Ear Hustle

The hole, the box, solitary confinement. It doesn’t matter what you call it; doing time in the SHU (Security Housing Uni... Read more

Tom was a cop; Jason was a teenager in a gang. One night in 1997, they had a violent encounter that Tom describes as “in... Read more

Getting a job after serving time is crucial to rebuilding your life, but a criminal record inevitably gets in the way. F... Read more

The relationships between incarcerated people and the correctional officers who guard their prisons are often as bad as ... Read more

Incarcerated people have long played an important role in firefighting in California. Now, in the middle of the state’s ... Read more

For our first-annual Ear Hustle Cook Off, four formerly-incarcerated people replicate meals they used to make inside the... Read more

As the Coronavirus pandemic locks down parts of America and the world, we revisit an episode from 2018 about how the San... Read more

In prison, life’s major milestones usually pass at a distance. In our season three finale, Earlonne gets up close to a b... Read more

Parenting is never easy, but from prison it's especially challenging. In this episode, incarcerated fathers share their ... Read more

The need to nurture and show love for another living being (or, in San Quentin parlance, “looking out”) is an essential ... Read more

Getting out of prison means freedom, but this liberation often comes with caveats. In our final episode of the season, t... Read more

Back in 2016, our podcast network, Radiotopia, made the Ear Hustle dream a reality. In honor of Radiotopia’s annual fund... Read more

Ear Hustle is back with season four! Let’s get oriented: to a new format and a new inside host, and through the stories ... Read more

“Kite” is a common term in prison for a written note. Over the course of the season, listeners have been encouraged to s... Read more

Leaving an organization or community often calls for an exit strategy – even in prison. In this final episode of season ... Read more

Running a prison takes a lot of work, and not just by the staff running the place. At San Quentin inmates work regular j... Read more

Being married in prison is common. Opportunities to get intimate with your spouse are not, and – like everything else in... Read more

Sex trafficking crimes are hard to talk about. In this episode, Sara and LA share their individual experiences of being ... Read more

Looking good and feeling good matters just as much on the inside, as on the outside. But in prison, you can't just walk ... Read more

San Quentin houses California’s only death row for male inmates. And though it’s technically not far from the media lab,... Read more