Jared Elkins was 13 years old the first time he found himself behind bars for burglary. At 14, he was placed in a group home. The 20-year-old San Quentin State Prison inmate said, “Since then I haven’t been out of prison for longer than six months.”
Elkins, serving a sentence of 10 years for a gang-related firearms violation, is one of several young prisoners designated eligible to be transferred to a medium security prison like San Quentin through the Youth Offender Program (passed as Assembly Bill 1276 in 2014). The program is designed to keep offenders under the age of 22 away from high security prisons, where opportunities for programs are few and typically more violent than lower security prisons.
Elkins said that if he went to a higher level prison, he felt like he would have gotten into trouble and gotten more time added to his sentence. However, once he got to San Quentin he quickly got onto the waiting list for self-help programs. “When I get out, I hope I can establish myself in a career and take care of my son who is two. To do this I need job skills and other help.”
“I’m signed up for Restorative Justice and a Kid CAT Youth Offender Support Group,” Elkins said. “I’m interested in college and taking vocational courses like welding, plumbing and construction. I earned my GED in the juvenile hall. Now I really want to learn things that will help me when I get out. I don’t want to come back to prison.”
“We are one of the few prisons that are open for the youth offender program. The warden is very supportive of bringing young men here,” said Steve Emrick, San Quentin State Prison Community Partnership Manager. “We are also relying on men in programs that see them [the young men] to encourage them to get involved in these programs.”
Most other Youth Offender Program participants who arrived at San Quentin are seeking to better themselves with educational and self-help classes.
Rodolfo Medina-Barragan, 18, serving 21 years for an attempted murder he committed at 17, said he has earned his GED and is on a waiting list for Patten University Project. “I am glad to be here. So far a lot of guys have spoke[n] to me and invited me to different programs. When I get out I would like to continue to go to school.”
Efrain Lara, 19, convicted of assault with a deadly weapon that he committed at the age of 17, was sentenced to seven years. “At 12 years old I was working in the fields with my dad. My only job at 17 was in the grape fields. If I have to, I’ll do that when I get out, but I need an education and trades so I can get better jobs.”
“When I came in to prison at 20, I went directly to level four maximum security,” said Kid CAT Chairman Tommy Winfrey. “I realize now that I was looking for role models in my life, and I was influenced by the violence and negativity I saw around me.”
Louis Scott, 47, incarcerated 19 years, is one of several Restorative Justice Group facilitators who are helping these young men navigate the opportunities available at San Quentin. “Amazingly I find them very receptive,” said Scott, who is serving 199 years to life. “It’s important to capture them right now while they are fresh inside the system and give them a positive path to follow, as opposed to the negativity that a lot of us [were] subjected to when we first came in.”
The Rand Corporation found that when prisoners receive correctional education while incarcerated, it improves their ability to stay out of prison by 43 percent compared to prisoners who do not get an education in prison.
San Quentin has a large juvenile lifer population that has been incarcerated for an average 20 or more years. They understand the challenges of entering the prison system at a young age and are eager to help the participants of the Youth Offender Program have a different experience.
Medina-Barragan illustrates the point: “All I know about the level three is that there is a lot of violence and people can die there. I’ve never been there, but since I was in the juvenile hall and county jail that’s all I heard about prison.”
“The department and the inmate population recognized that these young men need to be supported and redirected from trouble to receive a second chance in life,” Emrick said.
