Unprisoned: Stories From The System

If there’s one person in New Orleans – in the world of criminal justice – that you really ought to meet, it’s this guy.

“Our uniforms were completely different from the men’s uniforms,” recalls Yvonne Bechet, one of the first female officers in the New Orleans Police Department. “We wore skirts. We wore one-inch heels. We wore the cutest little sailor hats, but it didn’t stay on. And we carried our weapons in a purse."

Dominique Newton is a college sophomore. She’s only 20, but she’s already been through a lot. These days, she’s majoring in political science, with a minor in creative writing. Last time we got together, she was in the middle of writing a 10-page play, and also toting around some comic books.

Bring Your Own is a nomadic storytelling series that takes place in unconventional spaces within the community. Each month, eight storytellers have eight minutes to respond to a theme. BYO airs on All Things New Orleans and is a biweekly podcast on WWNO.org. This story was told on July 28th, 2016 at the Homer Plessy Community School, and later produced by Laine Kaplan-Levenson . The theme of the evening was "Heard: Why The Young Feel Old" and the event was in partnership with Eve Abrams’...

Bring Your Own is a nomadic storytelling series that takes place in unconventional spaces within the community. Each month, eight storytellers have eight minutes to respond to a theme. BYO airs on All Things New Orleans and is a biweekly podcast on WWNO.org. This story was told on March 3rd, 2016 at the Michalopolous Studio at a Bring Your Own event in partnership Unprisoned. The story was later produced by Natalie Yahr. The theme of the evening was "Born on Parole". Here, Leroy Perry...

Louisiana is the incarceration capital of the world. But most people behind bars aren’t locked up forever. In fact, 90 percent of them will someday be released. So that makes Louisiana also the reentry capital of the world-- a role the state is ill-prepared for.

Bring Your Own is a nomadic storytelling series that takes place in unconventional spaces within the community. Each month, eight storytellers have eight minutes to respond to a theme. BYO airs on All Things New Orleans and is a biweekly podcast on WWNO.org. This story was told on March 3rd , 2016 at the Michalopoulos Studio, and later produced by Laine Kaplan-Levenson . The theme of the evening was 'Born on Parole' and Bruce Reilly talks the trials and tribulations of dating, while on...

In nearly every state, prison populations have exploded -- in large part, because of drug laws and the people, like Manny Hills, who are arrested and incarcerated for those laws. Over the last 25 years, Manny, an addict, has been convicted several times for drug possession and other petty crimes. His story is pretty typical of the people who fill up our nation's prisons.

Over the last forty years, as incarceration has surged across the nation, so has the number of children with a family member in prison. According to the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the number of young people with a father in prison rose 500 percent between 1980 and 2000.

At all levels of government right now, laws about juveniles are rapidly changing. However, some states, including Louisiana, continue to prosecute and sentence juveniles for sentences of life without parole.

Asha Lane is an 18-year-old senior at the International High School of New Orleans, a charter high school. Asha wanted to find out why New Orleans charter schools don’t always feel nurturing. We live in a dangerous city, but when does security feel unsafe?

In the last few years, powerful images of police interacting violently with African Americans -- usually men, or teenagers, or even children -- have been on the news, all over the world. In these images, black men are getting shot or choked or hauled away in handcuffs. There are others too, memorial photographs from happier times: of young boys with plump cheeks or wearing graduation caps. Photographs of Eric Garner, John Crawford, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Walter Scott, Freddie Gray,...

The Listening Post is back collecting thoughts and experiences from communities around New Orleans on a new series of issues. The past month we’ve been collaborating with Independent radio producer Eve Abrams and her Unprisoned project.

“If you grew up struggling, then you my audience,” says Jahi Salaam, an 18-year-old rapper and a poet. Jahi is from New Orleans. His first name, Jahi, means dignity in Swahili. His last name means peace. When Jahi talks about poverty, school, and prison, he says: they’re all intertwined. This is Unprisoned. I’m Eve Abrams.

We are all living with mass incarceration one way or another. It affects everyone, passively or actively. I was recently sitting in the beautiful sanctuary of Touro Synagogue in Uptown New Orleans. It was Yom Kippur, and when I looked down at the holiday bulletin, there was a posting — about mass incarceration. It was an invitation to learn about the issue.

What do you do when a member of your family is locked up for a crime you are sure he didn’t commit? Sheila Phipps paints.

Bring Your Own is a nomadic storytelling series that takes place in unconventional spaces within the community. Each month, eight storytellers have eight minutes to respond to a theme. BYO airs on All Things New Orleans and is a biweekly podcast on WWNO.org. This Bring Your Own story was produced as part of Unprisoned , a project of WWNO and Finding America . It was told on March 3 , 2016 at the Michalopoulos Studio, and later produced by Karen Gardner. The theme of the evening was "Born...

Louisiana is the incarceration capital of the world. That means more families have a loved one behind bars than in any other place.

The way our criminal justice system works, there’s a significant cost to just being accused of a crime. Innocent or not, one way or another, you still have to pay. Especially if you have a past.

Our ongoing series Unprisoned has been bringing you stories of how mass incarceration affects New Orleans. Last time, we learned about New Orleans Municipal Court, the largest criminal court in Louisiana. Today, we follow Municipal Court to the New Orleans Mission — where a large number of homeless people who are facing municipal charges are being served directly.