San Quentin News

Written By Incarcerated - Advancing Social Justice

Participar en programas educativos cambio su Persepción de la Cárcel

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Profesores de PUP Laura Wagner and Paco Brito
Profesores de PUP Laura Wagner and Paco Brito

Prison University Project (PUP) está localizada en una de las prisiones más notorias en el mundo: La Prisión de San Quentin en California. PUP incluye un selecto grupo de profesores, tutores, y voluntarios de varias universidades prestigiosas como U.C. Berkeley, Stanford, San Francisco State, San Jose State, y varias otras universidades locales y de alrededor del mundo.

Estos participantes son una parte esencial en la educación y rehabilitación de los hombres encarcelados en San Quentin.

Dos de esos profesores voluntarios son Paco Brito y Laura Wagner. Ellos son major conocidos por los estudiantes por su primer nombre en lugar de su apellido.

Paco y Laura comparten una historia interesante. Ellos se conocieron por primera vez en una protesta por el alza de pago en colegiaturas en la Universidad de Berkeley y desarrollaron una conexión personal.

Los dos comparten la misma idea de que todas las personas deberían tener la oportunidad de tener una educación.

“Empezamos a organizar eventos juntos en la universidad,” Paco explicó en una reciente entrevista. Laura agregó que su intención era hacer cambios en la cultura de los estudiantes.

“Comencé a ser voluntario de PUP en el 2012 porque recordé cuando la educación era una prioridad en California”, dijo Paco. “Después de la noche al mañana cambio a la construcción de prisiones”.

Laura se enteró de PUP por una amiga. “me hice voluntaria para enseñar un curso de inglés”, dijo ella. Laura enseño varios cursos de inglés y, en una ocasión, compartió las aulas con Paco enseñando una clase de investigación avanzada. Laura dijo, “Cuando empecé a relacionarme con mis estudiantes, mi perspectiva cambio porque fui capaz de ver su humanidad”.

“Ms. Wagner es una per- sona especial”. Dijo Steve Brooks, un preso quien tomó clases con Laura. “ella es at- enta, cordial, y siempre ani- ma a sus estudiantes”.

“Como profesora es excepcional”, dijo Brooks, “Ella es muy consciente y todo el tiempo trata de que los estudiantes se envuelvan en las conversaciones en clase. Y cuando estos no quieren participar les da un pequeño empujón (figurativamente hablando) para que sientan más confianza”.

Paco enseño inglés y español, él dice, “Me sorprendí cuando los estudiantes retaban y cuestionaban todo”, dice Brito, “Me gustó el intercambio de ideas entre los estudiantes y profesores”.

“Paco es un profesor excelente”, dijo Carlos Salmón quien enseño un curso de español con él. “Su forma de enseñar es fácil y eficiente”.

Richard Richarson un estudiante de PUP quien tomo clases de español con Paco, dice Paco hizo el aprender español muy fácil aun para las personas como yo que no teníamos idea de cómo escribir español y mucho menos lo hablábamos. “Nos enseñó a conjugar los verbos en una forma fácil de entender”.

Richarson dijo, “Paco es una persona muy buena, atenta y es muy difícil no llevarse bien con él. Y lo que siempre me llamó la atención es que siempre está contento”.

Paco y Laura están de acuerdo en que los estudiantes encarcelados de colegio son diferentes a los estudiantes de colegio tradicionales. “estos tienen la disposición de cuestionar el proyecto y se envuelven en este,” dijo Laura. “Yo encontré formas diferentes para enseñar mi material y para que fuera más relevante”.

La pareja recientemente se movió para el sur de California en donde Laura consiguió un trabajo en un colegio comunitario. Laura dijo, “estoy muy emocionada de comenzar mi carrera oficial como catedrática”.

Exclusive screening ‘From Incarceration to Education’

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University of California at Berkeley filmmakers visited San Quentin for an exclusive screening of “From Incarceration to Education,” an original documentary about four formerly incarcerated persons who successfully became UC graduate students.

Prisoner watching the documentary premiere at the chapel

Prisoner watching the documentary premiere at the chapel

The April event included a question and answer session with first-time directors Skylar Economy and Christian Collins. They were joined by two of the film’s formerly incarcerated stars, Richard Rodriguez-Leon and Shalita Williams.

“SNY [Sensitive Needs Yard] …comprises roughly half the California prison system,” according to Lody Lewn in the Prison University Project Spring 2018 Newsletter Volume 13, No.1

“We just hope all y’all can see the possibility of achieving a college education for real,” Williams told a packed house of San Quentin inmates. “It’s a lot of hard work, but there’s a support network here to help.”

“From Incarceration to Education” showcases Berkeley’s Underground Scholars Initiative (USI), an advocate group formed by students to embrace formerly incarcerated individuals and those impacted by incarceration in order to help them overcome the challenges of acclimating into academic life.

“The normal college student doesn’t relate to where we’ve been and what we’ve gone through to get here,” Rodriguez-Leon said. “It’s important to understand that being here is the easy part compared to everything else we overcame to make it this far.”

“It’s definitely awkward being around all these kids,” Williams explained about her feelings of alienation. “Underground Scholars lets us know we belong here, too.”

Initially an informal grassroots student union, USI now receives federal funding and is officially recognized by the entire UC system. The program provides assistance throughout the university application process and then offers a support group on campus. USI sponsors local cross-enrollment programs that can help community college students gain exposure to Berkeley coursework.

“Struggling on my own in community college, just to complete the work to get accepted to Berkeley, that was tough,” admitted Rodriguez-Leon. “But now, there’s plenty of financial aid and peer support available.”

Williams spent over a decade in and out of prison before fighting off her drug addiction and completing her bachelor’s degree at Berkeley. She will begin a master’s program at UCLA in the fall.

“There were days where I’d get home from work and school, the sink would be full of dirty dishes, and the kids would be screaming to be fed,” Williams remembered. “I just wanted to cry.

“I still talk with my friends from the drug days, but I can’t hang out with them like I used to,” she said. “It’s cool. They’ve got their lives, and I’ve got mine.”

“I do my thing at school and still kick it with the homies in the neighborhood,” said Rodriguez-Leon, who also stays connected with a brother currently in prison. “My goal is to use my education to inform my community and break down the social barriers against us.”

“I wanted to show the way these students succeeded after their time incarcerated,” said filmmaker Economy. “They’re a part of Berkeley’s rich tradition of diversity. I knew I had to film these guys and tell their story.”

When asked what she found most rewarding about her newfound achievements, Williams smiled at the crowd and said, “Being invited to speak to groups like y’all and help make a difference. I want to do all I can with the advantages I’ve gained.”

San Quentin News World Travels


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

Restorative Justice’s role in the #metoo movement

SQ parolee serves up more than just coffee in Antioch

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Coffee entrepreneur John Krause can relate to the slim employment prospects most ex-cons face upon parole. As a former San Quentin inmate himself, Krause spent over a decade in and out of prison before opening Big House Beans (BHB).

Based in Antioch, BHB’s production facility now roasts thousands of pounds of premium gourmet coffee beans per month—supplying restaurants, coffee shops, and tech companies throughout California. But Krause’s business plan goes far beyond simply turning a profit.

“I really want to embrace the community to create more jobs and include people with barriers,” Krause recently told San Quentin News. “I’m not ashamed to use my company as a platform to tell my story.”

“There are over 4,800 legal restrictions facing people with convictions  after sentence completion…73% of these legal barriers are permanent.”

“SAFE AND SOUND: …” by Californians For Safety and Justice Nov. 2017 

Krause remembers being homeless and fearful after he was released with $5 and a BART ticket in his pocket.

“I was afraid that I wouldn’t find something quick enough and would slip through the cracks for the umpteenth time,” Krause said in a 2015 East Bay Times interview.

During his last stint behind bars, Krause became a counselor for San Quentin’s Substance Abuse Program and attributes SAP for causing a pivotal change in his own mentality. Krause wants to continue paying forward the profound benefits he’s gained through rehabilitation and community support.

“I don’t want to shun people in society who everybody else is shunning,” Krause told KTVU FOX2 News. “I want to embrace them and continue to love them until they learn how to love themselves.”   

Welcomed into Danville’s Community Presbyterian Church, Krause was given job opportunities and the encouragement to pursue his own business ventures. With the help of the church’s support network, he was able to gather investors and secure loans, refurbishing a $35,000 coffee roaster as the springboard for BHB’.

“I hope my testimony will encourage people who are where I once was or have family members where I once was—struggling with addiction, in and out of prison, and on the verge of losing hope.”

Krause’s mission and his company’s goal is to not only provide superbly roasted coffees, but to offer second-chance opportunities to ex-offenders and other men and women struggling to find sustainable work. BHB additionally raises money for job training and supports community rehabilitation programs.

Krause just expanded BHB’to include a new flagship café in Brentwood.

“I jumped in with not a lot of coffee or retail experience,” he admitted. “So I took a step back to revamp my marketing and branding before refocusing on how and when to serve the community best.”

“John’s a blessing to work for,” said Big House employee and ex-offender Juan Valdez (and yes, that is his actual name). “It’s a good job and finally I get to do something I really love to do.

“You know if you have the look, like you’ve been in prison, it makes it definitely worse,” Valdez said about his own facial tattoos and prison ink to ABC7 News. “It also makes it hard when you have to do a background check just to find a place to live.”

Not every attempt by Krause to embrace a troubled employee ends in success. He told San Quentin News about one recovering addict who had worked reliably for weeks before suddenly failing to ever show up again.

“The phenomenon of that craving for a drug is so powerful,” Krause explained.  “One of the hardest things about trying to really help people is that some people aren’t ready.”

“I went to San Quentin for the first time for a high-speed chase, evading police… I was definitely under the influence,” he recalled. “I remember each time I got out from prison, I swore that was the last time, but then I’d be back on drugs within days.

“Now I look back and my heart is broken for the immense levels of ignorance and brokenness in people in prison, most of whom have been abused, neglected, or abandoned.”

—Claire Gelbart,  UC Berkeley student, contributed to this story

Solitary Watch offers inmates photographs beyond a gray wall

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The day he learned his solitary confinement would be extended, 17-year-old Benjamin Van Zandt killed himself in a New York prison. To bring awareness and bridge the gap between the public and those in isolation, an advocacy group held  an art exhibit in a Unitarian church in New York, showcasing photographs requested by and produced for prisoners in segregation, reported Newsday.

“Viewers are able to see not what incarcerated people see, but what they envision—the vivid and varied thoughts, objects, images that all minds produce, independently of senses and circumstances,” said Jean Casella, co-director of Solitary Watch, the national advocacy group sponsoring the event.

There are at least 80,000 people held in solitary confinement on any given day in U.S. prisons and jails, some for months, years, or even decades, according to Solitary Watch.

“When we came across this figure… I thought it was a typo… how could this be going on and nobody knows about it, nobody’s talking about it?” Casella said, in an interview with San Quentin News. She also pointed out that: “They’re not sent there (to solitary) by a judge and jury, they’re sent there by prison staff because they smoked a cigarette or mouthed off to a guard or at worst were fighting.

According to Casella,  “Solitary was invented in 1829 by Quakers who actually thought they were doing something good, because the punishment of the time was like whipping or the stocks… they quickly discovered that it didn’t cause people to be reformed at all, it drove them crazy.”

The art exhibit was inspired by the Photo Requests from Solitary (PRFS), a project run by Solitary Watch. This project takes the written ideas of the prisoners and pairs them with distinguished photographers who fulfilled the images.

For example: “I would like to have a painting of the outdoors, maybe a wooded scene, with maybe a doe and twin fawns,” requested an inmate in solitary confinement named Hershel, reported Newsday.

Capturing these images as photographs, which can then be sent back to the people who conceived them, completes an artistic collaboration that acknowledges the shared creativity and humanity of individuals on both sides of the prison walls, notes the Solitary Watch website.

Viewing the photos at the exhibit, Van Zandt’s parents told Newsday their son would have liked one of a white wolf in a snowy nighttime landscape.

Prisoners in New York, Illinois and California have requested photographs ranging from general New York City scenes to hyper-specific images, like one of an African-American female with hazel eyes wearing leather pants posing next to a powder-blue Benz, reported Newsday. 

Casella said they have done 40 to 50 photo requests for California prisoners, but due to working without a budget they are not taking more requests from California prisons. They are now taking requests only from  New Jersey and Pennsylvania prisons.

“For the first time, we’re going to be crowd-sourcing the fulfillment of the requests,” Casella said. Visitors to future art exhibits can get copies of the requests and reprints of the photos. The prisoners’ requests will also be posted online on the new website www.photorequestsfromsolitary.org and visitors to the website can opt to submit photos to fulfill the written requests

The next photo exhibit will be at the Eastern State Penitentiary in May. The Philadelphia prison closed in 1971 and is now an historical and exhibition site. This exhibit will be held in two former solitary cells and will run for a year, said Casella.

Currently Van Zandt’s parents are advocating for the New York State Legislature to pass the Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement, or HALT Solitary Confinement Act, according to Newsday. The bill would limit solitary confinement to no more than 15 days.

Visit www.stopsolitaryforkids.org or #stopsolitaryforkids for more information.

Andrew Beale,

UC Berkeley student, contributed to this story.

Folsom’s Insight Garden Project

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Ivy Beverly laying new soil on garden bed

Ivy Beverly laying new soil on garden bed

California women prisoners are learning to go “green” as they gain skills in garden design and environmental education through the award-winning Insight Garden Program (IGP).

Folsom Women’s Facility (FWF) and Central California Women’s Facility (also known as Chowchilla) have been added to the IGP’s long list of prisons that are finding rehabilitation through connecting with nature.

“Folsom was officially the first garden we’ve ever built in a women’s facility,” said Beth Waitkus, who founded the program at San Quentin in 2002. “It was a really magical day. We got it done in one day, which was nothing short of a miracle.

“Personally for me…to be working with women who so deeply connect with the earth is really wonderful,” Waitkus added.

The Folsom garden design was created from the different ideas of women prisoners, who came up with plans for their end-of-semester project. As part of the learning process, the women had to include drawings of their ideal landscapes.

Tylee Sewell, IGP facilitator, combined all the ideas for the project. Sewell is a permaculturist

one who develops agricultural ecosystems intended to be self-sufficient and sustainable.

The women learned permaculture techniques and planted pollinator-friendly plants using minimal amounts of recycled water. They learned hands-on skills in installing and maintaining the garden, as part of a plan to teach them to care for delicate things.

IGP feels these skills will be useful for those returning to their communities.

“A lot of people who are incarcerated come from communities that generally have more environmental injustices,” Waitkus said. “They live closer to pollution or toxic waste sites.”

“That’s an environmental issue. Fresh healthy foods should be available to everybody and not just processed food being sold at the corner liquor store,” Waitkus said.

“What they have learned from the program, they go back to their communities and advocate for food equity,” she said.

In the program’s third semester, the participants dig deeper into their “inner garden,” using emotional process work, eco-therapy approaches and developing communication skills.

Alicia Zaragoza working on potting new plants

Alicia Zaragoza working on potting new plants

“IGP teaches people it’s about more than just me, it’s about we, and it’s about all of us working together to create a better world,” Waitkus said. “We are (all) a part of the natural world, obviously, from soil systems … to literally the cosmos. We are connected to all of that.”

IGP also has a reentry and career preparation course for those who wish to pursue a career in the green industry. After the students are released, IGP attempts to get them green jobs.

“We are careful about wanting to include everybody,” Waitkus said. “There are different people with different timelines.”

As IGP continues to expand its program, it has gained more recognition by receiving California’s highest environmental honor, the Governor’s Environmental and Economic Leadership Award (GEELA).

“We accepted the award on behalf of all the people we work with inside,” Waitkus said. “It raises our visibility in the state. We’re hoping to work with other agencies like the California Department of Agriculture.”

The Chowchilla garden is set to be built this spring.

—Alex Matthews,  UC Berkeley student, contributed to this story

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

Prestigious colleges learn about life from prisoners

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UC Berkeley journalism student Leticia Duarte talking with SQN contributor Marco Villa

UC Berkeley journalism student Leticia Duarte talking
with SQN contributor Marco Villa

Prison advocates and educators who believe in the benefits of classes held on prison grounds are seeking to revive a program that once brought Harvard students into prisons to learn desk-by-desk with incarcerated students. San Quentin already has similar programs.

“By creating opportunities for Harvard students to learn with and from students in prison, we demonstrate a commitment to transformative education, education that is rigorous and reckons with questions of justice and equity,” Kaia Stern, co-founder of the Harvard Prison Studies Project, said in a Harvard Gazette article by Jill Radsken.

Intimate partner violence accounts for 15 percent of all violent crime. One in three women and one in four men in the United States has experienced some form of physical violence by an intimate partner. Husbands are five times more likely to kill wives than vice versa. A third of female homicide victims are killed by an intimate male partner or ex-partner, according to FBI reports. http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/ndv0312.pdf

At a recent conference held at Harvard, formerly incarcerated students, activists and academics met together to discuss the future of prison college programs.

In two Massachusetts correctional facilities, incarcerated men and women learned alongside students from Boston University from 2008 to 2013.

Stern hoped the conference would lead to reestablishing the integrated classrooms program she started with Harvard Professor Bruce Western, according to the Harvard Gazette article.

Assistant Professor Elizabeth Hinton, Stern and visiting scholar Garrett Felber organized the conference called Beyond the Gates: The Past and Future of Prison Education at Harvard.

“The world looks a lot different from the vantage point of a prison”

Felber founded Liberation Literacy with community members and incarcerated students at Columbia River Correctional Institution in Oregon in 2016.

“People who live and work in prisons know that education changes culture, reduces institutional violence, and interrupts intergenerational cycles of incarceration,” Stern said in the Harvard Gazette.

At San Quentin State Prison in California, UC Berkeley journalism students receive credits for entering the prison to help incarcerated men write, research and edit stories for the San Quentin News (SQ News).

William Drummond, a professor of journalism for 34 years, started the program in 2012 after being asked to support the newspaper by SQ News senior editor Juan Haines. Haines was in a Prison University Project journalism class taught by Drummond at the time.

Drummond said he noticed that the prison newsroom was a throwback to journalism basics. In society, they don’t have “real” newsrooms anymore and the focus of journalism is more about pursuing tech and digital and less about original journalism—editing and critical thinking.

“Police departments in 13 of the 25 largest U.S. cities did not post their (operating and use-of-force) procedures online.” The Opaque Blue Line” by C.J. Ciaramella in Reason magazine May 2017

“I thought this would be a chance to take students into an environment that is very much brick and mortar journalism—no distractions, no hotlinks and no worry about how many clicks,” Drummond said. “I thought my students would benefit from working side-by-side with a reporter.”

Drummond also mentioned that taking the journalism class at San Quentin gives his students perspective.

“Given their backgrounds, they would never have this experience,” Drummond said. “The world looks a lot different from the vantage point of a prison.”

Ahna Straube, a 28-year-old UC Berkeley student majoring in political economics who is in the San Quentin journalism class, said, “I think I’ve learned more here in terms of having actual experiences. In a classroom, it’s a lot of theory but not real-life experiences.”

Straube appreciates the lack of distractions—there are no cellphones allowed inside the prison.

She doesn’t fear coming into a correctional facility. “I feel more comfortable here than I do on the Berkeley campus,” Straube said.

One of Drummond’s earlier students, Pendarvis Harshaw, was so inspired by Watani Stiner, an older man he met in the program in 2013, that Harshaw included him in his book, An OG Told Me.

Drummond has won awards for his journalism work at San Quentin, including the 2015 White House Fellows Foundation and Association award called the John W. Gardner Legacy of Leadership Award; and the Leon A. Henkin Citation for Distinguished Service 2016-2017.

Another program called Bridges to Universities reverses the integrated classroom model by using prepaid calls and a PA system for incarcerated people to give lectures at college campuses.

From prison, Emile DeWeaver, co-founder of Prison Renaissance, used the method to give lectures at both Hampshire College and the University of San Francisco.

“We need both models,” DeWeaver said. “There’s a limited number of people that can come inside a prison. Technology allows incarcerated people to show up on college campus on a bigger scale.”

There are plans underway for DeWeaver to give more guest lectures at Stanford and UC Irvine.

https://sanquentinnews.com/the-100th-edition-san-quentin-news/

San Quentin News World Travels

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