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