In this bonus episode of Motive, we bring you some excerpts from a special
project we created.

After a years-long investigation into prisons, we wanted to make something that
wasn’t just about people in prison, but also for them. In August of this year we
collaborated with radio stations across Illinois to create a broadcast that was
heard in prisons statewide.

We played sounds incarcerated people requested to hear from the other side of the
prison wall, and dedications for sounds that family members thought would be
important to their loved ones. People requested simple sounds from the outside
world, like babies laughing, rain on a tin roof, the waves of Lake Michigan.

We also played people’s music requests and even an original song, “Bring It Back”,
created by some students of the Rebirth of Sound program, inside Stateville
Correctional Center in Joliet, Illinois.