Rebroadcast: The Day After Prison

Click to Listen to the Show (24 MB MP3)

Open Source is off this week, so we’re re-broadcasting five shows we developed last year the month after Katrina hit as part of an ongoing series on race and class. Tonight: The Day After Prison.

From Chris’s original billboard:

Coming out of prison, it could be a life-changing help to have some of the standard cards in a man’s pocket: Medicaid or some health or hospital ID; a Social Security card for job purposes and a driver’s license; a bank-card access to a few dollars in cash; or a birth-certificate, for starters. But in fact many among the 650,000 people leaving prison this year reenter the world empty-handed. After ten years away, you probably don’t have a job and you may not have a home to go to. Socially speaking, you’re radioactive: even a small slip back to the wrong substances or the wrong company can mean trouble with the parole officer, and more trouble for the family and friends you’re depending on. You could feel your reentry has been programmed to fail, even without knowing that the odds are in fact almost 2-to-1 that you’ll be back behind bars.

Chris Lydon, Open Source, May 1, 2006