Many states have launched tablets into prisons, permitting customers to do issues like hearken to music and ship messages. Several incarcerated individuals advised NPR that whereas the gadgets aren’t excellent, the flexibility to stream music has been a game-changer.

Sarah Gonzales for NPR

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Sarah Gonzales for NPR

Many states have launched tablets into prisons, permitting customers to do issues like hearken to music and ship messages. Several incarcerated individuals advised NPR that whereas the gadgets aren’t excellent, the flexibility to stream music has been a game-changer.

Sarah Gonzales for NPR

Joe Garcia first heard about Taylor Swift within the late 2000’s, whereas he was within the Los Angeles County jail awaiting trial on homicide costs. He initially wasn’t impressed along with her music.

Now, a number of albums and jail transfers later, he credit Swift’s music with serving to him get via his life sentence.

“Taylor Swift’s voice, the fairytale romance of it all, takes me back to a much more idyllic time and kind of keeps me focused on recapturing that type of sentiment as I go forward in life,” stated Garcia, who was convicted of homicide and is eligible for a parole listening to, which is tentatively scheduled for April.

Garcia — who counts “White Horse,” “The Man” and “…Ready for it?” amongst his prime 5 — detailed his journey into Swiftdom in an essay that was published in the New Yorker final fall in collaboration with the Prison Journalism Project (PJP), a nonprofit group that trains and publishes incarcerated writers.

The piece describes the affect of Swift’s music on his life — together with his rekindled relationship with the girl he describes as his “sweetheart” — and the often-complicated logistics of accessing music behind bars through the years.

It has since been shared widely on social media, the place many customers wrote that it brought them to tears.

Garcia, who’s now at High Desert State Prison in California, advised NPR that though he wasn’t in a position to comply with the response in actual time, he is been moved to listen to that his essay (one of many he is printed via PJP) resonated with so many individuals.

“In a lot of ways, I’m a normal human being with all kinds of emotions and heartache and depression … just like anybody who’s not in prison,” he advised Morning Edition in a telephone interview. “And so I’m always trying to figure out a way to communicate that type of empathy, I guess, and get people on the outside to understand what it’s like in here.”

Joe Garcia wrote about his expertise listening to Taylor Swift in jail in a New Yorker essay that went viral in September.

Courtesy of Prison Journalism Project and Joe Garcia

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Courtesy of Prison Journalism Project and Joe Garcia

Garcia hoped that centering Swift, one of the beloved and influential musicians working right this moment, can be a relatable strategy to get that time throughout.

And whereas he can (and did) communicate at size about his favourite eras, his piece shines a highlight on a much wider subject: the mechanics, and which means, of music in jail.

How individuals get entry to music in jail

Garcia’s story illustrates a few of the challenges that incarcerated individuals have confronted in accessing music — and the way new expertise has made it doable for a lot of to hearken to songs and artists of their alternative, some for the primary time in years.

His essay particulars how he navigated ever-changing units of guidelines and social dynamics to hearken to music in varied prisons over greater than a decade.

That journey included shared CD gamers, a borrowed pocket radio, a reconfigured “old-school boombox,” an MP3 participant paid for by his household and, most not too long ago, a pill.

Dozens of states have made tablets accessible — both totally free or on the market — to prisoners lately, starting with Colorado in 2016. Almost all individuals incarcerated in California, the place Garcia resides, now have them. And the businesses behind the tablets stated they’d roughly one million customers nationwide as of late final 12 months.

“We are given a free tablet that is assigned to us by the state,” Garcia defined. “And then there’s a whole bunch of services that are either free or we have to pay for.”

Users pays cash to ship messages, make video calls, play video games, obtain books and stream music, amongst different capabilities.

There are nonetheless limits round consuming music, as incarcerated individuals advised NPR. Songs cost money and tablets are in lots of circumstances solely allowed throughout sure hours of the day. And the streaming providers they arrive with do not all let customers do issues like play an artist’s whole discography or curate a personalised playlist — versus saving current playlists.

Even so, they are saying, the expertise makes a giant distinction of their day-to-day lives.

“Music is just a huge, tremendous factor in here,” Garcia stated. “All throughout my everyday day to day, you see guys walking around with headphones on, with earbuds in. They’ll be singing along to whatever they’re listening to, they’ll be reciting their own type of rap lyrics, they’ll be in circles comparing things.”

Not everyone seems to be listening to the identical songs, after all.

A Spotify playlist of the handfuls of songs PJP writers stated meant essentially the most to them in 2023 consists of artists as diverse as Smokey Robinson, Carrie Underwood, Kendrick Lamar, John Lennon and Miley Cyrus (and likewise Swift).

Music as a way of aid and connection

Several individuals at prisons throughout the nation advised NPR that music makes them really feel related, each to others and the surface world.

Jeffrey Shockley, who’s 24 years into serving a life sentence in Pennsylvania for homicide, says music presents some aid from the “mundane monotony” of jail. That’s very true if you’re not restricted by what radio stations are close by and which songs they resolve to play, he provides.

Jeffrey Shockley, who’s serving a life sentence in Pennsylvania, says he listens to all the things from Beethoven to Eminem.

Courtesy of Prison Journalism Project and Jeffrey Shockley

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Courtesy of Prison Journalism Project and Jeffrey Shockley

Shockley estimates he has greater than a thousand songs on his pill, starting from Christian music to classical to Eminem. He says with the ability to select what he needs to listen to all through the day — like reggae on a contented morning or Beethoven earlier than mattress — has a big impact on his temper.

“It’s being able to have that ability to reach out and hear something different that will catapult you out of whatever depths of hell you may be in in that moment, figuratively speaking,” he added.

Plus, Shockley stated, listening to completely different genres offers him extra to speak about with various kinds of individuals.

Garcia equally says music is likely one of the few mediums — together with sports activities and information — that individuals in jail can share, no matter their race or background. He says music helps him join with others, at the same time as somebody who was admittedly considerably delinquent earlier than jail.

“Music is kind of one facet of me trying to open my heart and really appreciate people for who they are,” he added. “And I really do see that a lot in the other incarcerated guys … We end up using it as a platform to come together instead of being divisive.”

Garcia stated music not solely helps him join with different individuals, but in addition with the surface world. He’s spent his entire life taking note of new music — which is why he is now listening to Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo at age 54.

“I don’t want to lose track of what the world is like,” he added.

Reflecting on the previous and seeking to the longer term

Music can carry again highly effective recollections and supply a supply of hope for the longer term, incarcerated individuals say.

Shockley, 61, says listening to the music his grandmother raised him on, like gospel and Aretha Franklin, reminds him each of his household and easier occasions.

“[Like] when you’re a young boy and you’re doing things and running around, playing in the backyard in the green grass,” he defined. “And now you’re sitting in a concrete jungle and hoping for a breath of fresh air .. It’s like a tranquil moment that some people may take for granted because when you don’t have it, you miss it.”

That music, he provides, evokes him to attempt to give again and uplift others as he was taught — however admittedly struggled to do — when he was youthful.

“I don’t want to be who I was,” he stated. “So I’m going to be who I can be or should have been.”

KC Johnson, who’s incarcerated in North Carolina, described their pill as a “lifesaver.”

They acquired it in 2021, simply two months earlier than their mother died. The two shared a love of blues, and Johnson was particularly grateful to have the ability to hearken to music that reminded them of her.

KC Johnson, whose launch date is in three years, seems to be ahead to going to live shows for the primary time in over 20 years.

Courtesy of Prison Journalism Project and KC Johnson

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Courtesy of Prison Journalism Project and KC Johnson

Johnson, who was convicted of theft and second-degree homicide, stated music — particularly live shows — was an enormous a part of their life earlier than they went to jail some 17 years in the past.

Now they hearken to music just about all day: on their pill whereas finding out, with a conveyable radio whereas operating or over the audio system at their work-release job at an area meals financial institution (notably the one time they do not want headphones).

“That’s where all my money goes,” stated Johnson, 45. “It’s for my tablet, for my music.”

Johnson’s projected launch date is in late 2026, at which level they’re planning to maneuver right into a midway home. They are particularly excited that the power permits MP3 gamers, which can hopefully imply simpler entry to artists on demand, together with on runs.

Johnson can be wanting ahead to seeing reside music once more, for the primary time in over 20 years. Going to a competition is on the prime of their to-do listing. They say they’ve at all times beloved the constructive vitality at live shows, the place everyone seems to be there for a similar motive and getting alongside.

“I just want to get back in that atmosphere,” Johnson stated. “So much has changed in the world, but I feel like going to something like that, it will still be like it was when I was younger — or I hope it is.”

Johnson sees music as a strategy to reconnect with their previous self — and expects the identical shall be true even as soon as they’re out of jail.

“The songs that I’ve listened to and hear will remind me of my strength and endurance and everything that got me through,” they stated. “It’s a powerful tool, music is.”

The broadcast piece was produced by Mansee Khurana.