After taking classes four days a week for three and a half months, 17 men inside San Quentin completed the Alliance for Change Social Justice Group.
For Isaac Rubio Flores, who spent 18 years in security housing units (SHU) it is the first self-help group he’s ever had a chance to complete.
“It’s uncomfortable for me still (being around) people,” said Flores. “I go into the corner and keep people in front of me. (Alliance for Change) helped me work on my social skills.”
Alliance for Change teaches the different types of justice, like restorative justice and distributive justice.
Alliance teaches parolees more than how not to recidivate, including how “to make positive contributions to society to create a just society,” said sponsor Karen Lovaas, a professor at San Francisco State University.
“Everyone who has graduated from this program and left has flourished,” added Lovaas. “I have not heard of anyone coming back behind bars.”
For Flores, completing Alliance is his first step toward a chance to leave prison since his incarceration at age 17. He has been denied parole since 1996. He says the reasons given were lack of insight and not taking self-help groups. However, no self-help was available to him in the SHU.
Flores said a hunger strike led to his release from SHU and to Salinas Valley State Prison. He couldn’t get into any self-help groups during his time there, so he asked to be transferred to San Quentin and arrived in March 2016.
“I heard they have the most and best self-help groups; that’s why I wanted to come here,” said Flores, adding that he’d waived his last parole hearing to take groups first.
Flores graduated with many men who also had no prior associations. They were: Anthony Wayne Williams, Ronald Bruce Carter, Gregory Miller, Joseph Krauter, Tommy Lee Wickerd, Christopher Gallo, Allan S. Bennett, Edward Gentry, Marcus Henderson, Robert Louis Tolbert , Le Lam, Amir Shabazz, Troy Allen Smith, Marcus Eduardo Landeras, Oscar Jeremy Arana and Dan Cooper.
“We came from so many different patterns of people that the group really united us … It formed a tapestry,” said Krauter.
That tapestry included former Alliance graduates.
“People who inspire me are Charlie Spence and Chris Deragon,” Miller said of his mentors.
Each graduate came to the podium in the ARC trailer on the Lower Yard and expressed what the group meant to them and said something about the next man up to receive his certificate.
Williams said, “I did most of my time in level threes. I’d never been in a group before and now I know what self-help is. And boy do we need self-help.”
Gala said, “Everybody on the same path with me is my brother, no matter what race you are.”
Gentry said, “I learned to understand that a voice is important. Instead of sitting back letting things happen, I got a voice and my voice matters.”
Arana said, “I thank you for believing in us, Lovaas.”
Lovaas took the podium last. She said, “The Alliance for Change social justice class should not end today…we should keep walking.”
Sponsor Mana Jaundoo said, “This graduation had a lot more meaning. It rejuvenated me to want to continue to do this with all things Alliance is going through.”
Volunteer Lindsey French, a San Francisco University graduate, says she got involved in Alliance for Change after taking former sponsor Kim Richman’s criminology class.
“We took a tour and saw we are putting people in prison and we aren’t giving them a real way to get out — so it is our responsibility as citizens. I wanted to do my part in helping with this process,” she said.
Alliance President Isaiah “Raheem” Thompson-Bonilla congratulated the class and said, “You are now members of a growing family of members who are connected.”
