San Quentin News

Written By Incarcerated - Advancing Social Justice

Coding program attracts wide range of media attention

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The Last Mile Works buzzed with excitement when two filmmakers and a formerly incarcerated graduate returned, accompanied by several co-workers from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), to tour the prison and get stories for their website.
Code 7370 teaches inmates the fundamentals of coding, while The Last Mile Works (TLM Works) is composed of seasoned coders who work on paid contracts as part of a joint venture between California Prison Industry Authority (CALPIA) and private companies.
Aly Tamboura, a graduate of Code.7370 and former employee of TLM Works, paroled from San Quentin about two years ago.
He returned to show his co- workers at CZI the newest students enrolled in Code.7370.
Tamboura currently leads a team that seeks to advance social justice and criminal justice reforms across the nation.
CZI came to San Quentin to get video stories from inside prison to show the free world first-hand accounts of what it is like to be incarcerated and have access to state-of-the-art training.
The Nantucket Project began documenting inmate Chris Schuhmacher about six months ago to show that providing inmates job skills prior to release is in the best interest of taxpayers as well as offenders.
Nantucket toured the prison to get a better understanding about Schuhmacher’s incarceration experience. They filmed the church, a prison cell and the dining hall. They also interviewed several inmates who knew Schuhmacher.
When Schuhmacher earned parole, Zach Bower moved into the cell that he left vacant.

“Danny Pluckett said he was looking for a cellie because Chris just went home,” Bower said. “Danny told me that this was a lucky cell. Chris was found suitable; he was found suitable and now I’ve been found suitable—all from this cell.”
Another filmmaker from Google came to the class to document inmate Jason Jones, 34, and what he’s doing to prepare himself for release after spending 13 years incarcerated.
Google’s film crew got an up close look at what Jones learned from the program.
The objective of creating a documentary about Jones, the director said, is “to show that incarcerated people are capable of redemption through positive social actions.”
In addition, the film aims to show the relationship between providing incarcerated people training and lower recidivism.
Jones signed an employment contract with a technology firm, Wika, making him the first coder to do so before leaving prison.
While Jones is ending his prison term unlike any other incarcerated American, Schuhmacher continues to show that investing in first-rate programs while incarcerated pays off for society—both are graduates of The Last Mile and Code.7370.
Escorting the three groups inside the prison were The Last Mile co-founder Beverly Parenti, CDCR Public Information Officer Michelle Kane, and from the San Quentin Public Information Office, Sgt. R. Gardea.
Fellow coder Harry Hemphill sent Schuhmacher a message: “Chris, I am so proud of you. Keep up the good work.” He added, “Give him my best.”

Project Rebound expands

Inmate wins $1,000 scholarship toward BA degree

Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) aids programs

Coming back to prison to help bridge the digital divide

San Quentin News & Wall City Merchandise

The passion of running stretches beyond the prison walls

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From the yard inside San Quentin State Prison, Chris Schuhmacher used to look up over the walls at Mt. Tam, thinking one day I’m going to get there. Now on parole, he’s arrived and he continues using the two things that got him through his bid—running and computer coding.

“Chris exemplifies the spirit, drive and determination of someone who wants to succeed and set an example for others,” Beverly Parenti, co-founder of the Code.7370 coding program at San Quentin, said.

Day of Peace guest Herman Yee, Chris Schumacher and Clarence Long soaking up some sun rays

Schuhmacher works as a software engineer for Fandom, a company that is like a Wikipedia for media, entertainment, music and video game content.

His journey to become a software engineer started in prison with exercise and an entrepreneurship program called The Last Mile.

While in The Last Mile program founded by Chris Redlitz and Parenti, Schuhmacher came up with an app concept that would help people use exercise to overcome their addiction to drugs and alcohol. He named it Fitness Monkey.

“Exercise produces the same hormones and endorphins in the brain that drugs and alcohol do,” Schuhmacher said. “So it was really logical for me to develop an app around providing people with exercise and workout programs as an alternative to drugs and alcohol.”

The app is designed to track how long a person stays sober down to the minutes and seconds. It will also act as a fitness tracker and a social media support system for a community of recovering addicts, said Schuhmacher.

The concept for Fitness Monkey came from Schuhmacher’s own life.

He struggled with addiction in society and ended up incarcerated over a drug-related crime for 17 years.

In prison, he cleaned up, took yoga and played tennis. To become a better tennis player, he started running with the 1000 Mile Club.

“It was through the 1000 Mile Club that I found I had a love for running and not just hitting a tennis ball around,” Schuhmacher said. “I ran my first marathon in 2011.”

He ran on Monday nights with the club sponsored by members of the Tamalpais Runners Club including the former president Frank Ruona, along with Kevin Rumon and Diana Fitzpatrick.

He could see Mt. Tam by looking over the walls on the yard while running with fellow club members.

Chris Schuhmacher passing another runner at the Mt. Tamalpais in the Dipsea Race

Chris Schuhmacher passing another runner at the Mt. Tamalpais in the Dipsea Race

The 1000 Mile Club gave him a sense of camaraderie. He ran with John Levin and Tommy Wickerd on Saturdays.

“As close as we were in confined quarters and really getting to know people on a human level, I don’t think I’ll ever have that kind of solidarity amongst other people,” Schuhmacher said.

Schuhmacher remembered his Fitness Monkey concept when The Last Mile program evolved into the coding program Code.7370. There he learned how to build his app.

He also met the Fandom team when they came to the Code.7370 graduations.

“When I got out, I reached out to them, and they set me up for an interview,” Schuhmacher said. “They started me with an internship that turned into a full-time job in January.”

Schuhmacher said he’s also working with developers at Santa Clara University’s furlough innovation hub to build the Fitness Monkey app.

Schuhmacher said he talked Fitness Monkey with Lance Armstrong on Armstrong’s new podcast called Forward.

They also talked about taking accountability.

“I think we all fall down sometimes, and we all make mistakes and sometimes we don’t deal with it in the best of ways,” Schuhmacher said. “It’s really about trying to take ownership of it, be responsible, make amends. And I don’t think it’s so much about forgiveness, but it’s about moving forward and just trying to be better than you were the day before.”

Schuhmacher continues to run in solidarity with the 1000 Mile Club.

“The 1000 Mile Club and all the volunteers’ support and encouragement didn’t end at the gate,” Schuhmacher said. “They signed me up for a Dipsea Race in Marin.”

The annual Dipsea Race takes place on a course running through the woods and up and down hills of Mt. Tam. Schuhmacher ran the race last year.

Coach Fitzpatrick has won the race twice.

“They talked about that race for years while we were on the inside,” Schuhmacher said.

Through an email list, Schuhmacher gets updates on all the 1000 Mile races in San Quentin.

“When I hear about those events, I do my own event on the outside,” Schuhmacher said. “When they were doing the New Year’s Day half-marathon, I got a couple of buddies and we did a half-marathon in solidarity with the guys at San Quentin. I tell everyone I can about the positive stuff that those guys are doing. It’s really important to me. I never want to lose that connection.”

Inspirational speaker spreads message to Code.7370

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Chris Redlitz, Sebastian Terry, Jon Gripshover, John Guidon and Lee O’Donovan

Chris Redlitz, Sebastian Terry, Jon Gripshover, John Guidon and Lee O’Donovan

Sebastian Terry makes a living out of only doing things that make him happy. He came to San Quentin on Oct. 5 to share his mantra with a classroom of incarcerated computer coders, teaching them that if you “dream it, wish it, do it,” you can lead a fulfilling life.

“The very reason you’re in this room is that you’re pursuing your dreams,” Terry told the inmates in the coding school, Code.7370.

Code.7370 is a collaboration of Hack Reactor, a private San Francisco coding school, the California Prison Industry Authority and Silicon Valley venture capitalists Chris Redlitz and Beverly Parenti of The Last Mile.

Redlitz and Parenti invite business professionals like Terry to work with inmates in California prisons in order to “bridge the gap between the penal system and the technology sector,” prison officials said in a press release about the two business professionals. The venture capitalists invited Terry after they saw his inspiring story on ESPN’s Sports Center.

During Terry’s visit to the prison, he presented his approach to life, an approach he calls 100 Things. 100 Things helps participants identify meaningful goals and guides them through the steps to achieving them.

Terry said the whole idea came after a close friend died. He felt that even though his friend died young, in his 30s, he had lived a happy and wholesome life. The friend’s life and untimely death made Terry question himself.

“If I were on my death bed, would I have any regrets about my life?” Terry asked himself. “What would I have done that would have made me happy?”

Terry said he took a pen right then and there and wrote down everything that makes him smile. The list gained momentum. He dropped everything he was doing and started pursuing activities on the list.

“Kids know what happy is, but when we get older, we lose that”

Number two on the list was to marry a stranger in Las Vegas. It was not the most romantic affair – a 24-hour wedding, to a willing stranger — but he did it all the same.

“It seems kind of stupid,” he said. “But it was the first time that I’d identified a life goal that seemed important to me, and I did it.”

Terry said he feels extremely happy about his journey, which he has been on for the past eight years. “This is not about a bucket list — it’s about purpose, growth and connection, especially connection to self — getting out of your comfort zone,” Terry said.

He also recounted a tale of being on the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival in France. “I didn’t even know if what I was doing was legal. I could have got tased. I was sweating. I was scared. My heart was beating fast. At that moment, getting on the red carpet, I felt like the most successful human, ever.”

Terry said that after getting to the 72nd thing on his list of 100 things to do that would make him happy, he met a man named Mark, who was paralyzed by a tick bite, confining him to a wheelchair.

Mark asked Terry if he could shave his head, help him run a half-marathon and a bike race. To do this, Terry had to train for four months, but he says the experience of helping Mark was life-changing for him. He decided to work to help people achieve their dreams.

Terry said that helping Mark has been the greatest thing he’s ever done. The two are now very close friends.

Terry is currently being approached by people all over the world for help. He said that he has had to change his life and business model from being a person who asks for help to helping people who need aid finding their happiness.

After the presentation, Terry told the inmates that they have to give themselves permission to do what makes them happy. Then he asked the inmates what would be on their lists.

Sebastian Terry talking to the students of Code.7370

Sebastian Terry talking to the students of Code.7370

“It could be anything; that’s the beauty of it,” Terry said.

The inmates had a wide variety of dreams. Among other things, they wished to go to Mecca, to run a marathon in San Quentin, have a family, dance on Broadway, play a complicated piece of music on piano, visit Machu Picchu, skydive, scuba dive and river raft on the same day, interview a member of the KKK—even one of the staff teachers chimed in saying because of his shyness, he’d like to start a YouTube channel.

Terry said he was amazed at the range of ideas presented in the classroom.

“I’ve done this exercise in a corporate environment, and there’s dead silence,” Terry said. “But when I go to an elementary school, full of kids, they come up with all kinds of things that they know would make them happy. Kids know what happy is, but when we get older, we lose that.”

Terry stressed that the move toward happiness can be simple – can be made up of small steps. “Dreams do not require money,” he said. “We are here to do the things we dream to do.”

 

Prison reform could free 30,000 inmates says CSJ

50 men graduate from California Re-entry Institute

Coding program attracts wide range of media attention

SQ Journalism Guild promotes next class of writers


 

Computer Coders Show Their Skills

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Harry Hemphill (center) at work with other coders

Harry Hemphill (center) at work with other coders


The most recent group of San Quentin inmates to complete a computer programming class demonstrated their coding skills for more than 100 invited guests, including the head of prison industries, Charles Pattillo, during a Dec. 9 event held at the prison.
Thirteen inmates participated in the latest class of Code.7370, an innovative technology-training program. It is managed by the California Prison Industry Authority in collaboration with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) and The Last Mile (TLM).
TLM is the brainchild of venture capitalists Beverly Parenti and Chris Redlitz and provides prisoners with the opportunity to develop original business ideas.
Since its inception in 2014, Code.7370 has been praised by prison officials and inmates alike as an invaluable training program. It is the only in-prison coding training program in the U.S. and is supported largely by volunteers.
“This program teaches people skills that keep them out of prison and (allows them to) be able to support their families,” said Warden Ron Davis. “What the volunteers do, you cannot put a price tag on.”
In attendance were local community members, including Scott McGrew, anchor of Press: Here, an NBC tech-business television show, tech-business executives and curious citizens. Inmates Jason Jones, Jerome Boone, Damon Cooke and Reginald Hola built Getting Parents’ Attention (GPA), an app that helps parents stay involved with their children’s education in order to help their children get into colleges with sports scholarships.
“GPA is not only my dream, but something I wish I’d had,” Jones said.
It took inmates Sam Hearnes, Lucious Jackson and Aly Tamboura six weeks to build Project Tycho, a project that incorporates an analysis of data from the University of Pennsylvania to highlight the importance of childhood vaccinations. Hearnes said he found that effective teamwork was just as important to the success of his project as learning to code.
The inmates faced a challenge in Code.7370 unique among coding training programs: They did not have access to the internet in prison. All of their work was done without that one tool considered integral to coding and web development work.
Inmate Harry Hemphill and his teammates had to use uncommon techniques to over-come the challenges of building without internet access. Hemphill said that since they could not Google answers, they had to struggle through problems and teach themselves specific skills. But by doing so, they got far more appreciation what hard work means.
Parenti said that each Demo Day brings her a great sense of accomplishment. “We are a small but mighty team,” Parenti said. “We see challenges as opportunities.
During the second cohort, we got a surprise visit from Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of one of the largest companies in the world who cares about what’s happening behind these walls.
We hope to continue the conversation.” Parenti added that TLM’s business partners are interested in giving internships to Code.7370 graduates. “We believe that having a job is the key to breaking the cycle of coming back to prison,” Parenti said.
“One is judged by the quality of their code, not the stigma of their past.”
In fact, the success of programs like Code.7370 and San Quentin News has inspired motivation to add similar innovative programming to other prisons across the state, according to Brant Choate, acting director of the Division of Rehabilative Programs at CDCR.

PIA Enterence at SQ


“Code.7370 is something new. We need to continue to look for new things,” Choate said. “Everybody is asking for a transfer to San Quentin and more programs like (the ones at) San Quentin. They shouldn’t have to do that. Those programs should be at those prisons, too.”
Choate says there are current plans to expand a tech center at San Quentin with several hundred additional computers.
The event allowed inmate Chris Schuhmacher to demonstrate Fitness Monkey, an online platform he built with Jorge Heredia and Joseph Demerson that encourages using fitness to combat addiction. Schuhmacher felt optimistic after the demonstration.
“Is it just me,” he said, “or can you feel the buzz of possibilities in this place?”
–Bonnie Chan contributed to this story
http://sanquentinnews.com/game-theory/

Kathleen Jackson’s Journey to S.Q.

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Rehabilitation programs and job training are the key to solving California’s revolving prison doors, says Kathleen Jackson, a retired San Anselmo schoolteacher who’s been working with San Quentin prisoners for seven years.
Jackson was a teacher and administrator at Marin Country Day School in Corte Madera for 24 years, and taught 12th grade English at an inner city Oakland public school for three years.
Now, at least four days a week, she volunteers at San Quentin, teaching convicted criminals how to change the way they think about themselves and their community, by facilitating programs like VOEG. VOEG is a program that connects victims with offenders in hopes of revealing how unaddressed past traumas contribute to deviant behavior. After that trauma is addressed, offenders can meet with a panel of victims of crime in order to heal the community.
“When San Quentin prisoners go through self-help and educational programs and work at various jobs that increase their skills, they do receive many benefits,” said Jackson.
In 2008, Jackson became executive director of T.R.U.S.T. (Teaching Responsibility Utilizing Sociological Techniques). T.R.U.S.T. utilizes a series of lessons built upon a simple, clear belief: thinking controls actions. This program has been lauded by prison administrators as a positive training tool, giving offenders insight into criminal behavior and allowing prisoners a chance to understand themselves.
Jackson helped set up a new program called The Last Mile, with the assistance of venture capitalist Chris Redlitz and Beverly Parenti. It is an entrepreneurial-orientated program and had its first group of participants demonstrate their business ideas this month.
On Friday evenings, she helps teach the Christian creative writing in the Protestant Chapel.
Jackson got her beginning in 2005. She wanted to find a way to do community service, so she sat in on a San Quentin college class. “I felt extremely at home there: it was a place where I really wanted to be,” Jackson said in a 2010 interview with Marin Magazine.
Jackson is always looking to improve the program’s ability to assist offenders. In April, she went to Los Angeles to get a tour of Homeboy Industries, which provides jobs as alternatives to gangs.
“What Homeboy Industries provides is a composite of each client’s needs,” says Jackson. The visit reaffirmed her strategy of employing the same approach with T.R.U.S.T. “Wouldn’t it be the best to have case management for every prisoner, so that the door to the free world would open only to the outside with no need to swing inward?”

PPI’s “Correctional Control: Incarceration and Supervision by State” is the first report to aggregate data on all types of correctional control nationwide.

http://sanquentinnews.com/optionb-org-support-group-overcoming-effects-incarceration/

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