How Mass Incarceration Destroys Families

Hosted by: 
Produced by: 
KBOO
Program:: 
Air date: 
Mon, 08/22/2022 - 6:30pm to 7:00pm
More Images: 
Wanda Bertram, Communications Strategist with the Prison Policy Initiative
Haven Wheelock, MPH, Chief Petitioner for Ballot Measure 110

On this editon of Prison Pipeline, host Doug McVay speaks with Wanda Bertram, Communications Strategist for the Prison Policy Initiative, about how mass incarceration punishes entire families.


Our national obsession with punishment and policies of mass incarceration have an impact well beyond just the people we lock away in cages. The families and children of people we lock away are also made to suffer. There are many moving stories about individuals who are affected, you hear them quite often on this show. Yet people who still support and promote the carceral state dismiss these as isolated incidents, blips on an otherwise tranquil sea of cages. We know that’s not true and we finally have some relatively recent numbers to show it.

On this week's show, Prison Pipeline Collective member Doug McVay is joined by Wanda Bertram, Communications Strategist with the Prison Policy Initiative, for a discussion about how people on both sides of the prison bars are punished when parents get locked in a cage. Plus, we hear from Haven Wheelock with Outside In about International Overdose Awareness Day, which is August 31.

Audio by Topic: