Earlonne Woods was born and raised in South Central Los Angeles. In 1997, he was sentenced to 31 years to life in prison. While incarcerated, he received his GED, attended Coastline Community College, and completed many vocational trade programs. He also founded CHOOSE1, which aims to repeal the California Three Strikes Law, the statute under which he was sentenced. In 2017, he co-founded the prison-based podcast Ear Hustle, a Pulitzer Prize finalist and two-time Peabody Award nominee, among numerous other awards.
Episodes of the show have been downloaded millions of times by listeners everywhere. In November 2018, California Governor Jerry Brown commuted Earlonne’s sentence after 21 years of incarceration. Upon his release, Earlonne was hired by PRX as a full-time producer and co-host for Ear Hustle. He is also the co-author of This Is Ear Hustle: Unflinching Stories of Everyday Prison Life (Crown Publishing), which was the San Francisco Public Library’s One City One Book selection in 2022.
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