Thanks for downloading this podcast of assignment. I'm Maria Margarones and this is the story of an

in-house radio station run by and for the inmates of a maximum security prison in Texas,

including the 185 men currently on death row. Many of them say the station has changed their lives.

The program includes references to suicide, which some listeners may find upsetting.

Produced by David Gorenani, a driving through flat farmland in the Texas twilight,

trying to tune in to a low-powered radio station whose range is barely a mile.

We are on the right wavelength, but that voice seems all wrong for the station we're looking for,

which also broadcasts things like this. The tank, 106.5 FM, is run by inmates of the Ellen B. Polanski unit,

a maximum security prison for 2,900 men, including the 185 men now on death row.

They are taking it with the other.

Of course it's gone with the wind, but why would incarcerated men want to listen to the soundtrack

of a 1930s epic full of smiling slaves and flouncing crinolins? I'm Maria Margarones,

diving into the Texas tank to find out how a radio station is breaking down prison walls.

When we drive back to the prison next morning, the tank's putting out a very different vibe.

Turns out you can hear almost anything on the station, from movies to Metallica, from gospel to prison gossip,

from the Bible to the blues. It's a good bird, I wonder if you can hear the birds from inside the prison?

Maybe not. From across the road, the Polanski unit looks like a warehouse, sterile and bleak.

It's a low white concrete building with high narrow slits for windows and gun towers at the edges.

We're not allowed to record anything in the prison except our interviews,

so you'll have to imagine the jingle of keys and the echoing clang of the gates between the sections,

the banter between the officers and our footsteps on concrete floors as we walk down

outdoor passageways caged in by chain link fencing. Men in prison whites lean against the walls,

...