The Prison Music Project: Songs from Inside New Folsom Prison

'There are 2 million people in prison in the United States. Let that sink in for a moment. Another way to put that: the US has 5% of the global population, but makes up 25% of the global prison population. That is a lot of people. And every single one of those people has a story. The new album from The Prison Music Project called Long Time Gone highlights a few of those stories. It features songs by nine incarcerated or formerly incarcerated writers and was put together by musician Zoe Boekbinder. Zoe began volunteer teaching songwriting workshops at New Folsom Prison in California about a decade ago. After a while, it became apparent that the powerful songs being written needed to be heard outside of the prison walls, so Zoe reached out to musician Ani DiFranco to produce an album.' -- World Cafe Words and Music from WXPN