Take a look behind the scenes at Inside Wire: Colorado Prison Radio:
Inside Wire: Colorado Prison Radio beams music, stories, news, and entertainment into prisons across Colorado… and broadcasts its sounds to listeners outside facilities as well, across the U.S. and beyond. Our programs are created by incarcerated media producers for incarcerated listeners, amplifying the diverse voices, stories, and creations of those living and working inside the walls. Inside Wire is a program of the University of Denver Prison Arts Initiative, in collaboration with the Colorado Department of Corrections. It's the first statewide prison radio station in U.S. history.
Inside Wire offers companionship, hope, play, and the potential for positive change, for creators and audiences alike inside prison. We reach incarcerated listeners in their cells and units by sending our broadcast signal on the CDOC’s closed-circuit television network. At the same time, Inside Wire invites listeners outside facilities to shift their understanding of prison in the U.S. by tuning in. One producer and one listener at a time, Inside Wire fosters connection and community, cultivates joy and reflection, and empowers possibility and the restoration of justice.
The University of Denver Prison Arts Initiative (DU PAI) generates creative and collaborative learning experiences that enrich the lives of people who are incarcerated and shift the conversation about prison. DU PAI empowers individuals to see themselves as leaders capable of creating meaningful change, both inside prison systems and well beyond.
Inside Wire broadcasts from radio studios at four facilities: Limon, Sterling, Denver Women's, and Buena Vista Correctional Facilities. The producers and staff of Inside Wire uphold these values:
Inside Wire offers companionship, hope, play, and the potential for positive change, for creators and audiences alike inside prison. We reach incarcerated listeners in their cells and units by sending our broadcast signal on the CDOC’s closed-circuit television network. At the same time, Inside Wire invites listeners outside facilities to shift their understanding of prison in the U.S. by tuning in. One producer and one listener at a time, Inside Wire fosters connection and community, cultivates joy and reflection, and empowers possibility and the restoration of justice.
The University of Denver Prison Arts Initiative (DU PAI) generates creative and collaborative learning experiences that enrich the lives of people who are incarcerated and shift the conversation about prison. DU PAI empowers individuals to see themselves as leaders capable of creating meaningful change, both inside prison systems and well beyond.
Inside Wire broadcasts from radio studios at four facilities: Limon, Sterling, Denver Women's, and Buena Vista Correctional Facilities. The producers and staff of Inside Wire uphold these values:
- We respect everyone: our collaborators, our listeners, ourselves. Our work and our programming show it.
- We invest in our listeners and collaborators inside the walls, inviting them to engage in co-creating and listening to our stories and sounds as a means of growing knowledge, skills, empathy, and self-worth.
- We amplify the diversity of our community inside the walls. We nurture programming that lifts up voices that too often go unheard. We collaborate not only with our incarcerated neighbors but with prison staff, in order to break down “us vs. them” thinking.
- We commit to vulnerability and trust, sharing our voices and our stories in order to shift the conversation about prison in the U.S., and to make possible a more just system for everyone.
