Letters to the editor do not go unread when they arrive at San Quentin News. The letters are forwarded to us by San Quentin’s public information officer after they are inspected. Later, I am handed a bag that sometimes contains 50 to 100 pieces of mail from prisons and jails around the country—mostly from California.

Sometimes, the volume of mail overwhelms the newsroom, but there is no better way to measure the impact San Quentin News has on incarcerated readers. For more than a decade, the staff and I have accepted the responsibly to handle the mail with care.

It has always been my firm position that anyone who reads San Quentin News is a customer, whether or not they pay for the newspaper. I, too, am a consumer of news. I enjoy the interexchange of information of all media.

So, when someone undertakes to spend time and effort to write, that action merits a reply, whenever possible. Some letters deserve a public response, like Jared’s when he wrote from Pleasant Valley State Prison.

“I find your profiles of incarcerated men who have been or will be released following countless years behind bars (quite literally in San Quentin) the most inspiring and impactful journalism that you can do,” Jared wrote on March 28, 2025. “All incarcerated people have a difficult journey ahead of them, so to read about those who have come out the other side of it and how they went about it gives those of us still inside, who are beginning a long sentence, a blueprint on how it can be done.”

This has been the mission of San Quentin News. The mainstream corporate and commercial media’s forte is to report on crime and punishment. None of that is news to a prisoner because most of hear such stories all day long. It is the reason newspapers report on incarceration, rehabilitation, and successful reentry to society.

Recently, Eric wrote from Pelican Bay State Prison and casually referred to himself as “a first-term know-nothing” who “relies on the San Quentin News to learn about our shared system.”

We share many things, including sentiments, in this “system.” It is a truth underscored by Kevin B. who was interviewed for a May 4, 2025 story that appeared in the Los Angeles Times. He spent nearly two decades on Death Row here at San Quentin and is now becoming accustomed to serving his sentence at California State Prison Solano, where he described younger inmates as “undisciplined” with no interest in improving themselves. “If this is our future, it’s terrible,” he said.

What Eric, Jared, and Kevin B. seemingly have in common is the insight and wisdom that will help them endure their carceral sojourn so they, too, will one day emerge on the other side of the prison gate, hopefully better than when they arrived.

I am not certain how or why so many in the generations after me became so lost. I could make excuses for them and point to the environment, schools, drugs, and other systemic social ills that have fostered the collapse of youth on the wrong side of history. These are real issues, but life is about choices. How many times have we watched older prisoners cultivate and accelerate the demise of young, impressionable inmates?

Over the years, I have learned just how important bad examples of those who choose to fail in prison can be. They are some of the best contrasts for the young and “first term know-nothings.”

Walking disasters are a testament to what not to be or not to emulate. I would never tell a young man to do something I would not tell my son to do.

For those entering this “shared system,” I will pass on a word I was admonished to embrace by many prisoners whose arrival behind bars preceded mine by decades: Respect. First, have it for yourself. Then give it to everyone else, staff included. Do not expect reciprocation.

Time will pass with or without you, but stay your course. Follow your own path, and be your own man. Read books, write letters, study the law, and always use your time wisely — especially during long periods of isolation due to lockdowns or some other unforeseeable event.

Hang in there, juxtapose the contrast of success and failure, and keep the following poem in mind:

Without the cold and desolation of winter

There could not be the warmth and splendor of spring

Hardships have tempered and strengthened me,

And turned my mind to steel.

–Ho Chi Minh