"I See With My Ears"

Roach Brown is 71. Here he is with his wife, Mertine. Every Tuesday they drive to the studios of WPFW so Roach can present his programme called Cross Roads. He’s got a life-sentence under his belt.

His “live” one hour programme deals with criminal justice issues. WPFW is a community radio station about three blocks from the White House. It has a small audience. When I’m there, watching the programme go out, the studio manager is able to tell me that at that precise moment 75 people are listening online, information easily gathered when he logs onto the site. We can only assume that others are listening on their normal radio.

Today’s programme has two guests. Like Roach, they’re ex-offenders. The studio discussion is about the role that ex-offenders can play in their community and it heats up when they talk about the link that the Mayor of Washington DC and the Police Chief have made between a spike in violent crime in the area and ex-offenders. The Mayor was in DC Jail yesterday announcing two pilot projects which will provide “job readiness” training for inmates and former inmates.

Roach was in prison a long time ago, but he says that the experience has shaped him so much it’s why he’s been doing this show for the last seven years. “I feel an affinity to prisoners. I can’t disconnect myself from the pain the men and women in prison feel. Someone has to be their voice. I wasn’t elected or selected to do this show. I just knocked on the door and said let me do it. Some people say 'Damn those convicts. Nobody want them jail birds around here'. But I say we’ve all made mistakes.“

In 1964 he was sentenced to life. He pleaded guilty to the charges. Back then he was on heroin and a robbery he was involved in ended with a man being shot and dying. At that time “life” meant 20 years.

He was in his 40s by the time he was released and became a “returning citizen” which he describes as a “modern” and “politically correct” term. “But it’s also positive and more palatable,” he says. “The term 'ex-offender' has negative connotations.”

His radio programme invites listeners to call in, including serving prisoners. He needs to keep sharp for anything legally problematic. “I use my ears to see” he says, his way of saying that he’s alert to any editorial issues.

How does he make sure that callers don’t use his programme as a platform to publicly contest their sentence or plead their innocence? “We’re not here to deal with individual cases on the air but we have resources that we can plug callers into. Actually we want to broadcast from prisons around here and speak to prisoners but we’re trying to work out the right format because most guys want to talk about their individual cases and it’s hard to get them to look at another perspective. If we broadcast from a prison we don’t want to focus on just a few cases and we don’t want to make it all maudlin.”

But Roach can’t afford to be naïve. Prisoners and ex-prisoners may want to use him and his profile for their own agenda. Many may want to manipulate him or get him onside for their own reason. “I run into that all the time, but I don’t want to be a part of it. I’m conscious of game-playing. You learn how to read someone”.