San Quentin News

Written By Incarcerated - Advancing Social Justice

Advocates in Oakland push to end LWOP

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Participants gather after the event for a photo

California has an estimated 5,000 people serving life without parole (LWOP), and their plight is almost never discussed—especially the way the sentence affects female prisoners.

A campaign to drop California’s use of LWOP received a public airing late last year. Kelly Savage, Tammy Cooper-Garvin, Brandi Taliano and Susan Bustamante shared their pain and the trauma of serving a LWOP sentence with a packed audience.

The Oakland event marked the first time the women were able to participate in a town hall meeting similar to one that first created public awareness of their situation. Then-Governor Jerry Brown commuted the women sentences.

Their stories and those of others still imprisoned are described in an audio storytelling project titled “A Living Chance,” released through the California Coalition for Women Prisoners (CCWP).

“The event was eye-opening; people really don’t know what LWOP is,” said Laverne Shoemaker, another panelist, whose sentence was commuted. “Once I was in a group of 23 San Francisco police officers, I had to explain and I mean really break it down to them what an LWOP sentence is and what a life sentence is.”

In criminal cases involving “special circumstances” a person may be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole instead of condemned to death in the penalty phase of a trial. The sentence is not restricted only to the person who pulls the trigger, but also to anyone else who was a participant in the crime as well, under California’s “felony murder rule.”

The advocates are fighting to have LWOP eliminated from the state’s penal code. They argue that it is worse than the death penalty, because it is really a living death sentence.

“I was praying that I wasn’t going to get the death penalty,” shared Taliano. “I was praying for LWOP, ironically—it seemed like the lesser of the two. Then I go to [prison]… and my counselor says, ‘do you understand that you’re going to die in prison?’ And it hit me. It literally hit me.”

Shoemaker said she was distressed to discover that many law enforcement officers have no idea what LWOP means, “I was frustrated and couldn’t understand it, because they really did not know. I had to ask them are you guys freaking kidding me? Am I being punked? They were really, like, shocked and flabbergasted.

Drop LWOP group addressing the audience about the struggles and problems they are facing

“I could see the confusion—they were perplexed and had mixed emotions that they could potentially be a part of giving someone ‘the other death penalty,’” added Shoemaker.

“We also needed to bring awareness to intimate partner battering,” Tammy Cooper-Garvin, told SQ News. “When I tell my story it makes me feel better and I pray that I am helping someone.

“There are many layers to my story and I get emotional when I tell my story, because I can still feel that little girl who wanted to be loved.

“I don’t regret coming to prison,” added Cooper-Garvin. “I needed to be incarcerated for that period of time to work on myself, and to show society that I was a changed woman who valued, and respected others, and also valued myself. Taliano and Cooper-Garvin both joined the Long Termer’s Organization, while incarcerated, a group of like-minded people serving LWOP supporting each other. They credit the program for helping turned their lives around.

“Prison taught me how to be a better person, it showed me how to deal with life,” said Cooper-Garvin. “I went to many self-help groups. I wanted to know what was different from me and my siblings. I knew I wanted to change, so I surrounded myself around positive lifers.

“I also knew I was a LWOP and that I had to make a life for myself. I didn’t have a good life in the world but with change I could have a life in prison, so I took full advantage of what CDCR had to offer,” added Cooper-Garvin.

With a second chance at life, the women are taking their stories and plight to Sacramento, lobbying for policy changes legislator by legislator. With support of other reform organizations such as CCWP, All of Us or None, Legal Services for Children and many others, the women are giving their time, energy and resources to change the narrative for all incarcerated and those finishing their sentences and returning home.

“We’re working on things like getting fair wages for all the incarcerated,” said Shoemaker. “We’re also trying to get the gate money raised to $1,000 (currently the funds upon release are limited to $200, unchanged for decades). We’re fighting for things that will make your conditions better in there and make your transition easier in the free world,” added Shoemaker.

CCWP hosted the “Drop the LWOP” event. Adrienne Skye Roberts moderated the affair and has work tirelessly to bring the “A Living Chance” campaign to Californians and legislators through the audio stories, portraits and postcards of the women who are still serving the LWOP sentence.

The newly released women thought they were supposed to die in prison. They felt they were held in bondage and captive to their shame and guilt, but have made that transition for success.

“If I could achieve my freedom anyone can,” said Cooper-Garvin. “It was hard work for me and it will be hard work for you also, but the pay-off is truly worth it.

“We may think people are closed minded about giving us a chance and it is just the opposite— they welcome us with our past because many see the good in us,” she concluded.

Adrienne Roberts examines portraits of female LWOPS

CDCR leader and others seek prison reform answers in Norway

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Secretary Diaz calls for a sense of urgency for prison reforms

CDCR Secretary Ralph Diaz (back row, 5th from right) and formerly incarcerated Adnan Khan (in center)

As they covered 5,000 miles and an ocean on an international flight on Sept. 14, CDCR Secretary, Ralph Diaz and Connie Gipson had plenty of time to consider their doubts.

“It won’t work here.”

“California is too big, too violent and plagued by prison gangs.”

Those thoughts soon gave way to excited optimism, as the pair, CDCR’s Secretary and Division of Adult Institutions (DAI) Director, bonded with senior staff from the governor’s office, formerly incarcerated people, peace officer union representatives and criminal justice advocates in a life-changing environment across the globe.

Over six days, Diaz and Gipson toured Norwegian prisons, training facilities and reentry programs, witnessing famed humanistic practices that deliver wellness, safety and empowerment to everyone involved.

The trip, funded by philanthropic programs and organized by an ambitious visionary at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), made significant impact on CDCR leadership. “The world shrunk,” Diaz explained. “I saw staff and inmates engaging in a very positive way, as if the environment belonged to all of them, not just inmates or staff.

“At that moment I saw aspects of this that can be done.”

The team

Diaz and Gipson were joined by California Men’s Colony. Warden Josie Gastelo and Salinas Valley State Prison Warden Matthew Atchley and Captain Edward Brown. Governor Newsom [sent] representatives Daniel Seeman, Deputy Cabinet Secretary, and Kelli Evans, Deputy Legal Affairs Secretary for Criminal Justice in the Office of the Governor.

Other attendees included formerly incarcerated advocates Adnan Khan (Co-Founder of Re:Store Justice) and Sam Lewis (Executive Director of the Anti-Recidivism Coalition), or representatives from the California Correctional Peace Officers Association.

“I think it was the right people in the room, and what was so fascinating was that we all came to our discoveries throughout the week,” Gipson said. “It was really beneficial to have so many different perspectives going through the same experience.”

“We chose Norway because they have a very public health approach to corrections. They say that people go to court to get punished and go to prison to become better neighbors,” said Williams. “Every single policy/procedure and contact with a program is seen as an opportunity to bring health and well-being to people who are incarcerated, and simultaneously this gives staff and correctional officers the opportunity to change people’s lives for the better.”

To make the trip happen, Amend partnered with the community-based nonprofit organization Smart Justice to raise philanthropic funds. The biggest contributors included The Jacob and Valeria Langeloth Foundation and the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation.

Advocates for all

In Norway, the only human right an incarcerated person loses is liberty. The system, including architecture and habitat, is designed to mimic the community those citizens will return to. Interactions with staff are specifically structured to champion wellness and safety.

“I believe we have segments of what is happening in Norway going on in our institutions,” Diaz said. “We have to line it up, put it on paper and give employees the permission to care about the inmate population and remind them that rehabilitation has been a part of their job since the day they signed up.”

There are clear benefits to the normalcy of the environment for staff as well as inmates. Williams said initial reports from Norway show health and life expectancy metrics for correctional staff mirror the outcomes of other citizens. She pointed to research in California that has highlighted a public health crisis among correctional employees, who are more prone to depression, suicide and poor life expectancy.

Khan, whose work at Re:Store Justice brings victims and offenders together for dialogue and forgiveness, said, “My advocacy has always been about crime survivors, bringing them in to prison, and currently/formerly incarcerated people, but when Brie talked about suicides and life expectancy of staff — that bothered me. I had to reevaluate my advocacy. Am I choosing to be the leader of a specific demographic of justice reform or an advocate for public health and humanity? Human rights and public health advocacy has to include correctional officers that are suffering and in pain.”

How Norway changed

Norway’s prison model, thriving at a reported recidivism rate of 20%, wasn’t built overnight. Advocates point to demands by the Norwegian Parliament that authorized a shift to rehabilitation and humanistic practices in the late 1990s.

Over time, accompanied by changes in sentencing laws, massive changes to all aspects of the correctional system began to take hold.

Those changes go far beyond the supportive housing units with private restrooms, couches, stocked kitchen units or even small forests in recreational yards that keep offenders connected to the world around them.

Officers interact warmly and respectfully on a first-name basis with incarcerated people and are trained much longer—two years versus CDCR’s 13-week Basic Correctional Officer Academy. They are schooled on psychology, criminology, human rights and ethics. The process includes a lot of perspective shifts, like placing an officer in the role of an offender and experiencing different custodial tactics.

“I always look at experiences, trainings with an open mind, but I admit, I was pretty apprehensive about this,” Gipson said. “Early on I felt like this was too good to be true, but the more I started to listen to their concepts and principles of normality, humanity, the more I bought in. Everything clicked, and I was just blown away. I came back excited because I feel there are a lot of possibilities for us.”

CDCR and CCPOA leaders at Norwegian prison

The California way

A theme understood by trip-goers and emphasized by Norwegian officials is the practicality of change.

Norway didn’t evolve into a better form of correctional care immediately, and uprooting the same system and dropping it into a vastly different population is not the solution for California.

“We are not trying to make it the Norway way or the European way but the California way,” Diaz said. “We are a unique, diverse populace with cultures within cultures, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make necessary changes.”

“We just have to make it the California way. That doesn’t mean saying no to security but yes to a different way of doing business that improves the workplace and makes a better life for people returning to our communities,” he added.

Diaz said he looks forward to collaborating with other states that strive for similar innovation and emphasized the importance of supporting an environment that both acknowledges the suffering of crime victims and delivers on a promise to create fewer victims in the future.

He joined Gipson in a presentation to CDCR wardens across the state on Nov. 6, highlighting the most impactful concepts and practices that simultaneously promote wellness, safety and rehabilitation.

“We have to look at our historic policies and ask ourselves about each one: Why? Is it humane?” Diaz said. “As policy makers it is our job to change policies and explain why, because in the end we have to create a more humane prison system.”

The insight inspires action.

“My first step is getting a workgroup together to look at what policies and procedures we have in play that escalate vs. de-escalate,” Gipson said. “I also want to look at our training and talk about giving staff the comfort to manage situations within their authority without fear of making a mistake.”

“My big takeaway is a sense of urgency to make these necessary reforms because we have witnessed positive impact for all those involved in a correctional setting and for those returned to communities,” Diaz said. “I know what can be done. I know the department’s abilities and the ability of staff to get things done.”

That’s the California way.

Newsom proposes reducing probation and boosting rehabilitation programs

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Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom talking with Juan Haines
Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom talking with Juan Haines

Gov. Gavin Newsom is proposing major changes in California’s criminal justice system by reducing probation to two years and boosting rehabilitation programs for offenders.

Newsom said the change is aimed at cutting costs and reducing recidivism.

He said he proposes spending “an unprecedented amount of money” — $210 million over four years – in rehabilitation programs early in the probation period, where they are believed most effective, The Associated Press reported Jan. 11.

The plan sets probation at a maximum of two years, down from five for felonies and three for misdemeanors.Probation officers support the change but police chiefs are opposed.

Longer probation terms allow officers to search offenders, their homes and vehicles to find drugs, weapons, stolen items or other evidence, said Ron Lawrence, president of the California Police Chiefs Association. According to him, this tends to reduce crimes.

Lawrence said his group opposes changes that would lessen accountability. “Lessening the tail on probation would frankly lessen that accountability.”

Support is voiced by the Chief Probation Officers of California. The group agrees that focusing on rehabilitative services is the best way to help change their behavior and reduce re-offense.”

“The data and the evidence and the science bears out,” Newsom said. “You front load services – those first 18 months are determinative. He said the change was prompted by a major increase in car burglaries following passage of a proposition that reclassified some felonies as misdemeanors.

“This goes directly to the car break-ins, this goes to the petty crime issue, this should be celebrated by the law enforcement community because of the intensity of services we want to provide,” Newsom said.

Longer duration of supervision not only costs money,” he said, “For small petty things you throw people back in the system and that cycle of violence perpetuates itself.”

The reform group Californians for Safety and Justice points out that ten times as many offenders are sentenced to probation than to prison but probation receives only a fraction of the funding.

Trump creates committee to address equality in law enforcement

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President Trump

President Donald Trump used another one of his executive orders to create a committee dealing with how to enforce the law equally and without bias, according to Tom Jackman of the Washington Post. With endorsements from organizations like the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, and others, the law would deal with equal protection, adding more people of color and females to the police force, and using 21st century techniques to fight crime.

“The thrust of the order,” said Nina J. Ginsberb, a Virginia-based lawyer who is president of the defense lawyers’ association, “begs the question as to how interested this commission will be in solving the deep and structural problems in America’s criminal justice system, as opposed to simply delivering on certain law enforcement requests.”

The U.S. attorney general will have the authority to determine the composition and the procedures for the functioning of the commission.

The measure was signed in October 2019, and those in charge have less than 10 months to complete their work. A similar bill is pending in Congress, the Dec. 23, 2019 story noted.

According to the article, the bill calls for review of policing poor communities, handling of the homeless issue, the needs of the mentally ill, and mass incarceration

Finding a way to make this happen presents a challenge not just for law enforcement, but other government agencies, said Terry Cunningham, deputy executive director for the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

Cunningham said that working groups have to find a bipartisan way in Congress to implement all of these things. “We’ll have their report, but how do you get it funded?”

The story reported finding funds requires a bipartisan panel and when the bill goes before the various committees the concern is that certain elements of the bill be phased-out. Across the aisle participation has been hard to achieve when working to iron-out delicate issues. This bill, however, affects the whole country. Law enforcement, along with the Justice Department, will try to get their way.

Biden reverses his past position on criminal justice

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Presidential candidate Joe Biden says his history of tough-on-crime legislation that led to mass incarcerations needs changes, The Intercept reports.

With upward of one in every two? families suffering the harms of mass incarceration, “Too many people are incarcerated,” Biden is quoted as saying in the Sept. 17 article.

During his time as leading Democrat in the U.S. Senate, he led a number of legislative actions to increase anti-crime laws.

He supported increased funding to states to build prisons and criticized then-President Jimmy Carter, a fellow Democrat, for not being tough enough on the war on drugs, the story says.

Under Carter the federal prison population actually fell by a quarter, though rising at the state level. A federal program Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA) provided resources to states for policing and prisons was being dismantled in the last days of the Carter administration, the article states.

“The American people believe we have waged war on crime and failed. Therefore, they concluded that nothing can be done about it,” Biden said at the time.

Biden worked to shed his party’s image of being soft on crime, reported The Intercept.

“As most old-line Democrats view it, the only ways we can deal with violence will have a negative impact on civil rights and liberties… I think that’s malarkey,” Biden told the New York Times.

A Biden-Thurmond bill would have increased penalties for drugs, expanded civil asset forfeiture, eliminated parole at the federal level, and would have created a drug czar position. Reagan vetoed the bill.

Biden supported the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 that lengthened sentences for many offenses such as 100:1 crack cocaine sentencing disparities.

These new laws led to an explosion of federal prisoners from 24,000 in 1980 to 216,000 in 2013, the article said.

In 1994, Biden pushed through a massive crime bill that authorized more than $30 billion in funding to expand state prisons and local police forces, the story noted.

SF Mayor to close City Hall jail

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By Dillon Kim, Journalism Guild Writer

California County Jails

San Francisco Mayor London Breed ordered City Hall to close down the Hall of Justice, including its jail, by July 2021 because the jail is structurally vulnerable to earthquakes.

This deadline has prompted city officials to try to find alternatives to rehouse the 300 inmates that are currently housed there, according to the San Francisco Examiner. While it searches for a place for the inmates, the city is already relocating the other departments also located within the Hall of Justice.

Possible rehousing options for inmates include renovating the currently unused jail in nearby San Bruno and transferring the inmates to Alameda County’s Santa Rita jail.

A member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors Matt Haney said, “I do not support sending folks to Alameda County. I don’t support building a new jail. I do support a plan for us to move forward and close this facility as soon as possible in an effective way.”

Haney and other supervisors think that a better solution would be to find alternatives to incarceration. Indeed, in 2015 the City of San Francisco made a commitment to seek alternatives to incarceration, establishing the Work Group to Re-envision the Jail Replacement Project. Matt Haney said,

“I don’t support building a new jail. I do support a plan for us to move forward and close this facility as soon as possible in an effective way”

The MacArthur Foundation awarded $2 million to District Attorney George Gascon’s office to address racial disparities in jails and reducing the inmate population to 1,044 within two years. Alternatives to incarceration can save substantial money. It costs the city an average of $250.11 per day to incarcerate an individual.

Mayor London Breed said if the inmate population doesn’t decline by the time of the jail closure, the inmates will be sent “to an alternative facility on a temporary basis.”

Haney stated he was “con- cerned about a lack of a plan” regarding Mayor Breed’s announcement. He continued, “Without having a plan, my fear is that the result of that is trying to back us into some- thing that we should not be doing. The sheriff herself said that it would be horrible for us to send people over to Alameda County. Then why are we considering that? Why are we acting as though that is a viable option in any way?”

Haney apparently believes that Mayor Breed’s “alternative facility” is the Alameda County Jail located across the bay in Alameda County.

Board members think the Santa Rita facility is a bad alternative in part because it further distances incarcerated individuals from their families and attorneys.

Sandra Fewer, the board’s Chairperson of the Budget Committee, said she is “look- ing to identify strategies to further reduce the jail population” and is seeking alternatives “to avoid a scenario where we have to send any people to Santa Rita or jails out of the county.”

Warren and criminal justice reform

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Presidential candidate and Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) finally focused her attention and political career on criminal justice reform. Her plan includes combatting crime and improving public safety, according to an August Vox article.

Warren’s proposal emphasizes establishing a clemency board for early release, investing more on addiction treatment, ending the death penalty, eliminating solitary confinement, allowing inmates to make phone calls free of charge, improving mental health treatment and increasing police reforms. She also calls for repealing the 1994 crime law.

Warren’s proposed plan joins those of other Democratic presidential candidates who also support criminal justice reform.

The Vox article pointed out that the sheer mass of incarcerated people in America surpasses even that of authoritarian regimes such as those in Cuba, Russia, and China.

The article noted however that even if she does win the nomination and later the presidency, criminal justice reform may be an uphill battle for Sen. Warren. Eighty-eight percent of inmates are under state control rather than federal. In the past, state governments have resisted federal reform incentives, particularly in Republican-controlled cities and states, according to Vox.

Furthermore, two multi-billion dollar industries will oppose aggressively her most controversial proposals: a ban on private prisons and allowing inmates to make free phone calls while they are incarcerated.

Vox questions how much of Warren’s plan could get Congressional approval. The article cites the years that it took Congress to pass the “fairly mild criminal justice reform bill” in the First Step Act.

If Warren is also pushing for passage of her many other proposals, Vox noted, that may reduce “the possibility that Congress even gets to sweeping criminal justice reform at all.”

Maine and Vermont encourage the incarcerated to cast their vote even while in prison

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When most felons go to prison they lose their right to vote in most of the 50 states, the strongest exceptions being Maine and Vermont, reported Mother Jones.

Depending on what you were convicted for, states like Mississippi, Alaska and Alabama let some of their prison population vote.

Volunteers at the Maine and Vermont prisons come into the facilities to register prisoners to vote and give them encouragement, by letting them know that their vote is very important.

Law librarian John Sughrue, who works at one of Vermont’s prisons, thinks that voting is imperative, the only “effective tool” prisoners have. Yet he noted that only a small percent of the population exercise their right to vote.

“It seems the current political climate has rendered us inexorably divided,” he wrote via the prison email system.

Madeline Motta, who volunteers in Vermont’s prisons and helps register prisoners to vote, said of her effort that most of the prisoners are their own worst enemies, according to the article.

“We explained to inmates that elected officials are making decisions about your quality of life both while you are incarcerated and once you are out,” she noted.

More variables need to be looked at as to why those who are incarcerated and can vote, don’t vote. They feel that their votes will not make a difference. A high percentage of the inmates cannot read or write, so filling out a registration ballot becomes an issue. Since they are cut off from the Internet, most can’t get news or form opinions about issues or candidates.

Executive Director of Prison Legal News, Paul Wright, says that lower turnouts among prisoners are to be expected.

“We don’t have much of a democracy when it comes to candidate choice,” he said. “Making the conscious choice in refraining from exercising your rights is just as important as exercising them,” Wright told the Mother Jones reporter.

Just like outside on the streets, inside prison walls you have voter apathy among the incarcerated.

Several states are working on solutions that will allow the incarcerated to vote or get back their voting privileges/rights once out of prison.

Ten states and Washington, D.C., are currently trying to pass legislation to get prisoners the right to vote while in jail, according to Mother Jones.

Many top American companies were founded by immigrants

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About 45% of America’s top companies were founded by immigrants or their children. These firms brought in $6.1 trillion in revenues in the fiscal year 2018, according to a recent report.

This figure put into context is larger than the GDP of Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom, reports the New American Economy Research Fund.

These companies are strong drivers of both the American economy and the global economy. Employing 13.5 million workers, a population, if ranked as a state, would be America’s fifth largest, the July 22 report says.

The report, called the New American Fortune 500, revealed that 223 companies were founded by immigrants or their children. Of those companies, 101 were founded directly by people born outside of America. Children of im- migrants founded 122 of the 500.

New York leads the nation with 35 firms founded by immigrants. California was second with 29, followed by Illinois with 21, Texas with 18, Virginia with 12, Florida and New Jersey with 10 each.

These companies play a significant part in the states economies. New York reported 56.3% of GDP was brought in by these firms. In Illinois the percentage was 70.3% of GDP.

The New American Fortune 500 reported 3.2 million immigrants own and operate businesses.

Former presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke visits SQ

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Beto O’Rourke with Father George Williams (back), SQ staff (second from right) and SQ tour guides

Presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke, who has since dropped out of the race, came to San Quentin Sept. 18 to witness firsthand the power of rehabilitative transformation.

A small group of prisoners met with O’Rourke in the SQ chapel to speak about how they used their incarceration to become better human beings—fully cognizant of the harms they once caused society.

“One of my big takeaways is that we are all capable of change,” O’Rourke said to news cameras outside SQ afterwards. “When we focus on the person’s ability to make that change and their ability to transition into civilian life successfully— there’s a better outcome not just for that former inmate… not just for the taxpayer….

“There’s a better outcome for this country.”

O’Rourke and his team’s arrival— devoid of any fanfare—brought choir practice to a standstill as the inmates stopped to introduce themselves and shake the presidential hopeful’s hand.

“How can I go to my constituents and tell them why I support releasing you?” O’Rourke asked of the prisoners who greeted him.

Seven incarcerated SQ tour guides opened the discussion by asking those present to join in a moment of silence to honor fallen victims everywhere, including those killed amongst the recent Texas mass shootings in O’Rourke’s home state.

“We’d also ask you to be vulnerable today,” said Kevin Neang, who will be released at year’s end after serving almost nine years for a manslaughter plea agreement. “Close your eyes and think of somebody you love, a person you would do any- thing for.

“Imagine if we could look at each other—everybody— in that same light.”

Watson Allison, incarcerated now for over 37 years, stood before O’Rourke and described his own personal journey from Death Row to substance abuse counselor and advocate for change.

“O’Rourke told me that I’m the first person he’s ever talked with who was actually from Death Row,” Allison told SQ News. “He said he was very intrigued by my level of insight and my humble demeanor.

“I know he was surprised when I told him I support the idea of capital punishment—even in my own circumstances. But the way the death penalty has been administered so unjustly across the country, that’s what needs to be changed.”

The tour guides, whose convicted crimes and prison terms offered a wide range of perspectives, wanted to know what topics O’Rourke would most like to hear about.

“Whatever you’re willing to share with me, whatever thoughts you have on any is- sues—prison reform, climate change, I’m here to listen to you,” said O’Rourke.

“I talked to him about how we need to do away with Three Strikes and mandatory minimum sentencing,” said Ron Ehde, incarcerated 27 years for second degree burglary. “And he was listening. Man, he was really listening.

“Me, a three-striker serving 50-years-to-life, sitting across and dialoguing with a presidential candidate— only at San Quentin.”

O’Rourke’s staff took notes while each prisoner offered his own narrative to- ward significant pieces of the criminal justice reform puzzle: childhood trauma, the school-to-prison pipeline, substance abuse, sentencing reform, wrongful convictions—and the potential for change.

Choir member Dwight Krizman said, “My impression was O’Rourke was taken aback when he realized that only a small portion of inmates were positively affected by Proposition 57.

“He definitely seemed shocked at how slow the implementation of the law’s execution was by CDCR itself and their reinterpretation of what the voters voted for.”

Allison explained how one of O’Rourke’s staff commented on the prisoners’ level of accountability and how they consistently referred to their victims by name. “They did not expect that type of format coming in here—where we honor our victims, put our victims first,” said Allison.

A planned tour in August needed to be canceled when the shooting crisis erupted back home in El Paso, and this time the prisoners’ insights proved more relevant than O’Rourke walking the facility.

“Once we got rolling and opened up to him, Lt. Robin- son [who escorted O’Rourke in] told us, ‘There’s no time for a real tour—you guys keep doing what you’re doing,’” said Ehde. “O’Rourke was trying to really gain clarity on a bunch of stuff.”

Choir member Kelvin Ross sat in the pews and listened to their interaction.

“Remorse and personal accountability seemed to intrigue Beto as the men shared their testimonies,” noted Ross. “And later they questioned him on his thoughts regarding crime and punishment.

“I am curious if the narrative concerning real prison reform and excessive sentencing will make its way into the national conversation and effect a positive change—as opposed to the same age-old rhetoric from a new set of talking heads.”

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