After spending three decades incarcerated in California’s toughest prisons, Nathaniel Rouse paroled from San Quentin with a message of hope through perseverance.
Nathaniel Rouse was sentenced to the California Department of Corrections when there were 13 prisons in the state. Today there are 33 prisons and great changes are still on the horizon within the prison system. “I’ve been incarcerated for 32 years, from 1978 to November 2011, and I’ve been here at San Quentin since April 13, 1993,” Rouse said. Rouse, whose Muslim name Abdul Shahid Adil means “Just,” has seen several changes in the prison system.
“There is less tension here between African-Americans, whites and Hispanics,” he said. “Here you can intermingle with other nationalities as you would on the streets.” He credits his positive transformation to the San Quentin programs in which he participated, including Trust Fellows, Impact, Alliance for Change and Restorative Jutice. “These programs succeed thanks to San Quentin’s numerous outside volunteers, proactive correctional officers and prison staff who sponsor groups,” he said.
He credited Counselor C. Grant and Capt. S. Robinson, who sponsor San Quentin groups, and former Warden Jeanne Woodford. “Woodford understood men had to have more than $200 upon their release to change them,” said Shahid. “They had to have an education and Woodford was proactive in keeping programs alive.”
He said the San Quentin educational environment should be expanded to all 33 prisons. “It should be the same in all institutions, but by design; it’s not.”
Shahid will be working with Vernell Crittenden for R.E.A.L. Choices (Reaching Expanding Adolescent Lives), a San Quentin program that mentors troubled youth. For 25 hours a week, he will tutor and mentor kids, teaching them the power of making positive choices. “For a person leaving prison, education is the key for a successful transition back into society–not merely academic, but a social education,” he said. “That social education is our being in contact with society as a partnership,” said Shahid.
