Peer mentors held a prison-wide event to kick-start a program giving new arrivals to San Quentin a higher level of support for achieving rehabilitative success.
The “Orientation Kick-Off” featured incarcerated facilitators, tutors, graduates, and spiritual leaders from approximately 80 self-improvement groups hosting tables, where they greeted hundreds of residents who were eager to learn about what The Q has to offer.
“The California Model has given us greater opportunities to rehabilitate ourselves and mentor the new guys just beginning their journeys,” said Bruce Fowler, an incarcerated facilitator who has been with California Reentry Institute since 2016. “We are here to help our community learn everything we need to know to be successful in prison and in life.”
Fowler, other mentors, and CRI founder and Executive Director Collette Carroll hosted their group’s table, one of some 50 tables set up in the gymnasium with aisles full of people asking questions and signing up for the educational, vocational, and self-help groups.
Carroll said 36 people had filled out enrollment slips for CRI during the five-hour event. She began her 25th year volunteering inside SQ in May, the month the Kick-Off was held.
The event was created by The People In Blue, a group of San Quentin residents helping facilitate implementation of the California Model. “We are trying to show what is possible when we all work together,” said their invitation to the Kick-Off.
“If we can change the system from the bottom up as the administration changes from the top down, the change will be faster…and cheaper,” said TPIB’s introduction to the event. “They can now truly view residents as helping to improve the system and not just as burdens.”
The event enjoyed substantial support from prison administrators. Public Information Officer Lt. Berry, Community Resources Manager Marco Barragan, and Community Resources Office staffer Angelina Torres made their rounds, answering questions, engaging mentors, and helping people sign up for groups. The SQ Resource Team hosted giant-screen video games for the community in their office in the gym.
“I even saw Warden Andes fill out a form to join one of the groups,” said TPIB member Robert Tyler.
Groups also hosted tables in the chapels, in the education area, and on the yard.
Linda Rice, a harpist and volunteer with SQ’s Catholic services for more than 30 years, was preparing the class she instructs on humility. Spiritual mentors from Graced Out Ministries offered prayer slips, Kairos shared workshop information and schedules, and Prison Fellowship signed up 70 people for the next cycle, according to outside facilitator Sue Brown.
Muslim, Native American, and Rastafarian spiritual groups also hosted tables in the chapel area. Dental and mental health services staff provided information in the education area.
In total, throughout the event, more than 1,000 enrollment slips were filled out and turned in to the CRO for addition onto the waiting lists and eventually, hopefully, into the programs. Many groups have a wait list of a year or more.
This event kicked off implementation of a more structured orientation program for people entering San Quentin who are beginning their incarceration or transferring from other prisons, according to Tyler. The goal is to guide the new arrivals toward positive life choices.
Too many new arrivals immediately fall into old patterns of drug or alcohol use, gang culture, and other criminality, according to Tyler. Orientation would show them they have opportunities for a fresh start at SQ.
“Youngsters want to fit in,” said Tyler. “We want to show them that there is a lot of support for them becoming part of something positive. Even in prison, we have a choice.”
TPIB proposes facilitating an orientation program where established incarcerated mentors would meet with people as soon as they get off the bus in SQ. The intervention could last from five minutes to days. Similar orientation is standard at many CDCR prisons.
Each newcomer would choose a volunteer peer mentor, who would share their personal prison journey and help them develop a rehabilitation and reentry plan—a roadmap to set and achieve productive goals during their imprisonment.
Providing a backpack and supplies to every resident to support their educational and rehabilitative goals is also planned in association with the event. Distribution is being coordinated with the SQ Resource Team, according to TPIB President Arthur Jackson.
Jackson thanked SQ Buddhist program volunteer Jeff Marcos for his generous contribution and also thanked the African American Community Healing director, former SQ resident Darnell Moe Washington, for facilitating the donation.
TPIB designed the Kick-Off to facilitate Peer Mentorship, one of the four pillars of CDCR’s California Model presented by the Advisory Council’s report to the Governor in January. The report describes the four pillars as “the foundation for a prison system that better serves public safety by returning people to their communities with the tools needed to succeed and live a life without crime.”
The next pillar that TPIB plans to help implement is Dynamic Security, which promotes positive professional relationships between staff and incarcerated people. The final two pillars are Dynamic Security and Become a Trauma-Informed Organization.
– David Ditto contributed to this report
