Behind prison walls: 'Concrete Mama' podcast strives to restore humanity to Washington State Penitentiary inmates

Credit: Greg Lehman, Walla Walla Union-Bulletin

It’s a Thursday morning in the Sustainable Practices Lab, a nondescript building inside the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla. On the ground floor, dozens of inmates are hard at work making license plates, furniture and other goods.

Right above them sits an art gallery where one inmate is putting the final touches on a painting. Past the gallery, on the other side of a door sits a recording studio.

A recording studio in the middle of the state’s largest prison might not be what the public would expect. It was built for the podcast "Concrete Mama," a production hosted by current and former WSP inmates in an aim to humanize the more than 2,000 inmates residing behind bars in the outskirts of Walla Walla.

The podcast dropped its first episode on Monday, March 10. It has now released eight regular episodes and two special Q&A episodes and wrapped up its first season on Monday, May 12.

The book by former Walla Walla Union-Bulletin staffers Ethan Hoffman and John McCoy serves as inspiration for the "Concrete Mama" podcast. The goal of the podcast, similar to the book, is to share life inside the prison.

Listeners are taken inside the prison, where currently incarcerated hosts Demar Nelson and Steven "Red" Edwards share their own stories, as well as those of inmates they have interviewed.

In the debut episode, Nelson shared his real-time reaction to losing his cellmate, close friend and fellow host Anthony Covert, who had just been released on clemency. Nelson shared the realization that he had lost someone whom he had come to depend on.

Nelson is serving a 40-year sentence for first-degree murder, a crime he committed during a gang-related fight in 2008 when he was 21 years old.

The podcast is the creation of Unincarcerated Productions, founded by Vik Chopra and Spencer Oberg.

Chopra’s vision for the Podcast is to build a line of communication from the prison to the outside world, particularly Walla Walla.

“The prison exists almost like a separate thing, like it's its own world, right?” Chopra said. “It's at the edge of town. And Walla Walla, a lot of the townsfolk, maybe sometimes don't even think about it or even realize there's several thousand humans behind those walls.”

So why is humanizing inmates so important to Chopra? Because he used to be one of those inmates.

The "Concrete Mama" podcast dropped its first episode on Monday, March 10. It has now released eight regular episodes and two special Q&A episodes and wrapped up its first season.

Video by Greg Lehman/Walla Walla Union-Bulletin

Promising future

When Chopra was in high school, he was voted most likely to succeed by his classmates.

“I was that smart Indian kid in school,” he said. “That honor student.”

After graduating high school, he went straight to the University of Washington, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in economics.

After graduating from UW, Chopra wanted to make films.

“But I didn't really know where to start,” he said. “So, I ended up getting a job at the local PBS station in Seattle … I was doing underwriting, sales, production, funding. I was on our (on-air) talent. I got my feet wet in the industry.”

Then, he went to a different radio station and did the same work for about three years before things turned for him.

“It was at that time that my partner and I got addicted to opioids,” he said.

Things went downhill from there.

“I mean, we were able to maintain for a few years keeping up with our jobs and appearances,” Chopra said, “But after a while, people start talking and things get worse. It became an everyday habit with pain pills, and then, ultimately, Oxycontin turned to smoking heroin because pills got too expensive.”

Chopra would lose his job and start committing crimes to make ends meet.

“And at that point, pretty much I'd been an addict for several years.” he said. “I was a shell of a human being, like I didn't recognize myself. I never thought I would be somebody that would ever become a criminal or steal or do anything like that. But that's what had happened.”

Chopra and his then-partner were arrested March 28, 2013, for several counts of identity theft and drug possession. He said one day later, March 29, 2013, is his sober date.

“I actually just celebrated 12 years of sobriety,” he said.

Sobering up made Chopra examine his life and what it had become. He remembered wanting to make films and productions. He realized he wanted that life back.

He said he was sentenced to seven years in prison, and he served his sentence at WSP. He said he stayed out of trouble and was released two years early for good behavior.

Chopra said he wrote some screenplays in prison and started to imagine creating a production company.

When he got out, he and recently released inmate Spencer Oberg formed Unincarcerated Productions with the aim of telling stories about incarcerated people.

Changing perspective

Hosts Nelson and Edwards on the inside, and Covert and Chopra on the outside, all feel strongly about showing how people locked up at WSP are still people.

“I feel like when people on the streets think about prison, they think about what they see in the movies and about, you know, all the crazy stuff, killings and stuff like that,” said Edwards, who is serving a 35-year sentence for first-degree assault. “And it's really not all like that. I mean, there is some of that sometimes, you know, in some places. But it's not like the movies, man, there's good people in here.”

Edwards said most of his sentence — 30 years — is for firearm enhancements.

While he doesn’t excuse crime, Chopra said he wants to share inmates' stories and experiences.

"It's not just bad guys versus good guys,” he said. “It's not always black and white. A majority, if not everybody in prison, has faced extreme trauma in their life. You know, it doesn't excuse choices that are made, but I really hope that it can bring some understanding and maybe compassion and empathy and can open the door for humans when they come out of incarceration.”

These stories are told directly by the inmates themselves through interviews with Nelson, Edwards and Covert.

“Our process isn't about just sitting people down and talking to them,” Nelson said. “There's a larger purpose that we're trying to push out there into the world that's not fictional. We want people to really detail their lives, who they are … When we approach the interview, it's about what we're trying to (capture) so that we can tell a larger story.”

“Just kind of help humanize the guys in here and just get some of our voices out there because I feel like we get forgotten a lot while we're in here.” Edwards added.

This concept is so important to Covert that he has stayed involved with the project after being released. Though he’s now working two paid jobs and getting ready to attend Whitman College on an academic scholarship, he still volunteers his time to the podcast and hopes to always be involved.

“I’m always going to be tied to it, he said. “Our stories don’t ever end. My story is going to continue and there’s always going to be something to learn from. Demar’s (Nelson) story is going to continue and there’s always going to be something to learn from … Everyone’s story continues, man, there’s always something to learn from. So, will I be directly involved in it 10 years from now? I hope so. But if not, I’ll still support it … I have to be a voice for the brothers still in there, out here.”

The inspiration

The “Concrete Mama” podcast is not the first project produced at WSP that shared with the public what life is like inside the prison.

In fact, it’s not even the first project named “Concrete Mama.”

In 1978, reporter John McCoy and photographer Ethan Hoffman quit their jobs at the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin to cover the Washington State Penitentiary in more detail than what was desired by the U-B leadership.

Their book, “Concrete Mama,” included stories and photos from behind the prison walls.

The access they had to the prison — they weren’t allowed to sleep there but would arrive early in the morning and leave late at night — is something that wouldn’t happen today.

For months, they were allowed to move freely among the prison without an escort. They interviewed many prisoners first, and then, many guards.

For many inmates, this was the first — and last — time that their stories would be heard and shared.

Decades later, this still inspires the hosts of the podcast.

“I think that what Hoffman and McCoy started … was amazing,” Nelson said. “It was brilliant. And so, we stand on tall shoulders of those guys to continue the work that they were doing.”

Years before the podcast, the book inspired Chopra. In the early days of Unincarcerated Productions, Chopra began working on a film documenting how the book was made.

Interviews, including one with McCoy, were conducted, but the project was derailed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Meanwhile, a prison podcast is something that Nelson had wanted to start for some time.

“We just didn't have the partnerships to really make it happen until (Unincarcerated Productions CEO) Rachel (Kjack) and Vic (Chopra) came to a keynote speech at one of the Walla Walla graduations,” Nelson said.

Chopra spoke at a graduation ceremony for one of the prison’s education-programs and met Nelson.

The two talked. Nelson wanted to start a podcast. Chopra wanted to do something with the content from the incomplete documentary. With the support of prison leadership, plans for a podcast were born.

Chopra recruited his cellmate, Covert, who had also been wanting to start a podcast of his own.

The two then recruited Edwards to join them as the three hosts inside the prison, while Chopra serves as a host on the outside and is able to interview sources outside the prison.

Covert joined him in that role because he was recently granted clemency and had the rest of his 36-year sentence for attempted murder set aside. This was the focus of some of the first season of the podcast.

The hosts and Chopra's staff threw around of lot of ideas for the name. However, the inmates really felt their work was connected to that of McCoy's and Hoffman's, and they wanted to use the name "Concrete Mama."

Chopra reached out to McCoy, who told him he was pretty sure the name was in public domain. Beyond that, though, McCoy gave his blessing.

"They wanted to call it 'Concrete Mama,' and I said, 'Well, I'd be flattered if you want to call it that. I don't have any issue with that. Ethan (Hoffman) is deceased, so I know he's not going to have any issue about it.'" McCoy said. "Yeah, I'm supportive of what they're doing."

The impact

The podcast has found an audience in its first season. It recently reached No. 22 on the Apple Podcasts chart. Kjack said the response has been positive.

It’s Covert, however, who has perhaps the strongest evidence that the podcast has made a positive impact.

He said someone he has met since being released had said to him that their father is in prison somewhere, and they had not spoken to him in a long time.

After meeting Covert, that person listened to the podcast. And because of the podcast, they were inspired to write their father a letter and open a door of communication.

“That right there is why we wanted to do this,” Covert said.

Jeremy Burnham, Walla Walla Union-Bulletin