Ear Hustle
Ear Hustle is prison slang for eavesdropping, and that’s what listening to the show feels like: a raw, often funny, and always surprising peek into the reality of life inside prison.
Hosts Nigel Poor and Earlonne Woods co-created the show that launched in 2017 while Earlonne was incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison, where Nigel was a volunteer teaching photography. Since Earlonne’s release in 2018, the show has expanded to include stories from prisons across the state, including the California Institution for Women, as well as stories about getting out of prison and starting over, post-incarceration.
From finding romance, to grappling with a life sentence, to trying to parent via 15-minute phone calls, Ear Hustle stories deliver what This American Life host Ira Glass calls a “"very real” and “untragic” take on prison life.
Ear Hustle is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent listener-supported podcasts. Discover audio with vision at radiotopia.fm and learn more about Ear Hustle at earhustlesq.com.
- Update frequency
- every 13 days
- Average duration
- 39 minutes
- Episodes
- 164
- Years Active
- 2017 - 2025
Ear Hustle Extra: Sam Quentin
Lieutenant Sam Robinson has been with Ear Hustle since day one. As he retires from his post as Public Information Officer at San Quentin, we pay tribute to the man behind the mic.
Big thanks to Lt.…
00:27:38 |
Wed 11 Jan 2023
Karen
While she was in jail awaiting her sentence, Karen was housed with a pregnant cellie on the verge of giving birth. At the time, the experience barely registered. It took us a while to understand why.…
00:37:55 |
Wed 14 Dec 2022
What’s Dangerous About Trees
If you have to serve prison time, Norway is the place to do it … at least that’s what we’d heard. Incarcerated people in Norway wear their own clothes, cook delicious meals from scratch, and even tak…
00:43:31 |
Wed 30 Nov 2022
Wishful Thinking
The Ear Hustle music episode returns! We catch up with some guys at San Quentin who are longing for love, and then, for the first time ever, we toss the mic to the ladies at the California Institutio…
00:44:11 |
Wed 16 Nov 2022
Fences
From 180s and 270s to “just one long-ass hallway,” different kinds of prison architecture leave different marks on the people who live there. In this episode, like the last one, we explore how archit…
00:40:49 |
Wed 02 Nov 2022
Pockets
Prisons are built with one thing in mind: surveillance. The architecture is designed to assert control and diminish privacy. But even in these spaces, people find ways to claim just a bit of privacy.…
00:44:08 |
Wed 19 Oct 2022
Some Darkness and Some Light
Stories from our first-ever international reporting trip! From the nightclubs of Oslo, to Norway’s first in-prison Pride parade, to an incarcerated Danish guy who wouldn’t take no for an answer: Ear …
00:54:09 |
Wed 05 Oct 2022
Actual/Factual
Sam Brown spent 24 years in prison not just denying his crime, but lying about it, over and over again. Finally, he decided to come clean. Would the parole board believe him?
Each episode this seas…
00:44:47 |
Wed 21 Sep 2022
The Five Senses
Life in prison can mess with your senses. There are smells you can’t unsmell, and sounds you long to hear. Some tastes you forget about entirely, and some forms of touch are almost too evocative to b…
00:36:21 |
Wed 07 Sep 2022
Ear Hustle Presents: Uncuffed
A special episode from Uncuffed: During the COVID lockdown at San Quentin, Steve and Darren both got unexpected letters that changed their lives.
This is the second episode of the new season of KAL…
00:25:33 |
Wed 24 Aug 2022
Ear Hustle Presents: My Mother Made Me
The Ear Hustle team is hard at work on our next season, which launches September 7! In the meantime, we’d like to tell you about a new podcast, hosted by Jason Reynolds. Reynolds is a New York Times …
00:33:13 |
Wed 03 Aug 2022
Last Memory: Ryan and Earlonne
The jig was up for Ryan, so he told police he’d turn himself in. His mom had one request: a final family meal at Applebee’s. Plus, Earlonne and Nigel head to the intersection of Firmona and Marine Av…
00:50:59 |
Wed 08 Jun 2022
Last Memory: Michael
The day before committing the crime that sent him to prison, Michael stood in a parking lot in Bakersfield, California, and looked up at the sky. Twenty-two years later, Earlonne and Nigel visit that…
00:29:26 |
Wed 25 May 2022
Catch a Kite 7
This season we're flipping the script on our traditional Catch a Kite episodes, exploring questions asked and answered between San Quentin State Prison and the California Institution for Women. Do me…
00:37:47 |
Wed 11 May 2022
What Is This?
Life in prison, without regular sex and intimacy, can cause all sorts of emotional and physical issues. Yep, we're going there — to explore the impact of this constraint inside prison, and for men an…
00:38:41 |
Wed 27 Apr 2022
Gabrieleen Silver Queen
What happens to a prison town when its main prison closes? The residents of Susanville, in Northern California, are about to find out. Ear Hustle took a road trip to see how Susanvillers — both insid…
00:42:31 |
Wed 13 Apr 2022
Is Your Name Alfredo?
Six massive murals span hundreds of feet across the walls of a San Quentin chow hall, depicting the history of California in epic scale and detail. Residents of San Quentin eat their meals surrounded…
00:36:12 |
Wed 30 Mar 2022
Boots and Max
We talk about love on Ear Hustle, plenty, but it’s hard to think of prison as a “romantic” place. What does dating look and feel like, on the inside? Against all odds, sometimes true love prevails.
…
00:27:17 |
Wed 16 Mar 2022
15 Minutes
In California and many other states, calls from prison are limited to 15 minutes and are monitored, recorded, and often difficult to come by. But whether you’re trying to fix a marriage or a broken w…
00:19:47 |
Wed 02 Mar 2022
Ear Hustle Extra: Making Trouble
Sometimes, when you’re up against a big state institution, you have to make some trouble. For this mini-episode, part of Radiotopia’s winter fundraiser, we share a few stories about incarcerated peop…
00:06:20 |
Wed 23 Feb 2022
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are the property of Ear Hustle & Radiotopia ([email protected]). This content is not affiliated with or endorsed by eachpod.com.