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Catch a Kite 7

This season we're flipping the script on our traditional Catch a Kite episodes, exploring questions asked and answered between San Quentin State Prison and the California Institution for Women. Do men

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What Is This?

Life in prison, without regular sex and intimacy, can cause all sorts of emotional and physical issues. Yep, we're going there — to explore the impact of this constraint inside prison, and for men and

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Gabrieleen Silver Queen

What happens to a prison town when its main prison closes? The residents of Susanville, in Northern California, are about to find out. Ear Hustle took a road trip to see how Susanvillers — both inside

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Is Your Name Alfredo?

Six massive murals span hundreds of feet across the walls of a San Quentin chow hall, depicting the history of California in epic scale and detail. Residents of San Quentin eat their meals surrounded

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Boots and Max

We talk about love on Ear Hustle, plenty, but it’s hard to think of prison as a “romantic” place. What does dating look and feel like, on the inside? Against all odds, sometimes true love prevails.As

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15 Minutes

In California and many other states, calls from prison are limited to 15 minutes and are monitored, recorded, and often difficult to come by. But whether you’re trying to fix a marriage or a broken wa

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Ear Hustle Extra: Making Trouble

Sometimes, when you’re up against a big state institution, you have to make some trouble. For this mini-episode, part of Radiotopia’s winter fundraiser, we share a few stories about incarcerated peopl

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Ear Hustle Extra: A Call from Sacramento

We’re between seasons but have an exciting update to share with listeners: Our friend and colleague Rahsaan “New York” Thomas’ prison sentence has been commuted by California Governor Gavin Newsom. Wh

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Ear Hustle Presents: Written Off

While Ear Hustle works on its next season, which starts March 2, we wanted to introduce you to the podcast Written Off. It features formerly incarcerated young writers talking about their journeys and

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Camp Grace

This past fall, we followed a group of kids into Salinas Valley State Prison to spend two days with their dads, whom they hadn’t seen in years. Through music, crafts, and games, the idea behind Camp G

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Tray, Tumbler, Spork

Earlier this year, some of the Ear Hustle team spent a month living under a specific set of constraints informed by the daily routines of our inside colleagues, changing the way we ate, got dressed, a

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Yard of Dreams

Sports in prison are more than just games. They can be an outlet for stress, the realization of dreams deferred, or a positive way to prove oneself to peers and family. In this episode, one player bat

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Counting Lines

Going to prison in your home country can be disorienting enough. What about when you’re new to the culture, don’t speak the language, and are thousands of miles from family and friends? Three American

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Taxx Is Tripping

What does it take to be bonnaroo in prison? We explore the creative ways people inside transform and beautify their physical selves and their living environment, using whatever they can find within pr

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Stormy Monday

At Ear Hustle, we hear more from listeners about music than almost any other topic. In response, we bring you the Ear Hustle Mixtape, including stories about an unlikely instrument that’s been showing

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Do It Movin’

We bring you stories about the ups and downs of making bail and the bittersweet taste of freedom when you know you’re about to lose it. Plus: Nigel confronts a man with no regrets, and Ear Hustle says

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August 21, 1971

August 21, 1971 was the deadliest day in San Quentin history, and it’s still a painful topic, both inside the prison and out. At the center of the story was a Black revolutionary named George Jackson.

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Coming Soon: 50 Years After George Jackson

Ear Hustle’s eighth season launches on September 8th with a dramatic account of one of the most notorious days in San Quentin’s history: August 21st, 1971. By sundown, three guards and three incarcera

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Ear Hustle Presents: Life Jolt

With just a few weeks to go before Ear Hustle returns with Season 8, we wanted to introduce listeners to a new show that’s been in all of our headphones: Life Jolt. In this first episode, “The Before

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Home for Me Is Really a Memory

Leslie has served more time in prison than anyone we’ve ever interviewed on the show: over half a century, for a crime committed when she was 19. Four times, the parole board has deemed her fit for re

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Cracked Windshield

A year after George Floyd’s death at the hands of a police officer, the Ear Hustle team and friends talk about their first interactions with cops, the role of empathy, and whether those relationships

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The Whole Shabang

Toothpaste, ramen noodles, sneakers, coffee creamer. If you want to shop from prison, it’s either the commissary or a package catalog. These packages offer a connection to the outside

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Catch a Kite 6

Can you have an Xbox in your prison cell? Is it OK to say “inmate”? How have stimulus checks affected the prison economy? Ear Hustle listeners have questions about life behind bars. Our team went to f

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Lifer Bakery

A small Israeli bakery in downtown San Francisco has offered first jobs to dozens of lifers just out of prison. Four employees share their stories of adjusting to life on the outside while working at

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Marcel and Angie

Marcel and Angie each spent years in prisons determined by the gender on their birth certificate, not the one they identify with. Being trans in prison comes with complications — from where you live t

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Hot Trash

Visiting a loved one in prison is both emotionally intense and constrained by countless rules – from how much PDA is too much PDA, to what kind of candy you can eat inside. One year after California p

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Sugarbutt's a Snail

A lot has happened since we got behind the mics to record Ear Hustle’s first season. As we begin our seventh, we catch up with three people whom listeners first heard from inside San Quentin, and hear

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Ear Hustle Presents: Suave

While we work on our next season, launching March 3, we’re excited to introduce you to a new podcast series that we love, and think Ear Hustle fans will too. “Suave,” from Futuro Studios, tells the st

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The Bells

One in five incarcerated people in the U.S. has tested positive for COVID-19, and here in California, more than 100 people have died in prison. In our final episode of Season 6, we hear three stories

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The Trail

In 1990, Leonard attacked a female hiker off a trail along the California coast. Three decades later, we hear the rest of the story, and explore what accountability and survival really look like.Warni

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Crew No. 7

Incarcerated people have long played an important role in firefighting in California. Now, in the middle of the state’s worst fire season on record, formerly incarcerated people are poised to play mor

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On Stage in Chicago

What happens to a prison town when its main prison closes? The residents of Susanville, in Northern California, are about to find out. Ear Hustle took a road trip to see how Susanvillers — both inside3