Washington state's legislative session isn't over yet, but meaningful opportunities for criminal punishment reform are. Ralph Dunuan walks us through the bills we were following at CHOICES Media and what it means for folks on the inside and outside of prison walls.

Episode 4. It’s 2025 and the Washington state legislature is in session! Incarcerated organizers know better than most people that the state isn’t always here to help us. In this episode, we explain what abolitionist reforms are and how some folks use them to realize the promise of liberation. We focus on the Judicial Discretion Act, a bill that began with incarcerated leadership and seeks to build solidarity across different incarcerated communities, victims/survivors, judges, lawyers, and outside community members.

This episode includes Charles Longshore, Azias Ross, WA House Representative Tarra Simmons, Amanda Knight, and Senator Noel Frame; hosted by Ralph Dunuan, produced by Megan Ybarra, and edited and mixed by Anvar Hassanpour. This podcast was supported in part by a Scholar-Activist Project Award from the Antipode Foundation and the UCSD Communication Department.

For show notes and transcript, go to www.choicesmedia.org

Episode 3. We look back to recent history of Washington prison activism to show why we need directly impacted people to have collective voice and leadership in fixing the problems in our criminal punishment system. Amongst so many stories untold to those on the outside, we hone in on the TEACH program at Clallam Bay Corrections Center from 2013 - 2018 and Judicial Second Look coalition formed in 2024 around a bill initially written by Native incarcerated leaders and judges on the outside. We’ll think about lessons learned for inside-outside prison solidarity.

This episode was hosted by Ralph Dunuan, produced by Megan Ybarra, and edited and mixed by Anvar Hassanpour. This podcast was supported in part by a Scholar-Activist Project Award from the Antipode Foundation and the UCSD Communication Department. This episode features interviews with Marco Juarez Rodriguez, Carlos Bernardez Jr., Travis ComesLast and Charles Longshore.

For a full transcript and show notes, go to www.choicesmedia.org

Episode 2. Incarcerated people and their loved ones navigate a complex system of guidelines, grids, indeterminate sentencing review boards, and more. We’ll learn about Washington’s draconian sentencing practices and laws that doubled its incarceration rate, instituting life and long sentences, disproportionately affecting Indigenous peoples and people of color. This episode features an interview with Dan Berger, a historian of activism, Black power, prisons and the carceral state.

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠You can find show notes, transcripts, and get in touch with us at www.choicesmedia.org

Episode 1. Ralph Dunuan was incarcerated in 1999, in the era of pagers. Co-host and friend Megan Ybarra interviews Ralph to learn about how he builds from his experiences to understand how Native communities are impacted by the criminal punishment system and his perspectives on family, abolition, and why prisoner-led media is important.

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram: ⁠@choicesmediapodcast

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠You can find show notes, transcripts, and get in touch with us at www.choicesmedia.org

Welcome to CHOICES Media, a prisoner-led podcast for liberation based in Washington state. Our host, Ralph Dunuan, has been incarcerated for over twenty years. In this podcast, you'll hear about how the criminal punishment system works, and what inside/outside organizers are doing to change it.

You can find transcripts and show notes (including links to resources) at www.choicesmedia.org

This is a rebroadcast from January 2023, the first episode of the CHOICES podcast. We will focus on SB6164, a bill passed in 2020 by the Washington State Legislature that grants county prosecutors discretion to review past cases and request resentencing if the sentence no longer advances the "interests of justice." In this episode, host Ralph Dunuan examines the history and efficacy of SB6164 - does this bill truly offer relief to incarcerated folks and the communities and families they hope to return to?

This episode features interviews with Demar Nelson, Jorge Macias, Eric Bacolod, and Clayton Gagnier.

For show notes and a full transcript, go to www.choicesmedia.org