Usually, they don’t have to look very hard. The podcast, currently in its fifth season, relays incredible stories about the men inside San Quentin – some are funny, others are heart-breaking, but all offer profound insight into the real-life experience of incarceration and the criminal justice system.
Ear Hustle is only one podcast constituting a broader trend of radio broadcasts involving those in custody, with a sudden proliferation of these programs over the last ten years across the world. In 2007, National Prison Radio (NPR) made its first broadcast in HM Prison Brixton (formerly as Electric Radio Brixton), a men’s prison in London. Unlike Ear Hustle, NPR’s audience is targeted to prisoners across the UK, who make up the majority of their listeners. The innovation of NPR has spurred many others to follow in its footsteps, providing a platform for previously unheard voices not only in the UK and the US, but also in Israel (Radio Focus), Hungary (BARS FM) and Trinidad and Tobago (RISE Maximum Radio). Australia has been particularly influenced, resulting in the development of radio broadcasts such as Beyond the Bars, Jailbreak and WKRP Radio, as well as the podcast, Birds Eye View, involving the stories of women incarcerated in Darwin Correctional Centre.
“…some are funny, others are heart-breaking, but all offer profound insight into the real-life experience of incarceration and the criminal justice system.”
These programs bear incredible rewards for their both participants and their listeners, inside and outside of prison. For listeners like me, who are fortunate enough to have never had a negative encounter with the apparatus of the criminal justice system or even seen the inside a police station, let alone a prison cell, these podcasts have been incredibly insightful. Ear Hustle and Birds Eye View give a tangible, initiate expression to commonly known, depersonalised trends, such as the inhumane impacts of solitary confinement and the disproportionate representation of Aboriginal peoples in Australian corrective facilities. It also introduces audiences to other niche aspects of prison life, such as what it is like to spend almost your entire life behind bars, the excruciating process of finding a compatible cellmate (also known as a ‘cellie’) and, of course, keeping pets in prison.
However, the most important outcome of these radio broadcasts and podcasts is their impact on those inside who participate by listening and creating these programs. The dehumanising impact of incarceration on the inmates can be greatly mitigated via the documentation which gives the incarcerated men and women the opportunity to voice their stories on air. The idea of creating a prison radio station, which later materialised as NPR, was put forward in 1994 in response to an increase in suicides and self-harm amongst young men in HM Prison Feltham in London. In 2016, NPR had almost 80,000 listeners; over 75% of inmates across England and Wales had listened to NPR and 37% listened daily. NPR’s aims include reducing the risk of re-offending through education on drugs and alcohol, health, critical thinking, family relationships and ethics, as well as training for skills necessary for employment. The stories that are broadcasted revolve around these themes, but also include informal conversations about almost anything, particularly music and grime. The radio’s dialogic approach is a new way to tackle the issue of education in prison, which is especially important due to the low literacy rates of those serving custodial sentences, a statistical trend seen in many countries. The study also reported that 85% of respondents had been inspired by something they heard on NPR and 75% replied that NPR had helped them to think about making a positive change to their lives.
“The dehumanising impact of incarceration on the inmates can be greatly mitigated via the documentation which gives the incarcerated men and women the opportunity to voice their stories on air.”
Listening to these programs has undeniably broadened my understanding of daily life in prison and the criminal justice system, but it has also generated just as many questions as it has answered. How can Australia’s corrective services facilities be reformed to address some of the profound inhumanities that those serving custodial sentences must face? How can we address the issue of racial asymmetry in prisons and Aboriginal deaths in custody? Should we shift away from these practices altogether, bringing restorative justice to the forefront instead? These questions are especially pertinent today, with the COVID-19 pandemic posing a huge threat to the health of those on remand. If you think being stuck at home is bad, imagine what life would be like in a 4’ x 9’ cell.