San Quentin News

Written By Incarcerated - Advancing Social Justice

AT SAN QUENTIN, OVERCROWDING LAID THE GROUNDWORK FOR AN EXPLOSIVE COVID-19 OUTBREAK

by

All but nine of California’s 35 prisons house more people than the facility was designed to hold. 

The following article by Juan Haines, Senior Editor of the San Quentin News and Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg is reprinted by the permission of The Appeal, which produces original journalism on how policy, politics, and the legal system impact America’s most vulnerable people.

The conditions for the novel coronavirus to spread rapidly have long been in place at San Quentin State Prison. Like much of California’s prison system, it has been dangerously overcrowded.

As of May 30, no prisoners at San Quentin had tested positive for COVID-19. That day, 121 people were transferred there from a facility with a deadly outbreak. On May 31, California’s department of corrections reported the first confirmed case of a prisoner with COVID-19 at the prison—and within weeks, hundreds were infected. 

San Quentin Prison Industry Authority chair factory transforms into an alternative care site

As of July 20, there have been 2,089 confirmed cases of COVID-19 among prisoners at San Quentin, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR). About 1,100 people have recovered.

Thirteen people incarcerated at the prison have died from complications arising from COVID-19, according to the CDCR; six were serving a death sentence. Last year, Governor Gavin Newsom imposed a moratorium on executions and ordered the execution chamber closed. California has not carried out an execution since 2006. 

So far this year, 11 death row prisoners have died, compared with nine for the entirety of 2019. Two died in February of natural causes, according to the CDCR. 

The cause of death for the remaining nine is pending, according to CDCR’s website. Of those nine, three people were found unresponsive in their single cells—on March 28, June 24, and July 1. The remaining six died between July 3 and July 20 of apparent complications from COVID-19, according to the CDCR; all six were hospitalized at the time of their death.

Some who test positive for COVID-19 or have been exposed to someone who tests positive are isolated in administrative segregation housing units, according to the CDCR. Administrative segregation is generally considered to be a euphemism for solitary confinement.

“Those being placed into segregated housing due to COVID-19 are not being moved for punitive reasons, they are moved in order to prevent further spread of the COVID-19 virus in the affected unit,” reads the CDCR website. “Patients on isolation are screened twice a day by health care staff.”

When asked for the number of people in administrative segregation because of COVID-19, CDCR spokesperson Jeffrey Callison, emailed The Appeal, “We don’t share numbers in quarantine or isolation.”

As early as March, public health experts warned of an impending crisis facing the state’s overcrowded prisons. (The Justice Collaborative organized a letter by public health experts to urge the governor to release individuals who are over 60 or medically vulnerable, and identified as low-risk or have five years or less left on their sentences. The Appeal is an editorially independent project of The Justice Collaborative.) 

“The crowded conditions make it difficult, if not impossible, for the prison system to spread people out,” said Don Specter, executive director of the Prison Law Office. “They’re living in a place which makes contagion very probable.”

The Prison Law Office, along with other attorneys, filed an emergency motion in March, asking the federal district court to order the CDCR to release to parole or post-release community supervision prisoners within a year of their parole date who were either serving time for a nonviolent offense or identified as low risk by the CDCR’s risk assessment tool. Even before the pandemic, some prisons had too few on-site medical beds to meet patients’ needs, the attorneys wrote. A pandemic, they cautioned, would be catastrophic. The court denied their motion. 

Throughout the pandemic, the prisons have remained overcrowded even though the department of corrections has reduced the state prison population by about 10,000 people since March. All but nine of California’s 35 prisons house more people than they were designed to hold. For the prisons to operate at about 100 percent capacity, the population would have to be reduced by more than 16,000 people. Without mass releases, few options remain to keep prisoners safe. 

To stem transmissions, San Quentin’s population must be reduced by 50 percent, according to a report released in June by the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health and Amend, a prison reform organization. As of July 15, the prison housed 3,362 people, at about 109 percent of its capacity. At the beginning of this month, David Sears, an infectious disease specialist and professor at the University of California-San Francisco, spoke to state legislators as a representative of Amend.

“California prisons are already over 100 percent capacity,” he testified. “We must depopulate all of our prisons immediately if we are to have any hope of avoiding what has happened at San Quentin at California’s other facilities.”

After public outcry about the rising infection and death rates, the state’s department of corrections announced on July 10 that up to an estimated 8,000 prisoners could be eligible for release by the end of August. As part of this effort, the CDCR will grant a positive programming credit to prisoners, which would reduce a sentence by 12 weeks. Those who committed a “serious rules violation” between March 1 and July 5 of this year are not eligible for the credit. Serious rules violations include murder, rape, and assault, as well as possession of a cellphone and “gang activity,” according to the CDCR’s announcement. 

The department also plans to release prisoners based on a number of criteria, such as type of offense, medical vulnerabilities, and time left to serve. 

For those incarcerated at prisons with “large populations of high-risk patients,” people will be considered for release if they have a year or less to serve, are not serving time for a violent crime, have no current or prior sentence that requires them to register as a sex offender, and are not at a high risk of violence, according to the department. 

Prisoners who are 30 and over and meet these criteria are “immediately eligible for release,” according to the CDCR. Those who are 29 and younger, will be reviewed case by case. These groups will be screened on a rolling basis until the department “determines such releases are no longer necessary.”

People who are identified as “high-risk medical,” such as those who are over 65 and have chronic conditions, are eligible for release, as long as they are not serving a life without the possibility of parole or death sentence, and are not identified as “high-risk sex offenders,” according to the CDCR. 

The department is also “reviewing potential release protocols for incarcerated persons who are in hospice or pregnant,” according to the department’s announcement. “Everybody will be reviewed based on both their current health risk and risk to public safety.” CDCR spokesperson Dana Simas confirmed to The Appeal that the review will include those sentenced to death or life without the possibility of parole. 

The department will be “expediting the release” of those who are still incarcerated despite being approved for parole by the Board of Parole Hearings and the governor. As of July 15, there were 436 people who were incarcerated after having received a grant of parole, according to the CDCR. 

The department of corrections’ announcement featured a number of statements from local advocacy groups, praising the release plan. “We applaud the Governor for working on two crucial fronts: getting the most vulnerable people out of harm’s way and stemming the spread of COVID-19 inside prisons and neighboring communities,” said Anne Irwin, director of Smart Justice California. 

But other experts condemned it as dangerously inadequate. 

The type of crime should not disqualify people for release, as there is no correlation between offense and risk to public safety, said Hadar Aviram, a professor at the University of California Hastings College of the Law. “It’s too little, it’s too late, it’s too reactive, and it’s too restrictive,” she said of the CDCR’s plan.

Those who are over 50 should be prioritized for release, as research shows people typically age out of committing crime, she said. More than 30,000 people age 50 and older were incarcerated as of December 31, 2017, the most recently available CDCR data. According to the same report, almost half of the state’s prisoners—over 60,000—were identified as low-risk to reoffend. 

“I’m seeing the pattern of trying to carve out of the prison population,” Aviram said, “these slivers of people that they think are going to be non-controversial and hoping that if they have this sliver and this sliver and this sliver, overall the numbers are going to add up. The numbers are not going to add up. The number is 8,000. It’s not enough.”

Adnan Khan, executive director of Restore Justice, agrees that the plan fails to protect the people incarcerated inside the state’s prisons. The day before the plan was announced, he stood outside San Quentin at a press conference with the Stop San Quentin Outbreak coalition. 

Adnan Khan speaking at the press conference

“This is not a COVID response. COVID responses are urgent and they’re much more drastic,” he said. “This is more of a political response to the pressure versus a COVID response for health.”

In 2003, Khan, then 18 years old and homeless, committed a robbery with an accomplice. He had agreed to grab the victim’s marijuana, believing that no weapons were going to be used. But during the crime the getaway driver stabbed the victim, killing him.  

Under the felony murder rule, Khan was held responsible for the murder, and sentenced to 25 years to life. Last year, he went before Judge Laurel Brady who resentenced Khan, then 34, to three years, thanks to a change in California’s felony murder statute. 

“In a matter of three minutes I went from being a violent, crazy criminal offender, whatever those derogatory terms are,” said Khan. “Three minutes later, I’m not even on parole or probation. I’m safe for society.”

Khan was incarcerated at San Quentin for four years. At least two people he served time with their died from COVID-19, he said.

“I’m doing this interview with a heavy heart and really frustrated,” he said. “It’s like, who’s next? Which one of our friends is next?”

The crisis facing California prisoners has been years in the making. Between 1980 and 2006, the state’s prison population increased by 514 percent, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, in part because of harsh sentencing laws. In 1994, California enacted the three strikes law, which mandated at least a 25 to life sentence for any third felony. 

As the prison population increased, conditions inside deteriorated. 

In 1990, a class action lawsuit, Coleman v. Brown, alleged that prisoners with severe mental illness were denied adequate mental healthcare. The federal court agreed and appointed a special master to monitor reforms. In 2007, he reported that the declining quality of care was due to overcrowding. 

Then in 2001, the Prison Law Office filed a class action suit, Plata v. Brown, alleging that prisoners with serious medical issues were also denied adequate care. About four years later, the court appointed a receiver to oversee changes to the medical system. In 2008, he reported that overcrowding was contributing to dangerously inadequate medical care and the spread of infectious diseases. 

The cases were consolidated before a three-judge panel and, in 2009, the panel ordered the state to reduce its prison population to 137.5 percent of design capacity within two years. Individual prisons could go beyond that, as long as other prisons balanced them out. 

“Until the problem of overcrowding is overcome it will be impossible to provide constitutionally compliant care to California’s prison population,” the judges wrote. 

The state appealed and, in 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed that overcrowding in California’s prison system violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. “Prisoners are crammed into spaces neither designed nor intended to house inmates,” wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy for the majority. “As many as 200 prisoners may live in a gymnasium, monitored by as few as two or three correctional officers.”

Prisoners at San Quentin have had to struggle with the ominous threat of infection in an increasingly distressing environment. They can only shower every three days, unless they’ve been identified as critical workers who are permitted to shower after their shift, according to a page on the CDCR website that details actions the department is taking to address the outbreak at San Quentin. 

On July 14, the CDCR suspended phone calls in shared spaces, according to CDCR spokesperson Callison. When asked if there is any phone access that is not in communal spaces, Callison emailed The Appeal that there is not. “If it is a legal call, requested by the attorney or the court, it is facilitated in a counselor’s office on a non-recorded phone,” he wrote. 

The CDCR has also attempted to stem transmission by increasing social distancing among prisoners. As the outbreak at San Quentin became one of the largest in the country, tents to house prisoners went up on the baseball field outside.

In the spring, the gym was turned into housing, according to the CDCR. In Amend’s report, the authors warned that “there is little to no ventilation” inside the San Quentin gym. The conditions, they wrote, were creating a “high-risk for a catastrophic super spreader event.”

On April 11, North Block had just finished serving breakfast to the more than 750 prisoners there. “I need seven volunteers to work in the gym,” a correctional officer asked over the block’s public address system. 

The day before, a flatbed truck drove up to the gym. The truck’s sideboards were topped with battleship-gray 3-inch twin-size mattresses that most California prisoners sleep on.

Six prisoners went to the gym to set up 112 cots, in two rows of four with 30 inches between beds on the sides, and 12 inches head to head. Six feet separated 14 pods of eight beds, each. Several men continued the work over the next two days. For their labor, the set-up crew earned extra lunches and cleaning supplies.

Before the pandemic, the gym’s morning hours were filled with prisoners taking rehabilitative classes. At night, they watched TV, and played basketball, table tennis, card games, role-playing games, and chess. There were guitars and keyboards, haircuts being given, and guys sitting at stainless steel tables studying parole plans—what to do on the other side of the wall.

Those sleeping in the gym said they did not feel they could keep an adequate distance from one another. De’Jon Tamani Joy said when he and other prisoners got to the gym, they were promised there would be partitions between the beds.

“No partitions have been made available, nor seem to be coming,” Joy said. “The environment I’ve been housed in has created stress and anxiety.”

Curtis Thiessen agreed there should be partitions. “I don’t feel safe here because of the living conditions,” he said. “I believe we’re too close together.”

Fearing he would contract the virus, Ronald Shanko said he didn’t want to move to the gym but feared a disciplinary report if he refused. “We’re jammed in like sardines in a can,” he said. 

S.Q. News Photographer Heads Out the Gate

by

Javier Jiménez, the San Quentin News (SQN) staff photographer for the last 18 months, ended his eight-year prison journey on March 16 when he became a returning citizen.

“I never thought my criminality would end—and to get a new start while being at San Quentin, it’s unbelievable,” said the returning husband and father of a son.

Jiménez credits SQN with allowing him to “get back in touch with the passion (photography) I have loved for 23 years.”

Jiménez is an example of CDCR Secretary Ralph Diaz’s new mission statement:

“To facilitate the successful reintegration of the individuals in our care back to their communities equipped with the tools to be drug-free, healthy, and employable members of society by providing education, treatment, rehabilitative and restorative justice programs, all in a safe and humane environment.”

Before leaving, Jimenez talked with the San Quentin News. The self-taught photographer said, “I feel lucky and, just as important, [I] came through under pressure for the newspaper. I was in the right place at the right time. I knew [previous photographer] Eddie Herena was leaving and knew the editor-in-chief, Jesse Vasquez. I put my resumé in, and it, the resumé, only showed my ambition to better myself and the News team hired me.”

Jiminez reminisced about his favorite photo shoot. “My favorite photo shoot was my very first one—The Queens of the Stone Age. The Warden was there, I met Lieutenant Robinson, and someone said, “Here, turn on the camera.” Smiling, he said, “That’s a lot of pressure.”

The staff photographer shoots two to three hundred shots per event. Jimenez evaluated his own work, saying, “I was not good at first, but have gotten much better with more access to the camera.”

From the artistic side, Jimenez leaves words of wisdom for the next photographer(s). “You’ll get thrown in, so read about the basics and it better flow—either you have the passion to improve in any craft or occupation or you don’t. My improvement came from knowing I was working with a national newspaper that was paying me to learn—and I am getting better because I have that passion to improve.”

One of the mainstays in the SQN office, he stabilized the crew with a daily dose of humor and wisdom from “real talk.” Jiménez looked at every day he spent in the newsroom as “comical—like stand-up comedy,” and left a remembrance of each “family member” of the staff:

  • Marcus “Wali” Henderson, editor-in chief, is a “laid back person who loves to write.”
  • Juan Haines, senior editor, is the “smooth argumentative grandpa.”
  • Kevin Sawyer, associate editor, is “meticulously organized and a great writer.”
  • Joe Garcia, the Journalism Guild chairperson, he sarcastically called “the weirdest personal trainer I’ve ever met.”
  • David Ditto, circulation manager, is “always looking at the positive aspects of EVERYTHING.”
  • Charles Crowe, staff writer, has “an undercover sense of humor I love.”
  • Heriberto Arredondo, staff writer,  “will have big shoes to fill when Juan Espinosa leaves.”
  • Anthony Caravalho, staff writer:  “You took a lot of ‘stuff’ from us and you keep coming back—hope to do business with you on the outside.”
  •  Juan Espinosa, layout designer and leader of Wall City’s Spanish edition, he credits as “the most important representative of the 35-45% of incarcerated Hispanic people. “Juan is my genius brother that claims he is not a genius, but I know better.”
  • Richard “Bonaru” Richardson, executive editor, is “my brother with like-minded aspirations who deserves to go home.”

Jimenez’s own aspirations are to live where he can afford to buy land, and to build a nice home for his family while keeping them safe. If he can own a photo studio or fall back on his construction talents upon his return to society, he will be satisfied going home to the family he loves.

Executive Editor Richard Richardson said the news group will depend on Jiménez’s support for photographs from outside stories the group is developing. Currently Jiménez hopes to follow his predecessor, Eddie Herena, who is working with Wall City, while he considers offers to be staff photographer for a local nonprofit called “Through The Bars.”

“To make a living out of my passion (photography) is the most enjoyable thing I was allowed to do in prison, and if I can carry it beyond the walls of San Quentin I would consider myself very fortunate,” said the SQ News photographer. “Hopefully I can continue capturing people’s attention with pictures—that is my goal.

“I remember at DVI eight years ago, I read all about the programs at San Quentin and hoped to get there.” For those aspiring to join the nation’s #1 news outlet on social reform, he added, “I think the paper allows you to hone skills while in prison, especially if you can write. I mean, where else can you be consistently published and be around people who carry weight in the justice system on a daily basis? It’s just unheard of,” said Jiménez.

Monday morning March 16 upon his release, you could have found “Javy” at the nearest taco truck before he went home to continue another passion he has not done for eight years—cooking enchiladas for his family.

Storytellers polish their craft through the San Quentin News Journalism Guild

by

Monica Campbell with the Spanish graduating class of 2020

The second annual San Quentin News Journalism Guild Graduation took place in the Garden Chapel on Jan. 17. Twelve graduates from November’s class combined with this current class of 11 to celebrate finishing the six-month course.

The event honored the graduates, recognized advisors and brought attention to the impact of programs like the guild on rehabilitation.

Richard “Bonaru” Richardson, SQ News’ Executive Editor and winner of the Arnulfo T. Garcia Leadership Award, spoke about the importance of the guild.

Having worked every position from print to layout to Editor-in-Chief, Richardson reflected how words began to change his life.

“At my last prison, a guy called me pessimistic, and I wanted to beat him up—even though I really didn’t know what the word meant,” said Richardson.

Inmates across the country can thank Richardson’s curiosity and intellect when he looked the word up and realized his own talent with words.

“Words mean a lot; we communicate with each other; we all have the ability to grow. Our newspaper allows people to grow—and will continue to do so,” said Richardson.

“Our graduates—know you were journalists before you picked up a pen. Remember, if no one tells your story, who will?” Richardson said. “Please use your voice; it’s the most powerful asset (weapon) you have.”

Lisa Adams, the newspaper’s development manager for two years, called her career journey from state and federal prison “empty, until I found my niche helping others.”

Adams is collaborating with Wells Fargo Bank executive Amanda Weitman to generate philanthropic donations for the news agency. “Inside and out, we give the world access to the understanding and awareness of social reform and its impact. This news agency reduces recidivism by giving hope to the incarcerated throughout the nation,” said the philanthropic executive.

Today, San Quentin News is a leading voice for incarcerated people in the country.

San Quentin News’ editor-in-chief, Marcus “Wali” Henderson, remarked upon the journalism program’s capacity to build bridges. “(SQ News and Wall City) journalists tell stories that people are afraid to tell.”

Henderson, who used to chair the Guild, then introduced keynote speaker Tracy Brumfield.

Brumfield has transformed from “a heroin addict in and out of jail and then prison” to founder of a women’s news agency called RISE.

She inspired the crowd, speaking about her addiction, “I’m beating its ass.” For the graduates she said, “The power of words—storytelling—includes talking about our journey. I found it extremely empowering to tell my journey…Write about what you know…your testimony!”

The Department of Juvenile Justice’s Ericka Mutchler celebrated the success of the incarcerated female population in California. Mutchler gave praise to Wall City’s third edition, which featured incarcerated females.

“The women featured on the back page of Wall City were my [juvenile] clients who co-wrote articles for the edition. I am pleased to announce all of them have been released with jobs,” said the counselor.

Henderson introduced former San Francisco prosecutor Marisa Rodriquez after he spoke about the social reform symposiums at San Quentin. The latest forum with the San Francisco Police Department was a “Blue on Blue forum [which] improved communication between law enforcement and incarcerated persons. It [forums] will allow us continue to build bridges that no one else can,” said Henderson.

In 2012, Rodriquez took a suggestion from her father to visit San Quentin.

“Now, I can’t shake this place,” said the former D.A. “It [the visit] was very, very moving, and I didn’t expect that. I shared the experience with my supervisor, San Francisco D.A. George Gascon.” She told Gascon there was something very special happening at San Quentin, and he needed to go in and see what was happening himself, if we are going to change justice.

Gascon’s office then collaborated with the late Arnulfo Garcia to create the first symposium. It focused on San Francisco Community Court prosecutors’ desire to investigate what drives youth to commit crimes.

The symposium was such a success, today the forums are a core of the news outlet’s brand.

Rodriquez said after Police Chief (Del Scott) brought in his team, it led to the creation of the nation’s first Formerly Incarcerated Advisory Board. The board includes San Francisco prosecutors and formerly incarcerated men and women, many of whom had life sentences before being paroled.

CDCR administrators who ensure accuracy and analysis for SQ News include), Terri Hardy, Krissi Khokhobashvili, and Ike Dodson. They received plaques of recognition and said, “No matter what happened in your past, who you are when you come out on the other side is what matters.” Henderson also praised the group of Wall City advisors in attendance. Kate McQueen, Sarah Horowitz, Doug Levy and Dan Fost represented the magazine’s advisory board of 12.

AROUND THE WORLD

by

Susanne Karch with sisters Gunilla and Agneta on the small island of Kӓringӧn off the West Coast of Sweden

Dr. Susan Rahman in front of the wall that divides Palestine and Israel

PUP instructor Sophie FitzMaurice across the pond

Upcoming Events for San Quentin in July

by

San Quentin Day of Peace July 13th Lower Yard

Ken Burns documentary July 24th Protestant Chapel 11:00-1:00pm

San Quentin Barbershop Dialogue July 26th Protestant Chapel 10:00-3:00pm

San Quentin Education Graduation July 26th

San Quentin Yard Show July 27th Lower Yard

San Quentin News hosts fundraiser gala for community supporters

by

The award-winning San Quentin News has become one of the few prison projects ever to hold its own fundraising gala in California. 

The Nov. 23 inaugural event, hailed as “historic,” took place at Marin Shakespeare Company’s headquarters in San Rafael and was attended by 43 supporters, who donated more than $2,000 for the newspaper. 

The dinner, which was well attended despite the rain, attracted formerly incarcerated persons, current volunteers and community members interested in social justice. 

Although the paper’s staff members were absent (they were at chow or in the media center–all behind walls at San Quentin State Prison), the writers and editors made an appearance in videos watched by the audience. 

“An event like this is unprecedented in San Quentin history,” Associate Editor and Business Manager Kevin Sawyer said on video. “The way we’ve always done donations has been through inserts in our paper, word of mouth. This has been our first time communicating with donors.” 

According to Sawyer, the gala was a form of first contact, a donor outreach event meant to drum up outside support. The News’ current goal is to expand its reach to all 50 states. 

In addition, attendees heard the plans to increase the reach of the monthly newspaper to all the correctional facilities in California and beyond. The staff also produces a web site (sanquentinnews.com) and a magazine, Wall City.

Since the newspaper was founded in 1940s, the publication expenses were covered by the state. When Warden Clinton Duffy started the newspaper, it could rely on the Prison Industries Authority printing press and prison labor to print each issue. When the print shop shut down in 2010, the News had to find its own source of funding, which has taken the form of grants from foundations, to pay the costs of printing the newspaper in a commercial printing company in San Rafael. The newspaper is seeking to expand its donor base to include the social justice community. 

Former inmate Dameion Brown, who has successfully pursued a career in acting, gave a moving tribute to how the prison’s theater group helped him find purpose while incarcerated. To the delight of the room, Brown recited a speech from Othello, a role he portrayed as the Moor of Venice in a Marin Shakespeare Company production. 

Aly Tamboura, one of the original San Quentin News staff members who revived the newspaper in 2008, spoke to the group. Employed by the Chan Zuckerburg Initiative, a social justice advocacy organization, Tamboura spoke of the history and power of the San Quentin News as a force for good in the prison. He stressed the importance of finding direction behind bars. 

Donors and supporters in attendance

Other volunteers and advisors also spoke about the impact that the News has had on their lives and perspectives. They reflected on how far the newspaper had come and expressed their excitement to watch it grow. Lisa Adams, director of development for the Friends of San Quentin News, called the gala a “historic event” in the growth of the News. 

Adams stressed that the San Quentin News has served to educate men and women both within and outside of the criminal justice system. The men who create it have found purpose, community and invaluable training for when they re-enter society, she said. 

Lisa Adams speaking at the gala with Aly Tamboura, Angela Sevin, Dameion Brown and Jody Lewen

Speaking via video, Jesse Vasquez, editor in chief of the San Quentin News, said, “We show them the education, the services, the groups the guys have access to in here — show them that if they’re better in here, they’ll be better out there. There isn’t a difference between the inside and outside community.” 

Around the World

by

Buddhist Monk in the Himalayas at the Tiger’s Nest Monastery in Bhutan approximately 12,000 feet above sea level
Andy Alpine, co-facilitator of Developing a Positive Attitude – underwater in Roatan, Honduras

UC Davis launches social media campaign to combat ex-prisoner perceptions

by

A group of formerly incarcerated university students is launching a social media campaign designed to combat society’s negative perceptions of ex-prisoners.

The University of California at Davis students call their campaign “We Are All Students” (WAAS). The aim is to help others to respect former inmates for who they are as people.

“We are producing a year-long social media campaign that conveys the social situations and experiences of people who attend higher education in the shadow of incarceration,” Zach Psick told the San Quentin News. Psick is formerly incarcerated and is the project’s student campaign director. 

The digital campaign will consist of between 100 and 150 posts on social media platforms such as Instagram. Each post will portray a student whose life was impacted by incarceration or the legal system. The digital posts will include high-resolution photographs of about a dozen people. 

“The photos will illuminate their personalities and humanity by conveying their everyday experiences as students,” Psick said. “Protecting their identities will de-individualize their experiences and allow them to express themselves without jeopardizing their pursuit of better lives.” 

Psick said he was convicted of a crime 12 years ago, but the stigma around his incarceration remains. 

“I have been surprised by the emergence of groups representing formerly incarcerated scholars at all levels of academia,” said Psick. “I thought people like me were rarer.” 

Psick says that his probation officer wanted him to go to prison, not college. “He told me that repeatedly,” Psick said. “It was because a risk assessment predicted I would reoffend. Now I’m in my fifth year of graduate school.”

His accomplishments include a master’s degree in sociology, a B.A. in Communication Studies, and a certificate in Addiction Studies/Public Health. He has published reports on aging in prison and aging reentry populations in the International Journal of Prisoner Health and the American Society of Criminology, Philadelphia. 

“I had what they called a learning disorder,” Psick said. “My probation officer was surprised by my academic success. Students, professors, and administrators are often surprised, too.” 

These are the types of stories the digital campaign aims to highlight. The digital media content will be available free of charge.

“WAAS aims to support coalition – building between groups representing the interests of currently and formerly incarcerated people like those in Beyond The Stats—a collective of formerly incarcerated students enrolled at U.C. Davis—and the San Quentin News by producing and spreading information,” Psick added.

The WAAS campaign is also developing brochures, fliers and posters to distribute at probation and parole offices and community colleges. The printed material will contain information that people with felony charges need to know about college. 

Psick hopes that this information will help future classes of formerly incarcerated college freshmen.

Prison journalism gaining traction throughout the nation

by

Prison journalism is gaining popularity in California and America, including San Quentin.

For several years, inmates from coast to coast have been receiving instruction on how to write as journalists for prison publications.

Several prisons within the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) already have newspapers and newsletters. Others have contacted the San Quentin News to inquire on how to start their own publication.

“An inmate publication means any journal, magazine, bulletin, newsletter, newspaper, or other material published by inmates,” the California Code of Regulations, Title 15 states. “Inmates may participate in the publication and distribution of an inmate publication only with the institution head’s specific approval.”

The San Quentin News has been training inmates to write as journalists for more than a decade, leading to creating the Friday morning Journalism Guild class. Advisers John Eagan and Yukari Kane have been instrumental in cultivating the development of many emerging journalists.

The road has been opened for San Quentin, but there are 2.3 million people incarcerated in the United States. Many of these prisoners have media restrictions placed upon them, so getting their voice out is limited. However, volunteers and organizations on both ends of the country are assisting them.

On the East Coast, University of Massachusetts journalism professor Shaheen Pasha volunteered in 2013 to teach inmates journalism at the Hampshire County Jail and House of Corrections in Northampton, Mass., according to the Daily Collegian.

“There were so many of them (students) that stuck out to me while teaching there,” Pasha told the Collegian. “They were all so smart and so professional. 

“Right now, I am looking at other places that are already doing the type of work I am interested in, like the San Quentin newspaper.”

Earlier this year, she spent two days at the San Quentin News office, meeting its inmate journalists and learning about San Quentin’s media center.

The CDCR has several little-known newspapers and newsletters published by prisoners, volunteers and staff. 

Here & Now is published at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility. California State Prison Solano has Solano Vision. At Chuckawalla Valley State Prison, there’s Chucky. The women at the California Correctional Women’s Facility have Fire Inside. High Desert State Prison has its High Desert Sun (and the Seagull). North Kern Valley State Prison publishes The Pioneer and Mule Creek State Prison has the Mule Creek Post.

Mule Creek Post

In 1974, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote the opinion in Martinez v. Procunier: “When the prison gates slam behind an inmate, he does not lose his human quality; his mind does not become closed to ideas; his intellect does not cease to feed on a free and open interchange of opinions; his yearning for self-respect does not end; nor is his quest for self-realization concluded. If anything, the needs for identity and self-respect are more compelling in the dehumanizing prison environment… It is the role of the 1st Amendment and this Court to protect those precious personal rights by which we satisfy such basic yearnings of the human spirit.”

“Prison periodicals, in many instances, have provided that medium,” wrote James McGrath Morris in his book Jailhouse Journalism. “They have afforded an opportunity for men (and less often, for women) deprived of all the rights most people take for granted to voice their ideas, thoughts, and version of the truth without interpreters. Truth is always a precious and elusive thing but more so in prison.”

Prison newspaper and magazine publications in the U.S. numbered around 250 in 1959, but fell to fewer than a dozen by the new millennium, according to a 2014 article in The Nation.

A handful of prison publications survived, such as The Angolite at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, The Echo at Texas’s Huntsville prison, and The Prison Mirror founded in 1887 at Stillwater Prison in Minnesota. Some of The Mirror’s seed money was reportedly bankrolled by the Younger Brothers of the Jesse James Gang.

Many remaining prison publications are relatively new. America’s first-known prison newspaper, Forlorn Hope, was published in 1800, “born in the squalor of an 18th century debtors’ prison,” McGrath wrote.

“The dearth of prison publications is ironic in that the inmate population grew to record levels in the 1990s,” Morris wrote. “…(T)he success of prison officials in suppressing confrontational prison periodicals, are certainly part of the explanation for the absence of a strong prison press.”

The San Quentin News was founded in 1940 by Warden Clinton Duffy. The last time it was shut down was in the late 1980s. Before it was revived in 2008 by then-Warden Robert Ayers Jr., it was the winner of the American Penal Press award for the Best Prison Newspaper in 1966, 1967, 1972 and 1981. In 1968, the News won the Charles C. Clayton award, named after the man who was reportedly the first person to teach journalism inside of a prison. He was also the founder of the award competition sponsored by the Southern Illinois University Department of Journalism from 1965 to 1990. 

According to a story written by Pasha in the Nieman Reports, “San Quentin State Prison is a good example of an institution that has found a balance between giving the inmates a voice and maintaining stability at the prison.” She added that the paper “is widely seen as a model for prison journalism and innovation, through its administration’s willingness to engage in rehabilitative programming and educational opportunities.”

In 2014, the San Quentin News was presented with The James Madison Freedom of Information Award from the Society of Professional Journalists for “accomplishing extraordinary journalism under extraordinary circumstances.”

In a recent Journalism Guild class at the News, several inmates said the reason they transferred to San Quentin is because of its newspaper.

Translate »