They might cruise around in pale yellow jackets, dashing from the residence buildings to the dining halls, the hospital, the chapels, the gym, to R&R, or to the education complex. Sometimes they would carry meals around the buildings, but usually, they would push wheelchairs occupied by residents unable to move on their feet.
San Quentin Rehabilitation Center classified them as Inmate Disability Assistance Program workers, but common parlance has always employed the acronym “IDAP.” Darren Lee said he had to wait for two years to join this select team, and ever since, he has worn his jaundiced livery with pride.
“When I don the yellow uniform, my fellow prisoners recognize that I am here just to help — no agenda, no angle, or hustle,” Lee said about his work of helping residents unable to help themselves. His tasks could involve changing bed linen, filling out forms, or even writing letters.
Lee said compensation ($0.13 an hour) meant nothing to him. “I wanted this job not for the pay but for the opportunity to give back while incarcerated.” Previously, Lee said, he held jobs as a kitchen worker, carpenter, stationary engineer, and maintenance mechanic.
Lee’s work gave him a way to show tolerance and compassion, conveyed by his simple yellow jacket, he said.
“Helping a fellow human in need is a rare and solemn opportunity,” Lee said. “Any chance to pay back for the harm and injuries resulting from the caustic deeds of my past is a most welcome blessing. Finding purpose in my lost life is yet another step on the path to rehabilitation and salvation.”
Purpose has stretched even farther for Lee. The work has inculcated in him a near-religious goal. When asked about redemption, he replied that the quality came in atonement, “the deed for some souls in need. It is an emotional experience to lend a helping hand to a man who expects indifference.”
Lee said he credited much of his transformation to having received such a helping hand. Referring to himself as a “reluctant and foundering student,” he said he had “discovered the joy and importance of an education” at San Quentin’s Mount Tamalpais College, which taught him to recognize the many facets of rehabilitation and gave him the skills to articulate his efforts.
“As Lee’s writing tutor, I had a privilege in witnessing the remarkable emergence of his writing talent,” said Eliezer Margolis, a general writing tutor at MTC. “He is someone who has something of value to say.”
The yellow jacket first allowed Lee to actualize these efforts. “Everyone needs a helping hand or kind word,” Lee said.
