The State We’re In on 27 June 2009: We talk to a young woman who got caught in the crossfire when police cracked down on demonstrators in Tehran. We hear from women raising families behind bars and find out how a burglary gone wrong transformed the lives of two very different men.

Eyewitness to bloodshed:
Ilham (not her real name) is an Iranian woman who was in Tehran for the disputed election and the ensuing protests. She got caught in the crossfire when Iranian police cracked down on the demonstrators. She explains how the experience changed her perception of her home country for better and for worse.
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This week’s theme is Prisoners’ rights

Lessons learned prison
Philip Seiler served 18 years in San Quentin and came out a different man. He believes education transformed him. Jody Lewen agrees. She’s the Director of the San Quentin College Programme, the only college programme offered by the state of California which has both the highest prison population and the highest recidivism rate in the country.
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Keeping house and home together….behind bars
In most countries, children are not allowed to stay with their mothers in prison.
A prison in the Bolivian capital La Paz has taken a very different approach. Inmates create a semblance of normal life by starting small businesses and raising their children behind bars.
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Born to a life of crime
Peter Woolf’s grandfather taught him to steal what he wanted. By the age of 10, he was taking drugs and by the time he was 30 he had spent 18 years behind bars. Things got so bad that he begged a doctor to institutionalise him to save him from his own violent impulses.

In the end, a burglary gone wrong brought him face to face with a victim who would change his life.
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