8 AUGUST 7-13, 2025 westword.com WESTWORD | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | work at a local youth detention facility. That was my fi rst exposure to the system. “I came to understand that there were a lot of reasons people were in there. And some of them are very unfair,” he continues. “Or sometimes, the reason they’re there has some merit within the system, but the duration of their detention is an issue. And meanwhile, lives and development and change and relationships are happening inside these places that too often we think about as frozen in time, that are separate from reality. They’re not.” That experience made Conarro an ideal person to help pioneer prison radio. “Inside Wire was the fi rst of its kind, at least in the U.S.,” he says. “It was the fi rst 24/7 radio station by incarcerated people that was also listenable to by the public. It was also the fi rst that had radio access for everyone in the state system. So it was really new in terms of not only who was creating it, but also who was able to enjoy it. We really wanted to continue down that path.” But instead, the plug was pulled in the summer of 2023, when the CDOC did not renew DU PAI’s contract. Neither the CDOC nor DU are willing to go into details about what led to the break. DU has declined numerous requests to elab- orate, and while CDOC Director of Com- munications Alondra Gonzales confi rms the contract was not renewed, she adds that “we are not interested in doing an interview, obviously, at this time.” In 2022, Dean Williams had stepped down as CDOC executive director, following four years of service that were very support- ive of arts initiatives behind prison walls. “The guy is utterly brilliant,” Karen Lausa said in 2021, when her nonprofi t program Words Behind Bars — a book club for pris- oners — was folded into DU PAI. “He’s done more to raise the bar on education program- ming and opportunities in his short tenure than I can even describe. The culture that I met face to face ten years ago and the one that exists now? There’s no comparison.” Williams was replaced by Moses “Andre” Stancil. A few months later, the DU PAI contract was not renewed for a fi fth year, in a decision that was “mutual between the two parties,” according to Gonzales. Soon after, DU’s Hamilton left to take another position, “a really incredible new opportunity that allowed me to move back to New York City,” she says. That opportu- nity was becoming executive director of Adelphi Univer- sity’s Can Art Change the World? Foundation, a posi- tion she still holds. “I couldn’t be more proud of the work we ac- complished with DU PAI over those years,” says Ham- ilton. “It’s so hard for me to choose just one project that I am most proud of — so much amazing work was created with our students behind the walls, and our team out- side. But I think it would be If Light Closed Its Eyes, the interview-based play and fi lm which we created with over 100 incarcerated artists, over the course of four years at Sterling Correctional Fa- cility.” JoyBelle Phelan was re- leased from Community Corrections in December 2020. “It was the height of COVID, but I hit the ground running,” she says. “I was determined to make a difference.” One of the women she’d worked with at La Vista had put her in touch with Hamilton, and the result was a part- time job with DU PAI. She was also working with the Chicago-based Prison Journalism Project, which is creating a national network of prison journalists, and that gig had turned into full-time work by 2022; she left DU PAI before the CDOC did not renew its contract. “But I really missed going inside [the prison environment] and working directly with the people there,” Phelan recalls. She shared that feeling with DU instructor Libby Catchings, and found that Catchings felt the same. After a lot of discussion and plenty of paperwork fi led with the CDOC, Phelan and Catchings founded Unbound Authors in 2023. While creating prison programs like those that originally inspired Phelan is still a goal, Unbound Authors initially focused on being a strong and effective “writing center within a prison,” she says. “So people can work on anything. If they’re in GED or college classes, they can get help with that. Or we have prompts to get them started, if they want it. We’re there to give them both resources and feedback.” Recently, though, Unbound Authors was awarded a CDOC contract to revive some former DU PAI-related programs. “Origi- nally, the state had two publications: the Inside Report, which was a newspaper; and Reverberations, which was a creative writ- ing magazine,” explains Phelan. “Those have both been dark for two years. But as of this fi scal year, the DOC is entering into a new contract with Unbound Authors to relaunch both the newspaper and creative arts magazine, plus an annual anthology and online publication. I don’t know how we’re going to do all that, but we’re going to do it!” Conarro is also enjoying a reboot as the co-director in charge of programs and part- nerships for Colorado Radio for Justice. Like Inside Wire, CRJ seeks to serve those impacted by the criminal-legal system in Colorado and beyond with “in- novative 24/7 media, beaming music, stories, news, and enter- tainment that amplifi es diverse voices, lived experiences, and creative spirits,” according to an announcement from the program. Conarro teamed up with Herbert Alexander (production and training) and Seth Ready (production and community programming) to jump-start the new prison radio program. Both Alexander and Ready had gotten their radio experience through Inside Wire while they were incarcerated, then they continued to work for it once they got out. The DU PAI and CDOC separation was “unexpected and surprising,” Conarro says, but once it occurred, the three got together and started brainstorming. They wanted to add a new focus: pro- gramming to aid inmate re-entry into a non-incarcerated environment. “There were a lot of great prison radio programs doing a lot of great work, but we considered that re-launching the project with that focus in mind would be another way for the initiative to break new ground,” Conarro says. “This new framework will impact people all along the spectrum of system impact. Not just the currently incarcerated, but also those experiencing re-entry, and also organiza- tions that are working to keep people out of the system.” But it took more than a year before Colo- rado Radio for Justice fi nally got on the air. “We relaunched offi cially on April 15 of this year,” says Conarro. “We’re now back to broadcasting 24/7 again, and our origi- nal narrative audio — our interview-based shows and documentaries and things like that — are all on the podcast platforms for on-demand listening.” They’re also working with the CDOC again, but independent of DU PAI. “Our focus has to remain on anyone who’s im- pacted by Colorado’s criminal legal system, and beyond,” he adds. “We hope and believe that the stories and resources and informa- tion and news that are shared on CRJ are of vital use to that group of people.” And that potential audience includes ev- eryone, whether they know it or not. “So part of our mission is expanding understanding that everyone in Colorado is impacted by our criminal legal system,” Conarro says. “As the member of the CRJ team that’s not directly impacted by the prison system — I haven’t been incarcerated myself — understanding that I’m still in that affected group has been part of my journey. Like a lot of people, I grew up thinking that people affected by the system were other, over there, separate. That’s just not true. This is about all of us.” Unlike Inside Wire, Unchained Voices sur- vived the breakup of DU PAI and the CDOC. But then, the annual art show featuring the best in artistic expression by those incar- cerated in Colorado predated not just that collaboration, but DU PAI itself. “The show had been started in 2015 by a group made up of social workers and case managers and defense attorneys and other folks who were seeing this amazing art from their clients,” recalls Sarah McKen- Breaking Free continued from page 7 continued on page 10 Ashley Hamilton (left) and Kareem El Damanhoury are the former and current executive directors of the University of Denver’s Prison Arts Initiative. JoyBelle Phela, with DU PAI pals Ryan Conarro (center left), John Moore and Eric Davis.
