“You remember the pain. You remember solitary confinement. You remember picking cotton in 120-degree weather,” a man says in a voiceover for the trailer of The Prison Show documentary. “You remember sweating in your bunk at night. You have made sacrifices to survive prison, and it is important to you that you tell others how you survived in the hopes that they survive.”
The movie scene cuts to an image of prison cells, and the voiceover fades to a mother asking a child to come to the phone and say hello to Daddy on the radio. The child’s father, who is incarcerated in a Texas prison, gets to hear the youngster’s voice, thanks to The Prison Show.
“I love you. I miss you. I can’t wait until you come home,” the child says.
Grab the tissues. Even if you haven’t done time or had a loved one behind bars, you’re probably going to feel some feelings.
Based on almost a decade of interviews with prisoners, their loved ones, and various hosts and guests of the radio program taped every Friday night at the 90.1 FM KPFT studios in Montrose, the 57-minute Prison Show documentary debuts locally on Tuesday, June 3, at the DeLUXE Theater. It’s already been screened at the San Quentin and Austin film festivals and won a prize at the Winter Film Festival in New York.
It’s a movie about a radio show with a stark reminder that most of Texas’ roughly 136,000 prisoners will eventually be released and therefore need some information and hope as they plan to re-enter society.
One of those formerly incarcerated men is David Collingsworth, who spent a collective 15 years “on the wrong side of the razor wire” in the Texas prison system and made it his mission to help those inside not just survive but to be encouraged that a better way of life awaits.
Seeing the work that gives him purpose on the silver screen is a thrill for 58-year-old Collingsworth, who did three separate tours in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, battling addiction and struggling to find hope in a place where violence and drug use are rampant. He listened to The Prison Show while he was incarcerated and once he found the light, he promised himself he would share it with others.
Now 18 years sober and a free man, Collingsworth can be found every Friday night at the KPFT studios on Caroline Street, interviewing guests about criminal justice reform, the death penalty, the parole process and other topics of interest for the incarcerated and their families.
The Prison Show, on air since 1980 and founded by the late “ex-con and gay activist” Ray Hill, is available on YouTube and the usual podcast platforms but a huge victory was scored recently when the show — previously only available to incarcerated men and women in the Huntsville and Houston areas who could pick up the KPFT signal — became available through the Edovo app on inmate tablets nationwide.
The first hour of the show includes news and guests; the second half is devoted to “shout-outs” so family members and friends can call in with messages of encouragement to their incarcerated loved ones. Collingsworth joined the show as its producer about 12 years ago.
The show is hosted by Dani Allen, who began advocating against the death penalty when she moved to Texas from Louisiana more than 20 years ago. A crime survivor, Allen was engaged to death row prisoner Billy Wardlow, who was executed in 2020. Allen and Linda Snyder formed the “Death Row Angels” and they protest executions and visit inmates frequently to provide encouragement and assistance in connecting families with resources.
The Prison Show is a lifeline for the incarcerated, who often don’t have access to news programs and periodicals. It’s how they find out about criminal justice legislation, like prison air conditioning, or learn about upcoming execution dates. Allen reads updates on court cases and appeal filings because while the inmates should have frequent communication with their attorneys, that often doesn’t happen.
Because of his past, Collingsworth considers himself uniquely qualified to counsel prisoners. While incarcerated, he earned a bachelor’s degree in pastoral counseling.
“I did it to rehabilitate, but I found that going to church doesn’t rehabilitate,” he said. “I don’t want that to sound negative, but I couldn’t be religious and change. I had to dig down deep. I met God through a 12-step program. It’s better to be green and growing than ripe and rotten.”
Because the documentary was filmed over a period of almost 10 years by French writer and director Gabriella Kessler, some of those interviewed may actually be back in prison now. Not everyone who is released stays on the straight and narrow, Collingsworth explained.
“I’ve been down three times,” he said. “I’d get out and I’d try to do right and I would struggle with it, then I’d screw up and go back. There’s a lot of things that we learn on the inside that we need to let go of. I tell all the guys on the air that they need to make the next right decision. For those of us that had no morals and values, the next right decision doesn’t always feel right. Eventually it’ll feel right because you’ll start seeing a successful reintegration into society.”
Over the years, some longtime listeners of The Prison Show have become friends, Collingsworth said.
“Freddy Garcia, he’s supposed to be at the [documentary] screening, when he got off the bus and was supposed to go to a halfway house, I picked him up and made sure he had clothes and a belt and underwear and all that stuff and took him to the halfway house,” Collingsworth said. “He’s successful now. He’s driving a truck and he’s got a home. Now every time he talks about it, he says you’ve just got to make the next right decision.”
Collingsworth works full-time as the head of maintenance for Planet Fitness and is an ordained minister who performs wedding ceremonies. Although his radio job is just a side hustle, he takes it seriously, carefully vetting guests like Bryan Kelley, outreach and engagement director for CrossWalk Center, a Houston-based re-entry discipleship program.
“People get frustrated with me because they want to come on The Prison Show, but they’ve got to prove themselves first,” Collingsworth said. “I watch them. I monitor their progress and slowly but surely invite them to the show.”
For the first eight years he was out of prison, Collingsworth said he kept to himself and just went to work and stayed at home to keep from running into trouble. Eventually he reconnected with his high school sweetheart. They got married in 2017 and bought a home on 10 acres in Shepherd.
When fans of The Prison Show visit their loved ones at the Allan B. Polunsky Unit in Livingston, Collingsworth meets them at the IHOP near the freeway to share a meal.
Collingsworth said he hopes the documentary will raise awareness about the show which is entirely funded through donations, and create a larger audience, but he’s less concerned with the glitz and glam than the actual mission of his work: offering hope to those who have lost their way.
In a world obsessed with true crime, due process, and what some believe to be antiquated or barbaric criminal justice policies, The Prison Show also appeals to those who don’t have a direct connection, Collingsworth said.
“I met a guy at a KPFT fundraiser who moved to Houston in 1980 and was going through the radio and found Ray Hill and The Prison Show,” Collingsworth said. “He never moved his dial after that. He’s never been to prison, doesn’t have any family members who have been to prison, but it was like another world that he was listening to. He continues to listen to KPFT today because of The Prison Show.”
Another woman told Collingsworth she listens because she “hears the love” when people call in and make shout-outs. The timing of the show — 9 to 11 p.m. on Friday nights — was chosen because inmates can be out in the dayroom later on weekends. In its early days, the show began with Hill announcing, “Holler down the pipe, chase and rattle them bars, ’cause we’re gonna do a Prison Show.”
It’s not just a time to hear from family members, it’s an opportunity for inmates to fellowship with each other, Collingsworth said.
“A lot of people in the free world, they don’t have those connections,” he said.
