Budget cuts have placed more demands on the Prison University Project, according to Amy Roza, the new program director for the popular San Quentin educational activity.
Amy was born and raised in Queens, New York. She earned a Master’s Degree in Teaching from Trinity College in Washington, D.C., and a B.A. in Public Policy and Anthropology from Pomona College in Claremont, Calif. After graduating, Amy was a public school teacher in Washington, D.C., and then Director of Youth and Family Services at the Center for Court Innovation in New York City. She also taught classes with the Prison Education Initiative at Riker’s Island.
After coming to the Bay Area about a year ago, Amy began tutoring Patten University students enrolled in Math 50 classes. She sat down to share her thoughts with the men of San Quentin, and spoke about her new role here.
How has the budget crisis and staff lay-offs affected the Prison University Program to date?
We’re funded by foundations and individual donations, so we’re not directly affected. We’ve been able to offer classes six days a week, so we’re grateful for that. The cuts to other valuable education programs within the prison has placed more demand on our program.
Have you found the administration and custodial staff supportive of your efforts?
I particularly appreciate the efforts of some of the officers we work with regularly. For example, ensuring that all of our students get into their classes on time.
What kind of reaction do you get from people when you tell them you teach college courses in prison?
They have a lot of questions. They love to know what the classes are like. I think the reality of the classes is different than the average persons’ perception of what a prison is like, and what inmates are like. Our classes are like college classes anywhere else.
How are the prison/jail educational programs here and in New York different?
The specific program I worked at in New York, at Riker’s Island, wasn’t accredited. So it was GED and enrichment classes, and the goals of the program were different. I would say that PUP has a much more developed relationship with the San Quentin administration and with the CDCR than the program I taught at Riker’s.
What impact does your program have on those inmates who earn a degree, do you have any data showing that giving inmates an education reduces recidivism?
There is existing research that says prison education reduces recidivism. Giving somebody a quality education increases that person’s options.
What interested you about teaching at San Quentin?
It’s an opportunity to work with a talented, generous faculty with a very committed and eager student body.
What are your aspirations for the future?
I would like to do this job well. There’s a lot to learn.
Have your perceptions about incarcerated men changed since you’ve begun teaching here?
I’ve worked in schools, in other jails, and the court system, so my perceptions haven’t changed in that regard. I definitely have learned a lot from San Quentin staff, students, and volunteers.
Looking at this program as a new-comer, as someone with a fresh pair of eyes, what changes would you like to see happen?
I’m really looking forward to working with our faculty to ensure that all of our courses are as rigorous and compelling as our students deserve.
I asked Amy if there was anything she’d like to add.
I would just like to say “I love this job, and I’m totally grateful for the opportunity.”
GREEN CAREER FAIR
About 30 enthusiastic vendors introduced several hundred San Quentin inmates due for release soon to job opportunities in the burgeoning, environmentally oriented “green industry.”
The first-ever Green Career Fair was held Aug. 28 in H-Unit. It was presented by The California Reentry Program and the Insight Garden Program. The fair featured entrepreneurs and educators from a myriad of fields.
Greeting and directing interested inmates were Allyson West, who runs the California Reentry Program in H-Unit, and Beth Waitkus, who has taught the Insight Garden Program at H-Unit for eight years.
Attendees from the community set up displays and offered information at two dozen tables, as photographers and media representatives circulated the room ,snapping pictures and holding interviews with some of the inmate-clients.
“Our goal is to introduce people to green industries and what the training opportunities are,” West said. “We want to familiarize people with the industry and tell them how to get into it.”
Many facets of the green industry were represented. Leigh Anne Starling of The Homeless Garden Project passed out flyers highlighting a three-year comprehensive job training program that teaches gardening and farming skills. Another vendor, City Slicker Farms, based in West Oakland, takes a several-pronged approach. One focuses on helping urban dwellers convert their backyards into agricultural spaces by testing the soil, creating a gardening plan, supplying items such as compost, growing boxes and seeds to families wishing to turn their backyard into food-producing gardens.
The Community Market Farms Program takes “vacant or underutilized land and transforms it into market farms.” The food they grow on these urban farms is sold to people in the community at affordable prices.
Another vendor, Traingreen SF, offers vocational education and training in recycling, transportation, energy efficiency and solar. The San Francisco Clean City Coalition was on hand to offer a Green Jobs Program that provides transitional employment, environmental literacy, job readiness and placement assistance.
Thinking About the H-Unit Search Episode
On Monday morning, May 13, approximately 700 inmates housed in San Quentin’s H-Unit were taken out of their dorms and escorted onto the main recreation yard while custody staff performed a security search. This was not an unusual occurrence; searches are a routine and necessary part of prison life. What made this one noteworthy was the way it was handled.
REMOVE CLOTHING
After exiting the unit, the inmates were ordered to stand along a blacktop roadway, made to remove all their clothing while guards checked for contraband. Besides correctional staff, potential onlookers included other inmates, maintenance workers, teachers, and various prison employees—both male and female—who live or work within the walls.
After dressing, the inmates were forced to stand, sit, or walk the yard as intermittent rain showers fell. This went on most of the day while staff conducted the search of the dorms. The inmates were not allowed back into their dorms until 1 p.m.
Sometime during the day some of these inmates broke into one of the education classrooms. Unfortunately, some of the more larcenously inclined among them burglarized an interior office and appropriated some card and board games the coach kept there. In so doing, they caused enough damage to force the closure of two classrooms. This decreased the already inadequate educational space.
I believe this incident might have been avoided by sequestering the inmates in one of the large dining halls, out of the rain.
Many in the general public might say; “This just proves they need to be locked up. They deserve to be treated rudely, they’re convicted felons. They’re just getting a taste or their own medicine.”
Sure, these men committed crimes, that’s why they’re in prison. But should their punishment extend to being mistreated or even dehumanized? Or should we try to instill a measure of self-respect in these men?
All of the men housed in H-Unit will be released sometime in the near future. Wouldn’t it be more logical to educate and edify them, rather than abusing them to the point of insult, before releasing them into your communities?
I for one would rather have an ex-offender with a healthy sense of self-worth and a positive attitude living near me; not one filled with contempt and distrust of the people around him or her.
Charge Inmates $5 per Day? Bill Dies in the State Senate
A bill that would have required jail and prison inmates to pay $5.00 dollars a day to help defray the costs of their incarceration was defeated in a state senate committee, Fox News Radio reported.
Senator Tom Harmon (R), Huntington Beach, sponsored the bill which was modeled after a similar law already in effect in Massachusetts. This bill was one of a number introduced by the senator, a candidate for the state’s Attorney General office to be filled in November. Another bill by senator Harmon, to change the state’s lethal injection administration procedure from a three-drug-cocktail to a single drug solution is still alive.
Opinion—In this fiscally depressed economy it seems some lawmakers, especially those running for office with limited funds or little or no name-recognition, will try almost anything to garner attention—no matter the long-term consequences.
By placing the burden of paying for their incarceration on prisoners and their families, without providing them with the resources, skills, or education to meet that obligation, Senator Harmon is simply attempting to exploit an already subjugated class of people who possess little or no political rights or advocacy.
Without guaranteeing prisoners and ex-prisoners job-training and employment, both during their incarceration and after their release, measures such as this would simply be another artificial obstacle to the restoration of civil equality for former inmates and their loved ones. A more sensible approach would be to mandate and fund education, rehabilitation, and vocational training during incarceration, then guarantee job and housing placement upon an inmate’s release. This would go much farther in ensuring public safety than the current policy of locking prisoners up for long periods of time, at exorbitant costs, then releasing them into the community no better or in many cases worse off than when they went in.
Inmates Win a Throwdown
Six San Quentin inmates defeated a group of professional writers in a “Literary Throwdown” competition recently.
The event, hosted by authors Keith and Kent Zimmerman, in association with Litquake. The Zimmerman brothers, authors of more than 15 books, including best-selling memoirs with the Sex Pistols and the Hell’s Angels, have taught a weekly creative writing class at San Quentin’s H-Unit since 2003.
Six authors competed with inmate writers in a write-off, which was judged by three Hollywood authors/screenwriters. The Litquake event is the largest nonprofit literary festival on the West Coast.
It enlisted the likes of Alan Black, Jack Boulware, David Corbett, Joe Loya, Anne N. Marino and Bucky Sinister.
Judges included novelist/screenwriter/director Michael Tolkin and Noah and Logan Miller.
Regular attendees of “Finding Your Voice on the Page,” the Zimmerman’s writing workshop, consisting of 25-30 inmate authors, competed with the guests in a timed writing competition. The entries were then judged and the best six from each group were read aloud, with the winning entrants announced on June 18.
The six finalists and winners , inmates representing San Quentin, were Earl Banks, Tim Dufore, Tim Gordon, Mark LeMelle, Delbert Lennox and Buckshot Maples.
Health Fair Returns
San Quentin TRUST will be sponsoring its Seventh Annual Health Fair on April 30. The one day event will be held on the lower yard, in and around the old laundry building. It is slated to begin at 9 am, and will include information booths, testing and activities services and a chiropractic clinic.
The booths will offer information on Alcohol and Drug abuse, Asthma, Hypertension, Stress Reduction, Diabetes and Smoking and more. There will be lectures on Stress Reduction, Nutrition, Addiction Recovery Counseling, Aging, and Domestic Violence. The Chiropractic clinic will assess and recommend treatments and exercises for those experiencing back problems.
Staff from Centerforce & UCSF, as well as members of the Alameda County Public Health Department-Urban Male Health Initiative will be assisting San Quentin TRUST in this endeavor.
The men of San Quentin would like to thank these professional men and women for volunteering their time and expertise to help us.
The Shocking High Cost of the State’s Prison System
On November 4, 1995, Leandro Andrade stole five videotapes worth $84.70 from a Kmart store in Ontario, California. For that and past crimes of burglary, transporting marijuana and petty thefts he was given a 50 years-to-life sentence.
There are approximately 167,000 men and women incarcerated in California’s prisons. Each year it costs $49,000 dollars to house, feed and care for each of them. According to Charles B. Reed, Chancellor of the California State University system, in an article published July 27, 2009 in the San Francisco Chronicle, Reed states that the costs to taxpayers for one year of tuition for each year of tuition for each CSU student is $4,600. “Therefore we could send 10 students to college for a year for what we pay to house one prisoner. Of course our children have to get there first, and with the massive cuts to K-12 education our legislators have undertaken it doesn’t look like we’ll be sending as many students to college anyway.
THREE STRIKES LAW
Let’s look at more numbers. From 1994 to October 2005 California incarcerated more than 87,500 individuals under the second and third strike provisions of the Three Strikes Law. A total of 7,500 of those received 25 years-to-life sentences, according to Professor Elsa Chen of Santa Clara University. First, let’s focus on the 80,000 prisoners sentenced under the second strike provision, those getting out in the relatively near future. At the current cost of $49,000 per inmate per year. It costs taxpayers $3,920,000 every year these men and women are locked up.
Compare this to the costs of K-12 education. The National Center for Education reports that we spend $9,391 dollars per year for primary and secondary education. Round this up to $10,000 dollars, which translates to approximately $130,000 to give each child a high school diploma. So, the amount we Californians spend to keep all second-strikers in prison each year is equivalent to the amount of money we would spend to give 301,538 students a high school education. I think politicians’ priorities are in the wrong place.
EDUCATION DOLLARS
Now let’s look at the cost of imprisoning third-strikers, many of whom are serving 25 year sentences for crimes like petty theft, forgery and burglaries resulting (like Andrade above) in monetary losses to the victim of less than $1,000. It will cost $9,187,500,000 to imprison this population for the length of their sentences. That’s a lot of possible educational dollars our children are being deprived of. It should be evident what a colossal waste of taxpayer monies that corrections has become. We are strangling our future to punish people. There’s got to be a better way.
In a bulletin entitled “Common Sense Corrections Reform Can Allow California to Avoid Early Release” by California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) Secretary Matthew L. Cate, he outlines his plan to cut $1.2 billion from the corrections budget. I was stunned by this statement: “The administration has developed a proposal in coordination with local law enforcement that is smart on crime.” If that were true they wouldn’t resort to scare tactics every time the spectre of prisoner releases comes up.
The CDCR ideology is guided by the desires of the guard’s union, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association. The union wants to keep as many people as possible locked up to ensure job security for its members. That’s smart on crime from the union’s point of view, but it is costing your children their education.
I don’t suggest just releasing vast numbers of inmates. What I am suggesting is that we must overhaul our current sentences and educate and rehabilitate those getting out so they’re less likely to come right back.
The CDCR is mandated to do just that and has been for years. But in the same bulletin the Secretary of CDCR admits that only 1,600 inmates out of 167,000 have earned a GED and completed vocational training that will enable them to rejoin society once again as productive members. By any standard that’s a dismal failure.
GREAT OBSTACLES
We have to get smart on crime from the public’s point of view. To do this we have to change the way we administer corrections, change from a model that propounds retribution to one that supports education and rehabilitation. The two greatest obstacles facing newly released ex-felons are finding employment and housing. Without a job no one can afford housing, yet the average California parolee has a seventh grade education. There is little expectation that anyone will secure meaningful employment without a high school education at the minimum.
We don’t need more guards or prisons. We can’t afford them, for one thing. What we need are more teachers and classrooms and we need to make certain everybody we incarcerate is compelled to get a basic education. Many changes would have to take place in order to implement such a plan: sentencing laws changed to give incentives and time reductions to prisoners who successfully complete educational and vocational programs, (saving taxpayer money while bolstering public safety).
Parole must become a support and aftercare mechanism to assist parolees in obtaining jobs and housing instead of being a means for keeping prison beds full. This is not being Soft on Crime. This is being Smart on Crime, because a parolee with a job is paying taxes, not wasting yours. And, in the illuminating light of reason, wouldn’t we all feel safer knowing that parolees’ will come out of prison with the education, skills and support he or she needs to find a job and a place to live. That way they won’t be as likely to break into yours.