14 Jul 2018

Ear Hustle: a prison podcast

From TPH - old version - find current one under National programmes

Ear Hustle (prison slang for eavesdropping) is a podcast recorded and made inside San Quentin State Prison in California.

With thousands of inmates, and the country's largest Death Row, San Quentin is one of America's  oldest and most notorious jails and is so large it even has its own zip code.

Ear Hustle is billed as the first podcast to be created entirely inside a prison and it's racking up millions of downloads, with recent polls putting it ahead of perennial podcast favourites like This American Life and Radiolab in the popularity charts.

The podcast shares tales of prison life told by the prisoners and the guards themselves, covering topics like what makes a good cellmate, parenthood in prison, and capital punishment, telling stories with humour, compassion, plenty of nice audio, and two engaging hosts.

We play extracts from Episode 14 'The Workaround' and Episode 3 'Looking Out' and speak to Ear Hustle's Nigel Poor.

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