A former gangster, drug dealer and burglar serving a life sentence at the San Quentin Rehabilitation Center has embraced its life-changing programs and now resides in an Earned Living Unit.
Richard Manual Duran, 69, retired his criminal past and now strives for self-improvement. He is focused on reparations to those he has harmed and is a mentor to SQRC residents who have a common past.
“Hope is not a strategy; you have to do the work. You have to stop embracing social culture with its activities and slang. Mental preparation is key to success and I’ve made the decision to change my life because the other lifestyle was a failed entity. I’ve chosen to abandon failed social strategies in exchange for successful rehabilitation,” said Duran.
Duran was born in Southern California and raised there by his strict paternal grandmother. His father was an imprisoned gang member who periodically appeared in his life. He never knew his mother.
Duran grew up in a gang-infested neighborhood and frequently moved. It seemed to him that grandma was “running from something, which made it hard to keep relationships with peers and friends.”
His childhood was traumatic and he was frequently assaulted by his grandmother with objects. “The physical aspect wasn’t as bad as the emotional and psychological,” said Duran. “She was putting me down and saying, ‘You’ll be just like your dad.’” He observed that most family members were drug addicts and alcoholics who practiced domestic abuse.
Duran joined a street gang at age 13 because he wanted acceptance, camaraderie and protection. Thus began his criminal activities of shoplifting cigarettes and clothes, and stealing bicycles and car stereos. Concurrently, he began abusing substances due to peer pressure.
He dropped out of school in the 11th grade and by the age of 19 began being arrested for major crimes such as the sale of drugs, carrying a concealed weapon, burglary and grand theft.
“Peer pressure was a big motivator,” he said. “What family and friends thought of you meant everything. I had to succeed in the criminal lifestyle or be excommunicated.”
Before the arrest that resulted in his life sentence, Duran sold marijuana in the apartment complex where he lived. Being more concerned with achieving the objective from a criminal’s point of view, he was unaware of harm inflicted on others.
“July 29, 1994 is the date that my life changed completely,” said Duran. “I was arrested for burglary and indifferent to the strife of others. I was successful selling drugs and gang banging for so long that I didn’t didn’t worry about repercussions; they were imaginary.” He received a Three Strikes sentence of 85 years-to-life.
Many years of incarceration wore on him. Duran was stabbed on an active yard but refused to retaliate. This event led him to safer housing where he eventually dropped out of the gang because “there is a sense of an unleveled playing field. When you are initiated into a gang, they tell you everyone is equal. But when you encounter gang members in prison and they are not giving you what is sold to you, you see the injustices.”
He realized, “I need to move past this or I’m going to end up in the Secured Housing Unit and never get out. I need to evolve and make an attempt to be the person I should be. I am in my fourth prison term. The same personal proclivities of my first three terms were carried into my fourth with similar results.”
“There’s a sadness that comes thinking about the waste of years,” said Duran.
Finally, Duran sensed that major change was immediately needed in his life when family and friends began avoiding his company. Upon looking at himself in the mirror, he was saddened to see a “pathetic shell of the person people used to know.” He knew he had failed to become the son his parents wanted him to be. He decided to change and make reparations to victims, family and friends.
“You know exactly what Jesus means when He looks you in the eye and says to ‘overcome.’ He is referring to that single area of bondage that has wrecked your relationships for years,” said Duran.
He added, “If a person doesn’t deal with the obstacle God puts on his road, God will see to it that the person faces the same obstacle later on down the road until it is either dealt with or the person dies without his victory.”
When he was first incarcerated, there were little to no rehabilitation programs available except for Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous, claimed Duran. He embraced rehabilitation in December 2005 while housed in the Centinela SHU.
Rehabilitation became his new goal in life. He completed self-help programs such as Criminals and Gang Members Anonymous, Alternatives to Violence, Gang Awareness and Recovery, and Celebrate Recovery. Additionally, he completed the Office Services vocation and earned a GED. Currently he has a full-time assignment and is involved in AA.
“We don’t need more people at San Quentin. We need more San Quentin in the people.”