Rattling The Bars
Rattling the Bars puts the voices of the people most harmed by our system of mass incarceration at the center of our reporting on the fight to end it. The show was founded by the late Black Panther and political prisoner Marshall “Eddie” Conway, and is now hosted by Charles Hopkins, better known as Mansa Musa, who himself spent 48 years behind bars. Rattling the Bars offers an honest look at the lives of prisoners, returning citizens, their families, and their communities. With Rattling the Bars, by presenting hard data and real-life stories, we examine and seek to shift public opinion around the misconception that incarceration, punishment, and increased policing make cities safer—the truth of which has been disproven by countless studies. The series examines the history and root causes of the current so-called justice system. It showcases individuals and communities nationwide who are grappling with real solutions to problems created by the prison-industrial complex. Help us continue producing Rattling the Bars by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer. Sign up for our newsletter
Episodes
June 12, 2025 • 22 mins
President Trump’s Executive Order calling for incarcerated transgender women to be housed in men’s prisons and halting gender-affirming medical care for prisoners has put one of the most vulnerable segments of the prison population in even greater danger. In this episode of Rattling the Bars, host Mansa Musa investigates the violent realities trans inmates face in the US prison system, and the impact that Trump’s attacks on LGBTQ+ ...
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May 19, 2025 • 29 mins
Private companies and state governments have long exploited the 13th Amendment to create a profitable agribusiness system that runs on prison slave labor. “If you look at the history of agriculture in the United States, it’s built on dispossession, it’s built on enslavement,” says Joshua Sbicca, director of the Prison Agriculture Lab, and the legacy of that violence lives on in the big business of “agricarceral” farming today. In t...
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April 7, 2025 • 67 mins
Mansa Musa, host of Rattling the Bars, spent 48 years in prison before his release in 2019. At the invitation of the UMD College Park Young Democratic Socialists of America, Mansa delivered a lecture on his life behind bars and the political struggles of prisoners.
Produced and edited by Cameron Granadino.
Help us continue producing Rattling the Bars by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.
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Follow us...
Produced and edited by Cameron Granadino.
Help us continue producing Rattling the Bars by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.
Sign up for our newsletter
Follow us...
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March 24, 2025 • 33 mins
Maryland's Second Look Act has passed the State House, and now awaits a vote in the Senate. The bill would allow prisoners to request judicial review of their sentences after serving 20 years of prison time. Advocates say Maryland's prison system is in desperate need of reform; parole is nearly impossible for longterm inmates, and clear racial disparities in arrest and incarceration are immediately evident—72% of Maryland's prisone...
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March 10, 2025 • 35 mins
The fingerprints of antebellum slavery can be found all over the modern prison system, from who is incarcerated to the methods used behind bars to repress prisoners. Like its antecedent system, mass incarceration also fulfills the function of boosting corporate profits to the tune of $80 billion a year. Bianca Tylek, Executive Director of Worth Rises, joins Rattling the Bars to discuss her organization's efforts to combat prison pr...
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March 10, 2025 • 27 mins
Across Maryland’s prison system, incarcerated workers assemble furniture, sew clothing, and even manufacture cleaning chemicals. In spite of making the state more than $50 million annually in revenue, these workers are compensated below the minimum wage in a system akin to slavery. But how does the system of forced prison labor really work, and how do state laws keep this industry running? Rattling the Bars investigates how Marylan...
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December 23, 2024 • 28 mins
Popular representations of the Black Panthers often focus on their armed self-defense activities, but medical services and health justice were a tremendous part of the party's work. This legacy continues today as Black activists work to transform the medical industrial complex and its relationship to the prison system. Erica Woodland (he/him), co-author of Healing Justice Lineages, joins Rattling the Bars to discuss this history, h...
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December 16, 2024 • 25 mins
President Biden’s decision to pardon his son, Hunter Biden, has drawn criticism from across the political spectrum. Among these critics are opponents of the War on Drugs and mass incarceration, which President Biden played a personal role in architecting throughout his political career. Jason Ortiz, Director of Strategic Initiatives at the Last Prisoner Project, joins Rattling the Bars to discuss Hunter Biden’s pardon and what it m...
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December 9, 2024 • 25 mins
Five incarcerated people in Alabama are fighting to push forward a lawsuit, Stanley v. Ivey, challenging the state's power to punish prisoners who resist forced labor. Despite a state constitutional provision abolishing slavery that was passed in 2022 by referendum, Montgomery County Circuit Court dismissed the plaintiffs' lawsuit, arguing Governor Kay Ivey and Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner John Hamm were protected...
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November 18, 2024 • 31 mins
"Who would want to lock somebody in a room the size of your bathroom and leave them in there for three years...and expect them to come out in the same condition that they went in? That's insanity."
A new bill in Washington, DC seeks to end the district’s use of solitary confinement in jails. Rattling the Bars' Mansa Musa speaks with two formerly incarcerated organizers: Herbert Robinson and Cinquan Umar Muhammad of the Unlock the Bo...
A new bill in Washington, DC seeks to end the district’s use of solitary confinement in jails. Rattling the Bars' Mansa Musa speaks with two formerly incarcerated organizers: Herbert Robinson and Cinquan Umar Muhammad of the Unlock the Bo...
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November 4, 2024 • 31 mins
Since the 1990s, 2 million people with felony convictions have regained the right to vote, thanks to crucial reforms abolishing felony disenfranchisement in 26 states. This election, these voters could play a crucial role—and based on data from 2020, many of them prefer Trump. There's more to this story however, from incarcerated people's limited access to information, to the role of prisoners' race and even positive perceptions of...
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October 31, 2024 • 29 mins
Policing and prison abolition policy questions have been minimized in the lead-up to the 2024 November election between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, despite their significance in the last election cycle. Yet these ideas have finally pierced into mainstream debate, and committed prison abolitionists are tirelessly organizing to free incarcerated people, improve conditions within the prison system, and close or prevent the opening...
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October 28, 2024 • 28 mins
Hurricane Helene devastated western North Carolina, including its prisons. Yet rather than evacuate incarcerated people, the state left prisoners locked up in their cells without running water or light to survive the storm on their own. Schuyler Mitchell, who recently covered this story for The Intercept, speaks to Rattling the Bars about this manmade disaster and its consequences.
Studio / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino
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Studio / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino
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October 23, 2024 • 30 mins
This November, California voters will have the chance to pass Proposition 6. This ballot referendum would nullify the state constitution's exception for involuntary servitude as punishment for a crime, and institute additional protections for incarcerated people. Jeronimo Aguilar of Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, and John Cannon of All of Us or None join Rattling the Bars for a breakdown of Prop 6.
To learn more about P...
To learn more about P...
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September 30, 2024 • 30 mins
For nearly half a century, Russell 'Maroon' Shoatz was a political prisoner of the United States. Prior to his incarceration, Shoatz fought against US capitalism and imperialism as a member of the Black Panther Party, and then as a soldier of the Black Liberation Army. Due to his two successful escapes from prison and organizing behind bars, Shoatz spent two decades in solitary confinement. Despite this brutal repression, Shoatz co...
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September 25, 2024 • 30 mins
Researchers with @colorofchange have made a shocking discovery: for decades, prosecutors in Alameda County, California, worked to systematically exclude Black and Jewish individuals from jury participation in order to produce juries that were more likely to support capital punishment. Michael Collins, Senior Director of Government Affairs at Color Of Change, joins Rattling the Bars for a revealing discussion on prosecutor misconduc...
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September 16, 2024 • 31 mins
The State of Missouri is scheduled to execute Marcellus "Khaliifah" Williams on Sept. 24 for a crime that even prosecutors now say he did not commit. On Sept. 12, a Missouri judge denied a motion filed by prosecutors to vacate Williams’ conviction and death penalty. Despite more than half a million petition signatures demanding Williams be freed, Missouri is set to proceed with the execution. Michelle Smith, Co-Director of Missouri...
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September 12, 2024 • 27 mins
The role of financial incentives in mass incarceration is often thought of in terms of the role of private contractors and private prisons. But the far greater financial incentive in mass incarceration comes from the public sector—the role of police in imposing fines and fees on local residents as a strategy to secure revenues for public budgets. This practice is happening all over the country, but now, a new report from Fines and ...
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September 3, 2024 • 21 mins
The housing and affordability crisis is getting worse, and more people around the country are facing the grim reality of homelessness. Rather than treating housing as a human right and committing to large-scale construction of accessible housing, states like California are responding with police raids of homeless encampments and imprisonment for unhoused people. On this episode of Rattling the Bars, host Mansa Musa discusses non-ca...
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August 19, 2024 • 28 mins
The issue of mass incarceration has been far less central to the 2024 election thus far in comparison to the 2020 presidential race. However, that doesn't make the matter any less pressing for incarcerated people, their loved ones, or the activists fighting tirelessly to free prisoners. There are a range of ways presidential candidates could commit to ending mass incarceration, but one tool stands out as a quick fix that can be imp...
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