Lauren Zavrel is an idealist, and the best type. She's an idealist who gets things done. Four years ago she set up a radio programme called The Concertina Wire. It comes out of a community radio station in Eugene, south of Portland, Oregon.
It's about offender issues, but also about people who feel locked-up in other ways, even though they may be physically free. It's presented by ex-offender Carrie, who's featured in a previous post.
Lauren came up with the idea of The Concertina Wire when she was teaching creative writing to women offenders. She doesn't work with them anymore. Now she teaches at Clackamas County Jail.
"For me, the show was always, and first and foremost, for my students: the women in my writing class," says Lauren. "Some had such great writing skills and such compelling stories, it felt like keeping a cat in a box: it was just cruel not to have these stories shared. It would have meant so much to the person writing them if they were aired and I thought to myself 'You deserve to have this shared. This can’t just stay in your cell, under your pillow. It’s cruel to keep it there.' It felt like a moral obligation for me to share this work with the world."
And then? "Quickly I started to think, 'Oh wow! What could this mean for listeners? The programme attracted a ton of likes on the Facebook page and it became a way for the ex-offender population to connect and feel validated in their new life. Some listeners, I know, think it’s such unique radio."
The programme is on a station which is well-known to be alternative. "It’s not a coincidence that we broadcast on KWVA radio," says Lauren, "which is extremely left wing. Part of KWVA's mission is to broadcast what can’t be heard anywhere else. So we fit right in."
This echoes one of my observaions about the literacy project I visited in Washington DC, where the community outside is in contact with serving offenders and ex-offenders. Don't projects like that, and radio programmes like The Concertina Wire, attract a self-selecting audience and only those with a liberal and socially-conscious outlook who are ready to be compassionate and to engage?
"People who listen to KWVA are going to be more savvy to alternative media outlets. These aren’t the same people who turn to Fox News, right? I first proposed the show to another station, more mainstream and with more listeners called KLCC. It's the NPR affiliatein Eugene, but they never returned my calls. So of course it’s its own niche. We are reaching listeners who are already interested in finding unique and varied programmes that you can’t hear anywhere else."
And what about complaints or feedback from people who think it's inappropriate to have content like this on air? Not only is Lauren an idealist, she's a realist too. "Not everyone is going to be warm and fuzzy about a show which is hosted by an ex-offender, includes ex-offenders and has ex-offenders as a big part of its audience. You’re going to have some backlash with a show like this."
Once they had an interview with a motorbike gang made up of former criminals. One listener was offended claiming they hadn't changed their ways despite what they said. Concertina Wire spent time talking to that listener off-air about their concerns.
Despite its challenges, Lauren is convinced that a programme like this serves a function, especially in a society which has such a confusing relationship with custody issues. "People are curious. We really have this sort of romantic relationship with prison culture in our country. We also have a very high incarceration rate and a lot of people’s loved ones are incarcerated, but there are also a lot of people in the United States who perceive the whole offender population as this big scary monster; these horrible, violent people who we should lock up and throw away the key. There are certainly people who belong behind bars, plenty who are dangerous, lack morals and have no empathy with others. But in my opinion, there’s a very large part of our incarcerated population who don’t fit into that category."
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