San Quentin News

Written By Incarcerated - Advancing Social Justice

The power of San Quentin’s Alcoholics Anonymous

by

Facilitators and inmates opening up the group with a grounding meditation


It’s 1:30 on a Friday afternoon, and Alcoholics Anonymous is set to begin inside of the Addiction to Recovery Center at San Quentin.
“Anonymity makes it comfortable for people to talk,” explains AA program director Carl P. “What is said or talked about in AA remains in AA. It’s the principle of all our traditions, because of its anonymous founding.”
The core philosophy of AA is to place principle before personality, according to Carl P. His goal is to provide incarcerated men with a way to examine their relationships, how alcohol affects them, and through spiritual awakening gain the courage to make a change.
As a principle, volunteers and sponsors are required to attend meetings to offer those in recovery moral support and the guidance of someone who made the change.
Gregory "White Eagle" Coates

Gregory “White Eagle” Coates


Incarcerated AA Chairman Greg “White Eagle” Coates said he has been clean and sober since March of 1973. He also teaches the core philosophy of AA at White Bison, a Narcotics Anonymous Group rooted in spirituality and Native American Culture at San Quentin.
“I only went for the coffee and donuts,” said Coates, recalling his first AA meeting.
In the 12 steps to recovery from an addiction to alcohol, the first step is the most important one, says Coates.
“Admit that we are powerless over alcohol, and our lives have become unmanageable,” Coates said. “The first step is the only step you can do 100 percent of. You can’t quit for your wife, your kids, you do it for you.”
Coates watched all his male relatives—his dad, his uncle and his grandfather—die from alcohol. Coates himself almost lost his life because of alcohol.
“I was drunk driving and went through a windshield after hitting a eucalyptus tree,” he said.
AA has contributed directly to his rehabilitation. After being in prison since the 1970s he was granted parole after 39 years because of his commitment to sobriety.
AA Sponsor Don R. has been involved in AA recovery for 32 years. He been sober 27 years, has a sponsor, and also is a sponsor to five others.
“I’ve seen miracles happen like what has happened to Eagle,” Don R. said. “I’ve seen families be put back together from fathers getting sober and mothers getting sober also. I’ve seen men go to AA who couldn’t read or write and get an education.”
It’s an addiction and recovery group for those who traded everything near and dear for another drink according to Don R. who stated this with conviction, “And even if we don’t get our family back we still learn to stay sober.”
AA counseling is available six days a week in several locations in and around the prison.

AA Meeting Schedule

Mon @ 6:00-8:00 p.m. Chapel C (Spanish AA)

Mon @ 6:20-8:20 p.m. Education Annex

Tues @ 6:30-8:00 p.m. H-Unit Education

Wed @ 6:20-8:20 p.m. Education Annex

Fri @ 1:30-3:30 p.m. ARC Trailer

Sat @ 6:00-8:30 p.m. ARC Trailer

Sun @ 2:00-5:00 p.m. H-Unit Education

San Quentin News & Wall City Merchandise


 

SQ Addiction Counseling Program

Counselors recognized at 11th Annual Recovery Day

Father-and-son team sweeps A’s 10-8, 13-3

Drones over prisons

by

After years of trying to keep drones from flying over South Carolina prisons, an unmanned aircraft with four propellers whizzed up several hundred feet in the air at the unveiling of the corrections officials’ plan to use drones to watch prisoners, according to the US News and World Report.
“I think you’re seeing the future of corrections, right here,” said Department of Corrections Director Bryan Stirling in the article. He explained that they are using the technology to his agency’s benefit to give officials a bird’s-eye view of what’s happening on the ground.
The drones will be remotely controlled by two military veterans hired to travel among the state’s 21 prisons, watching a video display of ground zero from 400 feet in the air.
“No one will even be able to know we’re up there, because it’s pretty high up,” Stirling told reporters.
The public presentation at the corrections department’s Columbia headquarters has, according to Stirling, made South Carolina the first state in the nation to take this step. They plan to use drones to monitor state prisoners and outside grounds in an attempt to stop cell phones and drugs from being launched over the prison fences.
South Carolina has, in the past few years, found multiple cases of individuals using drones to smuggle contraband into prisons.
In May 2017, two men were arrested for trying to fly knives, marijuana and phones into one of its medium-security state prisons.
In another report, according to US News and World Report, a pair of wire cutters was allegedly delivered by drone to a maximum-security prison to help a prisoner cut through multiple fences and escape last summer, and crashed drones have been found on prison grounds as far back as 2014.
Since then, several of the state’s 21 prison institutions have not only installed drone sensors to alert guards, but lawmakers have also passed a law banning private drones from flying over prisons.
Equipped with heat sensors and night vision, the drones will have the ability to detect when someone is or has been in a restricted area.
In addition to stopping trespassing and contraband from being smuggled, South Carolina officials say the drones will help watch for violent outbreaks.
Drones are said to have been an issue not only at South Carolina prisons but, according to US News and World Report, they are an increasing means of getting contraband to prisoners across the United States.

San Quentin News & Wall City Merchandise

Missouri jails use semi-trailers to relieve overcrowding

by

The Greene County Sheriff Department in Missouri has set up semi-trailers as a cost-effective temporary solution to overcrowding in jail, according to the Springfield News-Leader.

The sheriff says this is a temporary solution while they work toward a permanent fix by renovating the existing building and constructing an expansion jail across the street from where the portable trailers currently sit.

Concerns have surfaced that this may be inhumane and in violation of constitutional rights.

“I suggest to the sheriff that they find another way before they are sued, because they’re going to be sued,” said Sharon Dolovich, director of the University of California, Los Angeles, Prison Law & Policy Program.

County Sheriff Jim Arnott said the trailer park jail isn’t an ideal setup. He’d prefer to have more space in a permanent facility and more officers to watch prisoners, but he denies any allegations that the conditions are inhumane.

“Inhumane is a ridiculous word to use,” he told the News-Leader. “I wouldn’t put my staff in an inhumane area to work. The jail is very clean and well-maintained, and as far as space issues go, it is what it is,” Arnott said.

Surrounded by a chain- link fence topped with razor wire, six 52-foot semi-trailers are designed to detain 108 men. They eat, sleep and live in these trailer park jails from as little as one week up to multiple months while awaiting trial.

Overcrowding in jails is a national crisis, according to the article. Many other sheriffs and county officials throughout the U.S, are ex- pressing interest in Arnott’s trailer solution.

The men aren’t being housed in the main county jail because it is already operating at over capacity with 828 living in a facility de- signed for 601 inmates, ac- cording to Cpl. James Craigmyle.

Each inmate in the trailer park jail has less than 22 square feet of “drawn back space.” The American Correctional Association that sets the standard for safety and security states the cells and rooms used for holding inmates should provide at least 25 square feet of drawn back space, or space that is not blocked by any furnishing or fixtures.

“They do not meet the ACA standards due to the amount of inmates we need to house with the space provided,” Arnott said. “We do what we can.”

According to Arnott, jails are not required to meet ACA standards. He came up with the idea to use shipping containers to warehouse people, and All Detainment Solutions, a Missouri-based company, entered into a contract to build a structure for Greene County.

“I would say the trailers are better than our other units,” Sheriff Arnott told the News-Leader.

“It’s a health hazard,” said Patrick John Fields, a detainee who has been in the trailer jail since December, 2017.

“You could see there was standing urine and fecal matter.” he said. “We had to walk through that in our shower shoes.”

While the pretrial detainees are allowed to move around freely inside of the trailers versus being confined to a cell, Fields said a lot of people have flipped out.

There were issues with the plumbing and rain water entering the trailers through air vents.

“They deserve sanitary conditions,” Patrick’s mother Rachel Fields told the News- Leader.

After reviewing pictures of the trailer park jail, UC’s Dolovich said her reaction was “horror.”

“To anyone who suggest that these conditions are acceptable for those people who have found themselves in jail, I would ask them to consider if it’s their loved ones…would they think it’s OK?” Dolovich asked.

Alan Mills, director of Chicago’s Uptown People’s Law Center shares Dolovich’s concerns.

“It’s important to keep in mind that a lot of these people are innocent.” Mill told the News-Leader “They’re not convicted of anything.”

Lack of felons’ ability to vote strips away fundamental rights

by

San Quentin News Adviser John Eagan at the ballot box

San Quentin News Adviser John Eagan at the ballot box

A campaign is under way to restore voting rights to convicted felons, according to The Wall Street Journal.

“Let’s fight to stop this nonsense,” said Damon Stackhouse, a 41-year-old New Jersey native, who was eager to cast a ballot during the previous midterm elections but later learned under state law, because he’s still on parole, he could not vote.

Stackhouse had a decade-old conviction of second-degree robbery.

The Journal reports that states along the northeastern corridor and Deep South, where there is no restoration of the right to vote for felons, advocates are pushing for change. They argue that felon disenfranchisement laws are unfair because they strip away fundamental democratic rights and disproportionately affect Black citizenry.

The rank of those disenfranchised for felony convictions has increased, reflecting decades with incarceration rate growth, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL).

The numbers grew more than fourfold to 6.1 million between 1976 and 2016, according to statistical reports released by the Sentencing Project, said the article.

“64% of California’s jail population is awaiting trial or sentencing as of December 2016.” Most remain in pretrial custody because they cannot afford bail.  Jail Profile Survey, http://www.bscc.ca.gov/

“We have no say. This is the worst thing you can do to a citizen,” said Stackhouse, who is now a construction worker and student at Rutgers University-New Brunswick.

The NCSL stated for a few decades that there has been a general trend toward reinstating voting rights.

A measure is currently being considered by New Jersey to restore voting rights to more than 94,000 state residents with convictions, reported the newspaper.

People who back the restriction believe ― to regain the right to vote ― those who have committed felonies need to demonstrate they are truly reformed, said the article.

Republican New Jersey State Sen. Gerald Cardinale opposed the measure, saying it’s the risk people who commit felonies assume when they break the law.

The trending topic of state legislatures has led to Maryland lawmakers enacting a law to restore the voting rights for people on parole or probation in 2016.  The same year, when he was governor of Virginia, Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, issued an executive order re-enfranchising people with felony records. Recently, Florida’s Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, appealed a federal judge’s ruling that the states system for restoring voting right to former prisoners is unconstitutional.

“We can see that perception is clearly at work, because Democrats are the ones clearly championing the efforts,” said Hannah Walker, assistant professor of political science and criminal justice at Rutgers.

“Withholding or delaying voting rights diminishes our democracy,” said New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat. He issued an executive order to restore voting rights to 35,000 people on parole this year.

The states of Indiana and Massachusetts automatically restore voting rights for people once they are release from prison. 

But in 48 other states, policies vary for people convicted of crimes and their voting rights being removed. For example, Florida and Kentucky revoke the right permanently, and a petition for reinstatement of voting rights is required, said the article.

California aims to restore the right to vote for felons

Brown is the New White by Steve Phillips

Question Is Answered: CA Inmates Can’t Vote

University Pacific visits SQ's Tennis Team

by

University Pacific player

University Pacific player

Students from the University of Pacific Tigers Tennis program came into San Quentin for a second time to play the SQ Inside Tennis Team (ITT).

San Quentin’s Earl Williams teamed up with Orlando Harris began the first match. They served the ball against the Pacific Tiger’s Adi Kremer and Ryan Redondo.

“Easy bacon,” Redondo said as Pacific sailed to a 4 to 2 victory.

Redondo is the Head Coach of Pacific Tiger’s. He’s played for U.C. Davis Junior Cup tennis team, won the world cup in Australia in 1998. Won World Championship in Junior World Tennis Cup in France in 2000 and the national doubles in college in 2001.

Swapping team members made the matches more interesting. Redondo teamed up with Inside Tennis member Tim Thompson against San Quentin’s Paul “Black” Allenye and Danny Llarenas, an assistant coach for Pacific Tiger.

“about 5 percent of city streets produce half of a city’s crime…” according to George Mason University criminologist David Weisburd. “Homicides Are a Neighborhood Problem” THE NEW YORK TIMES 12-28-17

Allenye and Llarenas played like tigers. Instead of running to return the ball they skipped. Instead of holding the racquets beside them they held them in front. Instead of standing with their knees locked straight they knees were bent as they hit the ball left and right of their opponents. They beat Redondo and Thompson, 4 to 3.

Redondo learned about ITT through his best friend Pablo Pires de Almeida, head coach at the University of San Francisco tennis program.

Pires de Almeida also brings his Team inside to play the men.

Redondo said he see improvement in the Inside Tennis Team players since the last time he visited.

“The curiosity and passion to learn I recognized first in the guys is still there,” said Redondo.

ITT’s Robert Neyses, 76, watched the games, wishing he could play.

He started playing tennis 13 years ago, while living in Fremont. Someone gave him a Wilson tennis racquet, and a local park had just built a new tennis court.

He decided to give it a swing, and had been playing the sport well. Once incarcerated, he continued playing at San Quentin until he blew out the retina of his right eye in a tennis match.

“One of my biggest troubles is seeing,” he said  while watching the last game where Llarenas and Ronnie Mohamed beat Adi Kremer (PT) and Robert Barnes (ITT), 4 to 3.

“I was on the court playing, and I couldn’t see nothing but blood,” Neyses said, “I went to the TA, they put me under and operated on my eye, said I tore my retina.”

While awaiting eye surgery, he took eye vitamins with beta-keratin to see and help his cataract.

“I use to be good at slaying at the net, but now I practice with guys who can slay and I play the back,” he added.

After the last match up, Redondo suggested ITT all work on hitting drills together. Kremer and Llarenas caught and served the tennis ball on one side of the net. The men formed a hitting line on the other side of the net, and they practiced backhands, forehands, and volleys.

“I should go get some hits,” Neyses said as he watched them practice hitting the ball. “But the camaraderie’s nice, I like the camaraderie also.”

The University of the Pacific Tigers said they’ll return again in the Fall.

http://sanquentinnews.com/optionb-org-support-group-overcoming-effects-incarceration/

University of S.F. Visits Inside Tennis Team

Death Row inmate freed after serving more than 25 years

California prisoners earning college degrees

by

Some California prisoners are working hard on college degrees to help them be successful when they return to their communities.

One of the latest examples is the English 99 class at Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in Otay Mesa, which leads to an associate of arts college degree.

“The level of critical thought and commentary is much higher than I would typically get from a room where I’m teaching 18- to 21-year-olds,” said John Rieder of Southwestern College, who teaches the class.

“According to a RAND analysis, every $1 invested in such [inmate] education generates at least $4 in economic return,” reports Fast Company.

“The state typically spends $71,000 a year to house an inmate. It costs about $5,000 total to help put one [incarcerated] student through community college”, reports Fast Company.

The higher education opportunity for prisoners is part of an Obama-era pilot program that extended Pell Grants to 12,000 prisoners.

A KPBS news story in April said the Trump administration could end the grants, so the focus of the program is to get those involved into caps and gowns, reduce recidivism, and demonstrate to the government the importance of the Second Chance Pell Grant program.

The class has helped defuse racial tension on a population yard where there has been racial politics, according to Jason Hicks, who helps coordinate the Southwestern program.

According to Hicks, racial tension disappears when they get into a classroom, “You’ll notice that the guys are willing to help each other out. I think it really show rehabilitation at its best.”

Collectively the students had a 3.91 grade point average at the beginning of the semester, according to the article.

For many California department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) prisoners, their only option to earn an associate degree prior to the program was distant learning courses. These correspondence courses require prisoners to purchase books most could not afford without the Pell Grants.

Rieder said his class draws on psychology, philosophy, and poetry to explore the themes of education and power.

He added, “Higher education leads to empowerment.’ And that’s a great narrative. I love that narrative.”

The students wear light blue shirts and navy pants with CDCR PRISONER printed in bold yellow letters. They carry their books, papers and pens in clear plastic bags instead of book bags.

Student Kyle Baughman, 31, who has hazel eyes and a star tattooed onto his shaved head, brings up critical discussions in class about education.

“Hey, do you guys see some kind of connection?” he asks his classmates. “The kids of judges and lawyers and the people that make all this money, they’re taught differently, as opposed to the way we’re taught.”

He grew up in Orange County’s criminal justice system, according to the article. He earned his high school diploma while in Juvenile Hall.

“Most of the schools I went to growing up were probation schools,” Baughman said. “I felt like, if I didn’t go, I’m going to get locked up.”

His involvement with criminals and a gang resulted in crimes of carjacking and robbery, which earned him an enhanced sentence of 15 years to life.

In Rieder’s class, Baughman has the opportunity to work out some of the large things that may have brought him to prison, according to the KPBS article.

“The inmate is now looking at things in a different light. They are looking to see how to better themselves,” said Lance Eshelman, the Donovan Community Resources Manager.

http://sanquentinnews.com/prison-univ-project-awards-degrees-to-seven-graduates/

Prison reform could free 30,000 inmates says CSJ

Fifty S.Q. Men Graduate

Tennis helps SQ lifer cope with missing his daughter

by

Tennis is a complex rehabilitative sport. You have to return the ball that is served. But, there are hundreds of ways to hit the ball, and there are a thousand places it could land. For an incarcerated father, it’s a metaphor for life.

Paris Williams could only live the life he was dealt. As a Creole man and father of a bi-racial daughter, he dealt with racism from her family. As a CDCR prisoner sentenced to 75 years to life, he deals with years of anguish.

Williams was struck out under California’s Three Strike Law for his third burglary case.

Playing for the Inside Tennis Team at San Quentin helps him to stay positive.

“Tennis changed my outlook on life. I learned to humble myself, because on the court there is no racism,” Williams said. “I learned to socialize because as an outlaw, you don’t socialize, you live like a chameleon.”

On Fridays, he cleans the court, because every Saturday morning from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. they match racquets against members of the surrounding communities, who enter the prison to partake in the sport and share what they’ve learned as tennis players.

“I come in to help guys,” said team co-coordinator and volunteer Sharon S., who does not come inside from a social justice perspective. She believes there are programs for that, but says she does help people change the way they think.

“When I play with inmates, I give them pointers because some of them don’t play teams as well and working as a team is what tennis is,” she said. “It’s about camaraderie and boosting up your partner.”

First-time volunteer Beth C. said, “Anytime I want to get better at something, it’s easier said than done. I have to reach in for patience, humility and acceptance of myself.”

“Tennis is mental; anytime I’m focused on what other people think of my game, I’m distracted.”

Like Beth C., Williams has had a humbling experience playing tennis. It’s hard for him to focus on rehabilitation when he’s thinking of how his decision to commit crimes caused him to miss the greater half of his daughter’s life.

His daughter holds resentment toward him for going back and forth to prison. They were estranged before he was struck out on his current term.

Three years ago, she explained in a letter that she did not mean to push him away from her, but wished he wouldn’t have given up on her either. It was the last time he heard from her.

“She told me, ‘don’t think I don’t love you.’ She said she loves me and thinks of me all the time, but she’s dealing with life,” Williams said.

He has been at San Quentin for more than three years and started coming out to play tennis two years ago for the rehabilitative aspect. In Williams’ transition from crime rackets to tennis racquets, he learned cross match tennis and became more comfortable with socializing by talking to volunteers who come inside to play.

Fanny Gamble, a member of Harbor Point Tennis Club, said, “All the tools and blessings I got from tennis I apply to life, like taking one point at a time, think ahead, stay positive, strategize, have a plan, and don’t forget to smile, because it’s supposed to be fun.”

Gamble has been player of the year for her age group, and she represented the U.S. at the world cup last April in South Africa.

Williams said that being in prison with a life sentence often puts a frown on things.

He stresses over the pain he caused his daughter and the disappointment as a father who repeatedly came back and forth to prison. The disappointment with himself had been his trigger to give up on the idea of being a socially polite person. On the verge of quitting on April 14, he talked to volunteer Marty Silverman about it, because his desire to quit was triggered by depression.

“Today I’ve concluded walking away is not an option,” Williams said.

http://sanquentinnews.com/optionb-org-support-group-overcoming-effects-incarceration/

ROOTS Solidarity Run helps spirits of the community

by

ROOTS’ members at the finish line at the Oakland Run Festival

ROOTS’ members at the finish line at the Oakland Run Festival

While community volunteers ran in the Oakland Run Festival to raise money for an ethnic studies program at San Quentin State Prison, 33 incarcerated men ran in solidarity with them.

The Asian Prisoner’s Support Community (APSC) ran to raise funds for the Restoring Our Original True Selves (ROOTS) program on March 24 and 25.

“Our community and volunteers, in their free time, ran to raise money for us,” Kevin “K” Neang, the ROOTS incarcerated chairman, said. “Let us show solidarity and run with them.”

The 33 incarcerated participants completed a combined 141.5 miles. The group included men who weren’t athletes but who ran in support. Even men like Thanh Tran, who never attended a ROOTS class, ran 53 laps, the equivalent of a half-marathon.

“if y’all think I did it…just give me a lawyer, dawg, ‘cause this is not what’s up.”  Warren Demesme said during police questioning.  The Louisiana Supreme Court held that this reference was too ambiguous to count as a request for counsel.  REASON Magazine, January 2018

This marked the second year APSC and ROOTS ran to honor incarcerated family members or friends in prison, naming their running teams after their incarcerated loved ones and raising funds in support. This year’s goal was to raise $15,000 for ROOTS. It took a week and half, but they reached their goal, according to Tracy Nguyen.

Nguyen, a volunteer for both ROOTS and APSC, ran in a relay portion of the Oakland Run Festival. There was also a 5K race and a half-marathon.

Last year, Nguyen ran for Team Free Lee, in honor of a San Quentin inmate who has since been released. This year, Lee ran with Nguyen and Nighiep Ke Lam for Team “Free Tran,” in honor of Sa “Mega-Tran” Tran, whom immigration officers arrested after he paroled from San Quentin. (Tran is fighting the deportation.)

Nguyen, said her team used a basketball tournament to train for the run. It didn’t help.

Intimate partner violence accounts for 15 percent of all violent crime. One in three women and one in four men in the United States has experienced some form of physical violence by an intimate partner. Husbands are five times more likely to kill wives than vice versa. A third of female homicide victims are killed by an intimate male partner or ex-partner, according to FBI reports. http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/ndv0312.pdf

Team Tran came in last, partly because the next runner arrived to the relay point late.

Besides meeting its fundraising goal, the race succeeded in achieving its larger agenda of strengthening ties in the Asian community.

“We came in last but Tran was first in our hearts,” Nguyen said.

San Quentin News & Wall City Merchandise


http://sanquentinnews.com/optionb-org-support-group-overcoming-effects-incarceration/

Translate »