Beyond Prisons is a podcast on prison abolition that elevates the voices of people directly impacted by the system.
Beyond Prisons is a podcast on prison abolition that elevates the voices of people directly impacted by the system.
Beyond Prisons is a podcast that explores incarceration from an abolitionist perspective. We amplify the voices of people directly impacted by the system and seek to tell stories that push us to imagine and work toward a world without prisons.
Launched in 2017 by Kim Wilson and Brian Nam-Sonenstein, Beyond Prisons is an educational and political resource for those new to abolition and those long engaged in movement work.
Kim Wilson is an artist, educator, writer, and organizer. She is the cofounder, cohost, and producer of the Beyond Prisons podcast, and co-editor of We Grow the World Together: Parenting Toward Abolition. Kim received a 2023 Leeway Transformation Award for her ongoing commitment to art and social change.
A social scientist by training, Dr. Wilson has a PhD in Urban Affairs and Public Policy, and her work focuses on examining the interconnected functioning of systems, including poverty, racism, ableism, and heteropatriarchy, within a carceral structure. Her work delves into the extension and expansion of these systems beyond their physical manifestations of cages and fences, to reveal how carcerality is imbued in policy and practice. She explores how these systems synergize to exacerbate the challenges faced by under-resourced communities, revealing a deliberate intention to undermine and further marginalize vulnerable populations.
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Brian Nam-Sonenstein is a journalist living in Portland, Maine. He is the cohost and editor of the Beyond Prisons podcast.
Brian was the Associate Publisher and Campaign Director for Firedoglake.com, where he organized multiple campaigns in support of whistleblowers, drug policy reform, health care reform, social security and protest movements like Occupy.
In 2014, he started Prison Protest as a home for his writing and investigations on US corrections and criminal justice.
In 2015, Brian co-founded the independent journalism outlet Shadowproof.com, where he writes about incarceration and the various issues and movements with which it intersects.
He was also a columnist for the Portland Phoenix from 2017-2019, covering criminal justice news in Portland, Maine.
Brian’s journalism has been published in TruthOut, Solitary Watch, SFBayView, and Prison Legal News.
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