Community volunteers and prisoner graduates were honored at a recent banquet marking the second year of a San Quentin program designed to change how inmates think about themselves.
“We need to change our perception that society is against us. That perception is what leads to a lot of crime,” said R. Malik Harris, president of the Alliance For Change group. “We need to change the way parents treat their children – many of us are parents and many of us will be getting out some day.”
About 100 prisoners and 50 community members attend the dinner, including eight inmate facilators and 14 graduates.
“Alliance For Change is a self-help program that shows inmates the relationship between their feelings and their actions,” said Harris. He quoted Frederick Douglass: “Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither person nor property will be safe.”
AFC focuses on self-discovery, accepting responsibility and realizing the necessity for change with structured classes.
The program is developing classes to show inmates how to prepare for parole board hearings, how the justice system works, and show ex-offenders how to reenter their communities safely, according to its public relations representative, Chris Deragon.
“Our program shows men how to change from the inside out; this will keep people from returning to prison,” said Harris. “We teach men how to understand themselves. We’re in the business of making better people.”
Community volunteers met regularly with inmate facilitators four to five times a week, over a 16-week period.
“When I tell my friends that I come inside San Quentin to help them with their program, my friends cannot image the warm feeling that the men give me. The inmates treat me with more respect than people on the streets. They treat me like family,” said AFC community volunteer Kristy Ronnquist.
Community volunteer Samantha Epstein and inmate Felix Lucero were given awards at the banquet for developing AFC’s mentoring program.
“The program teaches incarcerated men how to re-integrate back into their communities as an asset by focusing on all aspects of justice,” said Deragon. “Once a person understands the justice system as a whole, the participant is able to understand what learned behaviors were most influential into their deviant behavior.”
The program’s chief sponsors are correctional Lt. Sam Robinson and community volunteer Romania Jaundoo.
www.alliance4change.org
