Mount Tamalpais College

Campus & Community

Rahsaan Thomas of ‘Ear Hustle’ released from prison a year after commutation from Newsom

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Rahsaan Thomas is a Mount Tamalpais College graduate. He wrote about his path to graduation here.

SACRAMENTO —  Rahsaan Thomas was released from San Quentin State Prison on Wednesday, more than year after he was granted a commutation from Gov. Gavin Newsom for his rehabilitation behind bars, including his work for the Pulitzer Prize-nominated “Ear Hustle” podcast.

Thomas’ supporters had advocated for his release for years. His departure from San Quentin came hours after the Times featured Thomas in a published report about dozens of people remaining in prison despite receiving mercy from the governor.

Thomas was among 123 people Newsom has granted commutations, or reductions of sentences, since he became governor in 2019. But as of January, a third of those people remained behind bars — in some cases years after the governor’s recommendations, according to data from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

That’s due largely to Newsom’s decision to defer to the parole board in the vast majority of his commutations instead of using his clemency power to free them unilaterally.

Thomas’ sentence was commuted by the governor in January 2022 and he was granted parole by the board in August, but as of Tuesday remained in San Quentin State Prison.

Thomas, 52, was sentenced to 55 years and six months to life for a second-degree murder conviction and other charges after he fatally shot someone and injured another during a drug deal in 2000, according to clemency documents.

In his commutation, Newsom praised Thomas for completing college courses and an array of self-help programming saying he has “dedicated himself to his rehabilitation.” Thomas had received dozens of recommendations for clemency, including wide support from fans of his journalism covering prison life.

In interviews with The Times in early January, Thomas said he was thankful to both the governor and the parole board and that the process helped him to heal and reflect on his past. 

But he also criticized the lengthy process, saying that “every day matters.”

Even for those who are granted parole, release is not immediate. There is a review period of up to 150 days following a parole board hearing, which allows decisions to be overseen by the board’s legal team and the governor before they are finalized.

Thomas said he and his family were struggling not knowing when he would be released.

“I can’t curse a blessing,” Thomas said from prison in January. “My one wish is that this process, if you get a commutation, it should be streamlined. Really, it should be streamlined for everybody. … If you decided it’s safe to let me go, why drag it out?”

Thomas could not be reached for a statement on Wednesday, but a spokesperson for “Ear Hustle” said they “couldn’t be happier” about his release and called him “an important voice.”

“The ‘Ear Hustle’ team looks forward to working with Rahsaan on the outside to keep bringing audiences stories about life during and after incarceration,” a spokesperson said. “This is a special moment. We’re grateful to our listeners for their extraordinary support.”

A fundraiser had collected nearly $10,000 as of Wednesday from 137 donors to support Thomas post-release.

Photo: Earlonne Woods, from left, Nigel Poor, and Rahsaan Thomas on Wednesday after Thomas was released from San Quentin State Prison. (Courtesy “Ear Hustle”)

Attributions: This article originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times, on February 8, 2023.

Nation’s First Standalone Prison Campus Celebrates Graduation

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Against the backdrop of ongoing COVID-19 outbreaks and restrictions, Mount Tamalpais College (MTC) students graduated in an in-person ceremony in June at California’s San Quentin State Prison (SQ).

Family members and other outside visitors received permission to come to the facility for the June 24 event, which honored the MTC graduating classes of 2020, 2021 and 2022. Adorned in black caps and gowns, the 20 graduating students sat together toward the front of SQ’s chapel, where many of the institution’s biggest events are held.

The prison has been on complete or partial COVID-19 shutdown throughout most of the period from March 2020 to today, resulting in the postponement of the previous years’ graduation ceremonies. For many, the MTC graduation signified the beginning of better days ahead.

Before he began his valedictorian speech, John Levin told the audience how, even as a child, he practiced writing speeches for all sorts of imaginary occasions: receiving his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame; being the winning jockey at the Kentucky Derby, the first pick in the NBA draft, or employee of the month at Walmart; and even being awarded a Grammy for “Song of the Year” for a duet with Rihanna.

“I’ve been carrying around this folder for decades,” he said as he flipped through a sheaf of papers. “Ah, here it is — valedictorian for the awesomest college in the world.”

In his speech, he commended his fellow graduates for their perseverance “even in the most challenging environment — and in the most challenging times.” “Continue the long-term, high-yield investment in yourselves,” he said. “We may be in San Quentin because of our worst decision, but we are here today because of our best decision.”

This was the first in-person graduation ever for MTC, which was previously known as Prison University Project, affiliated with the now-defunct local school, Patten College. In January 2022, MTC became the nation’s only independent and fully accredited college program to operate solely inside prison walls.

“I’m extremely honored to be here for the very first Mount Tamalpais College graduation,” said Theresa Roeder, chair of MTC’s board of trustees. “This is the true meaning of the word ‘resiliency.’ You should be proud of yourselves. So many people are out there cheering you on from afar, very loudly.”

In his commencement speech, Warden Ronald Broomfield called the graduation “an extraordinary achievement in light of the last couple of years — and a very important day for San Quentin as well.”

He said the processional was “the highlight of his career.”

Broomfield offered what he called a “five-cent history lesson.” He spoke about the life of the famous African American scientist George Washington Carver and how it resonated with his own thoughts on the accomplishments of the graduates.

“‘Education is the key to unlock the golden door of freedom,’” Broomfield said, quoting Carver. “I congratulate you for being able to achieve freedom while remaining incarcerated.”

Noting Carver’s lifelong commitment to “bringing the greatest good to the greatest number of my people,” the warden asked, “Who are your people? Who are you going to lift up?”

He encouraged the graduates to “continue to endure so that you can unlock the golden door of freedom for your people.”

MTC founder and president Jody Lewen called the day an “extremely historic moment,” before introducing Chief Academic Officer Amy Jamgochian for “the ritual we’ve been waiting years to perform ourselves.”

Jamgochian conferred upon the graduates their degrees one by one as their names were read aloud. Each took the chapel stage to pose for photos while shaking hands with Lewen. Afterwards, they joined together to move their tassels from left to right en masse.

Darryl Farris’ mother and sister made the trip from Sacramento to see him graduate. “Oh my God. As soon as the music began, the waterworks started,” Farris’ sister, Trina, said of her tears of joy. “I know he worked really hard under the circumstances. I’m so proud of him.”

Charlestine Farris, the family’s 90-year-old matriarch, hadn’t seen her son in more than two years. “He’s learned and changed a lot since being here,” she said. “I’ve seen how he’s made the foundation of his life-to-be at San Quentin.”

The graduation was possible due to a recent shift in policy by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) that allowed San Quentin to return to somewhat normal operations in mid-June even though a single positive test result in the North Block prolonged its quarantine period for yet another 14 days. Some North Block residents who passed a rapid test were allowed to attend the graduation ceremony.

The previous COVID-19 protocol — in place since the devastating outbreak of 2020 — required that all units be completely off quarantine before normal operations throughout the facility could resume.

Two days after the MTC graduation, North Block’s quarantine was lifted, while South Block’s Badger unit went back under quarantine after new positive test results. Two days later, the entire SQ facility began another official “outbreak phase,” activating a number of public health protocols, when West Block experienced a fresh set of positive test results.

Attribution: This article originally appeared in PJP on August 8, 2022.  Photo/R.J. Lozada

An interview with former staff member and student David Cowan

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This year, our longtime Director of Operations David Cowan left his role at Mount Tamalpais College to devote himself full time to his work as Executive Director at Bonafide. Bonafide’s mission is to ensure that people affected by incarceration have the material, emotional and advocacy support they need to both integrate into society and build healthy, productive lives going forward, and we are so proud to partner with this organization and to have known David since his time as a college student at San Quentin. We sat down with David to ask him about his time as a student and then a staff member at MTC and what inspired the work he’s doing now.

What was your educational journey like?

It was always a desire of my family that I would go to college. When I became old enough, I joined the military. I had talked to a recruiter and they said they would pay for my college, and that I could go to college while I was there. But of course, I didn’t. While I was in the military I committed a crime, and went to prison. 

After I was arrested, my parents flew out {from Pennsylvania} to see me. At that point I didn’t feel like college was an option. I felt like there was no recovery. I didn’t even want to live, let alone think about the future. But one of the things that redirected my trajectory was that my dad said, on that first visit, “Whether or not you recover from this depends on the decisions that you make from here on out.” That was the first inkling I’d had that recovering from my decision was even possible.  It completely changed the direction of my thinking. My parents made me promise that I wouldn’t let the system change me, and that my number one priority would be to come home. 

How did you eventually become a college student? 

At first, I looked at some college programs {at another prison}. They were all correspondence. I attended some, but they weren’t real to me. I felt like the correspondence courses were just handing something over without care for the quality. It wasn’t the experience that I had thought it would be. Then, kind of by chance, I ended up at San Quentin. One of the first things I saw was a sign-up sheet for the college. 

I met Jody during my first orientation. There were just two staff members back then. It was amazing. The expectations were for us to learn and to think critically. In this program we were never treated like prisoners, which is valuable and rare. It felt like a training in being a free person, with  a focus on being a student. I felt a sense of fulfillment of the promise to my parents in a way that I hadn’t felt before. 

Why was the quality of your college education so important to you? 

At that time people with indeterminate sentences were not getting out. But I felt that if I ever did get out, I would be too old to do really tough physical labor. So I knew that I needed my brain. 

I was very suspicious at the beginning, looking for any sign of dumbing down the curriculum, or the instructors having low expectations of us. Early on some of the instructors would teach the same class inside and at a university, and some of them would bring their classes from the outside in so they could teach everyone at the same time. Having that proof that we were learning the same things that the students were learning outside and that we were able to excel with real curriculum, not dumbed down for prisoners, was very satisfying. It made me feel secure to know that I was getting a quality education. And that meant that I would be able to compete in the outside world, or at least survive. I came back to that belief from my father. I always had this underlying belief that I could work my way out. 

How did you end up joining the staff of MTC? 

I became the clerk {an administrative support role in the program}. I would set up the class boxes for the instructors, and gather and deliver mail to students. I had a reputation for being helpful to everybody, and the college program was so revered. If I was delivering papers for the college, I could go anywhere. Even places where I wasn’t supposed to be going because of my skin color. In prison, there’s this really strict segregation between communities. 

The most special thing about being a clerk is that it was embedded in the culture of the organization that I was a person. Unlike any other job in the prison, I wasn’t called an inmate while I was working, I was a staff member. They were holding me to the same standards as other staff. It was preparation for the outside. The staff never subscribed to the way the prison culture wanted them to be. That was the most valuable thing, in my time inside as a student and as a clerk. 

What was your experience of release and re-entry like?

Jody offered me a job before I’d even gotten out.  So I just walked right into a job. She knew I had a lot of things to process, so she said I could come in a day, in a month, in six months—the job would be open. So I took two days off. And then I went to the office. 

The staff was instrumental in where I am now. Amy Rosa, a staff member at the time, taught me how to get to work by bike. She showed up at my transitional house early in the morning with two bikes attached to her car and said, “we’re going to learn how to bike to work.” With other staff members, we walked all over San Francisco and they showed me how to ride BART. They were really instrumental in my re-entry. It was very lonely and depressing going to the transitional house after work and getting lost if I tried to explore by myself, but they were there. They are the inspiration behind Bonafide’s Critical Adventures program. We do those things that the staff did for me. 

What is your hope for the future of MTC? 

MTC is breaking new ground in the life of the organization. One of the things I think is critical is that it doesn’t lose sight of the fact that the students are people. That sense of responding to humanity – it’s kind of extra.  It’s not something that’s required to run a college program, but I think in this context it is. And that means work that isn’t necessarily in the job description. 

MTC has been a bigger part of my life than anybody realizes. It wasn’t just a school or a job. It gave birth to, and nourished, so much that is me. 

You can learn more about Bonafide and get involved in their critical work here. Thank you, David, for all that you do!

Student Spotlight: Michael Moore on Friendship

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After eight years of ducking and dodging prison politics, I was finally in a level two prison and walking to my first for credit college class.

I was walking with another student named Steve Rietz. I explained how I had made a decision to abandon being a criminal in exchange for going to college. It was the first long-term plan I had ever made in my life.

I told Steve that I thought I could earn a passing grade if I worked hard enough. He said that I should shoot for better than that. I argued that whether a doctor gets an A or a C, he’s still a doctor. He asked which doctor would I want working on me?

For sometime, Steve would not know how powerful that question would be. It haunted me. The fact was, that I did not believe that I was capable of earning an A. But he motivated me to put my all into my new class and I earned an A- in intermediate algebra!

Today with only four credits to go, I’m holding a 3.51 GPA. There are six A’s. Thank you Steve.

Student Spotlight: Alex Ross on Friendship

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As part of Mount Tamalpais College’s summer 2021 fundraising campaign we are highlighting the bonds of support that exist within the incarcerated community at San Quentin, and the many ways that people care for each other, and lift each other up. We are proud to share some student reflections on people in their lives that have helped them through this last year.

Juan Moreno Haines has been in prison every bit of two decades. During his incarceration, he’s created quite a resume and carved out a spot for himself alphabet by alphabet in the world of journalism. Juan is a modest man. Writing is his passion. He’s known for passing his skills to other prisoners while not interested in being the focus of attention. Juan has attracted the attention of some heavy hitters in the news industry. He’s made his appreciation clear when saying he can’t do what he’s doing “without the assistance of very dedicated people who believe in me and go out of the way to support incarcerated journalists like me.” He shows humble appreciation by honoring those who believed in his journey. 

In 2009, he began working for San Quentin News and today he’s its Senior Editor, and he’s a member of its Editorial Board. Juan has authored writings for a variety of publications such as The San Quentin News, Solitary Watch, Oakland Post, California Prison Focus, El Tecolote, Race and Poverty Law Journal, and many more. In addition to his publications, he’s a board member of Mourning Our Losses, he is the co-founder of Humans of San Quentin and if that isn’t enough, he has also received a number of awards such as, the 2020 Fielding A. Dawson Prize in the Fiction Category awarded by the PEN America Prison Writing Program Literary Contest, and the Silver Heart from the Society of Professional Journalists. He achieved all of these achievements from prison, yet his best achievement is that none of this has gone to his head. 

The purpose of my story is to talk about living next to my friend The San Quentin writer – Juan­, the person in the concrete jungle of San Quentin State Prison. Just in case you are wondering who I am, my name is Alex Ross K23127. This May will mark my 27th year in prison. My friend Juan is one of the forces that helps me stay grounded here at San Quentin. Prison is a very violent place and for most people in prison, violence is the norm. I had to reprogram my entire way of thinking which is how Juan and I became cool. Another one of his successes: he’s facilitated several self-help groups. I’m pretty sure his interactions with me inspired him to pull out his old notes. 

I’ve been living next to Juan for nearly four years now. In the beginning, it was just every day prison living, respectful neighbor type stuff. Then I started spreading (which is when the guys cook together) with him and his old cellie Yah Ya who was one of the best cooks around. We would eat, joke, then go our own ways. During this time, I was dealing with some stressful issues surrounding my struggle with OCD. Juan was somebody who I could talk to. Something he said really made a lot of sense to me: “Writing connects people in the prison environment, which is so disconnected.” That hit home with me because it wasn’t until I began to write about my problems that I was able to really understand them. 

I’m a student at Patten College which has now been renamed Mt Tamalpais College. Originally I joined the college just to take math. But in order to take a math class higher than algebra, it’s required to pass English. This scared me because I thought it would be a repeat of my old high school days. However, with the help of Patten College, the volunteer tutors from Free To Succeed, and my old friend Juan, somehow I took a liking to this thing called writing. 

Juan Moreno Haines

San Quentin is a community within the prison that is not as easily penetrated as one may think. The in-house powers-that-be shifted and I wasn’t used to the no politics (prisoner controlled rules). I really had to overhaul my belief system because I was used to solving my problems with my fist. Violence will get you on the first bus out of SQ. But if one ever wishes to qualify for parole, one must abort the old ways of criminal thinking or perish in prison. A lot of guys want to get themselves a name and not look back. Juan is not one of these guys. He pushes others to be all that they can be. He’s colorblind, so to speak, and more importantly, he tries to see things from other people’s perspective. Juan has no problem mentoring other prisoners, something he attributes to his mentor, Arnulfo T. Garcia. 

Juan will be going to the Prison Board this year and he’s written about so many other people, I felt like somebody needed to write about him. He being my next door neighbor, I’ve personally witnessed two or three people at the same time seeking advice from him. Every now and then I’ll step out the cell and say “Hey Juan, I wasn’t ear hustling but I couldn’t help but hear” such and such. He laughs, then gives me clarity, and says “And you was ear hustling.” 

Who is this San Quentin Writer? Juan is about five-foot-three and probably 120 pounds. But his writing has a voice like thunder. I told him what I was up to and he said “Good luck with that. I’m not giving you an interview.” I said, “You already did, buddy.” He laughed because he knows that as long as we’ve been neighbors, I’ve been bugging him about writing tips and taking notes. He did give in and answered a few questions once he realized how serious I was. I take pride in writing about my buddy because he’s all right with me. Plus, he made me write about myself. But I can’t get him to write about himself. He’s always telling me about reading up on people and situations, and the importance of collecting evidence. So I wanted to share a little evidence I collected on him. He chuckled as he walked off headed toward the media room. Actually, his cell is just a pit stop because the media room is where he spends most of his time. The prison is slowly opening back up and Juan is like a fish out of water that was put back in its habitat. As I mentioned earlier, I was going through my own issues with OCD and people didn’t really get me. Juan was one of the people I could talk to and he understood where I was coming from. I put out a few cellies because of my issues with germs, causing me to be the talk of the town. Truthfully, I was on the verge of a violent relapse. Being able to trust talking to a person and not lose my cool was helpful for my rehabilitation. While in Patten College, I took an abnormal psychology class. Some of the things that I read were familiar. I talked to my psych about it and I shared it with Juan. So when I did my final report that semester, I wrote about myself as if I were someone else. Normally, I only share personal business with my psych but Juan became just like my second psych and plus, I like to hear his opinion. I’m right next door so we chop it up on a regular. He felt like I should share my story. He started a story about my situation but the pandemic changed the course of history. I ended up writing it myself. Juan and my tutor felt I should send it to the Prison Journalism Project and, to my surprise, they printed it. 

I did tell you that Juan is my friend and no friendship is without its ups and downs. Actually, it was those ups and downs that let me know we are really friends. Let’s face it. We all met over a bowl of soup, as we say, and in the beginning it doesn’t make a difference if a person makes friends or not. We are all here to do our time. In the process, we run across every type of person in the world. The good, the bad, and the ugly of every background of life are right here in prison. If one can decide to be a good person in the concrete jungle of prison and absolutely mean it, then one could be that same good person upon his or her release from prison. My friend Juan is one of the very few people in life that I look up to. If anyone approaches him with negativity, that is a wrap – conversation over! If I bother him when the news is on, I get the cold shoulder. But if somebody else stops by, he is a little more patient with them and doesn’t want to be rude because, as he says, ”They don’t know I really like my news. You do.” Now what kind of foolishness is that? I’m the doggone neighbor. So I get him back. When somebody is at his door and I know he is trying to watch the news, I step out to see that look he has when he’s wanting to get back to the news and doesn’t want to be rude. LOL. But that’s a part of how willing he is to help others. The little time that he does have to relax, he lets it go to lend a helping hand. It’s especially funny when I walk back and forth in front of his cell as he tries to watch the news and ignores me. I keep passing by until I give in and start laughing. Now wait a minute though, it’s not just me. Juan likes to bring me his chow whenever there is corn in the main dish because he knows doggone well I’m never going to eat corn. So I have to get him back when I can because I’m telling you, Juan is a jerk at times. I was sitting in my cell writing and I got stuck on a word. I called out to my friend and asked how to spell the word. Do you think he helped me? No! He told me ”The word is in the dictionary.” If I felt like looking in the dictionary, do you think I would have asked him to spell the word for me? He told me his name was not Webster. I wanted to tell him they’re the same height but I decided to be the bigger person. So I lied and told him “I must be pronouncing it wrong because I still can’t find it in the dictionary. “Mr. Juan felt as though he was ahead of the game and yelled back “I can’t hear you. Got my headphones on.” I said “What?” And he repeated it. So he thought he won that battle just because I was forced to look up the word ”THE” for myself. I tell you people, Juan is truly a good dude but living next to him, I realize he can also be a real jerk, but that’s my buddy. 

Juan said his goals change from time to time. He is presently working on three books: a novel about an incarcerated journalist; a collection of short stories; and an anthology of book reviews that he wrote while in prison. Spike Lee look out because my neighbor Juan The San Quentin Writer is coming. 

Student Spotlight: Jesse Ayers on Friendship

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As part of Mount Tamalpais College’s summer 2021 fundraising campaign we are highlighting the bonds of support that exist within the incarcerated community at San Quentin, and the many ways that people care for each other, and lift each other up. We are proud to share some student reflections on people in their lives that have helped them through this last year.

During the pandemic, a “false positive”, resulted in “contact tracing” sending a number of inmates to “the hole”. After 21 days of quarantine, the inmates were returned to general population dorms. One of the inmates was from building (dorm 4) , he had been in dorm 4 for two years and now he was sent to my dorm 3. I had seen this guy around, at the various concerts on the yard and up in the chapel (before the pandemic) so I knew he did hip hop, R&B / Country music. I walked by his bunk and asked if he wanted to sing some country songs, just to practice, and he said “Sure”…

Since that day three months ago, I found a friend and a brother, someone who I have been able to share everything with. Both of us have suicidal pasts, mental health issues, similar childhood trauma…  Not to mention I found out that he’s a brilliant writer, singer, rapper, and author! I write scripts and screenplays, not to mention poetry. Quincy writes children’s books, his own biography, novels, songs of every type of genre! We have also been contributing to The Beat Within, telling our stories to help guide the youth inside of the Juvenile Justice system.

Quincy (Journ-E) showed me how to turn my poems into raps, to structure the sentences, people clown us saying “Don’t give that white boy the game!” 🙂 But it’s funny because I’ve always wanted to rap but didn’t think it was something I could actually do…  Quincy has been such a positive influence on me. When the pandemic hit I was cut off from all of the outside loving volunteers who inspired my change and encouraged my progress. I was always being told how famous I’ll be when I get out, how much money I’ll make, doing my comedy/acting. But I just want to be of service and give back…

Quincy gave me a chance to help someone write, sharpen his skills, and what I got in return was what I was missing. As an artist, I may be very funny, and talented, but I’m constantly dealing with a hurricane of doubt and negative thoughts about myself. Mental health “experts” only come in once every few months to talk to us (if we’re not EOP) and I have given up on thinking mental health is “the cure”. But Quincy has been a sounding board for me to share my issues with, he has calmly listened to me (a priceless gift) and whenever appropriate he gives me feedback or advice. He and I may both be on “The Big Screen” one day, but right now we are both in prison, and thankfully he has been there to help me through the most difficult part of the pandemic…  One day at a time…

Student Spotlight: Quincy Paige on Friendship

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As part of Mount Tamalpais College’s summer 2021 fundraising campaign we are highlighting the bonds of support that exist within the incarcerated community at San Quentin, and the many ways that people care for each other, and lift each other up. We are proud to share some student reflections on people in their lives that have helped them through this last year.

“Changed my life” is an understatement.  This man, Jesse Ayers, has given me a purpose. I have never had anyone (who was not my family) speak so highly about, and to me. Jesse keeps me honest, not just with others but most importantly, to myself. He is a true friend (if I’ve ever known one). We share a lot of common interests, and with him, I never feel like crabs in a barrel; always pulling each other down.

We tend to push one another further and give constructive criticism when needed. We help each other in areas we lack, for example, he says I’m a brilliant musical artist that can write any genre. Jesse is a talented writer, so I teach him how to sing and rap the lyrics he writes and in return he reads, listens, and nine times out of ten edits what I write. It shocked him when I gave him this to edit.

Jesse has given me many platforms to write and has pushed me to speak my truth. Thanks to his constant encouragement and connecting me with outside platforms such as The Beat Within with Chief Editor Dave Inocencio, I have a published paper! Jesse doesn’t just cater to the good moments… he’s also a wonderful ear in the bad moments as well. He always inspires me to write, sing, rap, act, dance, even when sometimes I feel it’s silly. I hope I can be half as much as he’s been for me.

In here, prison I mean, a lot of people claim they will be the next best thing to hit the market but I can truly say that Jesse will be. He is an amazing comedian, wonderful writer, and an actor to be watched. The thing I love about being around him is that he’s always uplifting, encouraging, and inspiring to anyone he comes in contact with. He has key components to become a mega Superstar.

In conclusion, Jesse Ayers has been a driving force to not only keep myself out of prison but a force to push me to become something better; not only for myself but for the world around me. I pray blessings and great success on his life.

God bless you all.

Staff Spotlight: Jen Juras

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We’re thrilled to welcome Jen Juras as Mount Tamalpais College’s new Chief of Institutional Effectiveness and Research. We asked Jen a few questions to learn more about her background, professional and personal interests, and approach to research and evaluation.

What drew you to this position? 

This role is the perfect blend of my experience, interests, and skills. Back in Michigan, I worked in criminal and juvenile justice reform research and advocacy, and for the past five years here in California, I’ve worked in higher education institutional research. They fit together so perfectly—I never thought that would exist.

What values and interests drive your work as a leader and researcher? 

I’m really attracted to Mt. Tam’s mission of bringing high quality education to all people incarcerated in San Quentin [State Prison]. I think education is a right and an important tool to help people reach their goals and have a voice in their communities. It’s a mission that I can really get behind and that I’m excited about.

How do you plan to approach your work over the coming year? 

There’s a lot to be done for accreditation so that’s a big focus right now. It’s actually nice that it’s happening that way because it provides extra guidance and support around setting up a really effective and comprehensive system of assessment. I’m looking forward to creating systems for assessment and evaluation in partnership with other staff and faculty.

What work are you most excited to dive into?

I’m really looking forward to engaging Mt. Tam’s students in the assessment process. In my past, I did a lot of participatory action research and participatory evaluation with both youth and adults. I think engaging stakeholders and having them be a part of the process to make sure we’re asking the right questions and that we’re going about collecting the strongest data is very important. They [students] can help interpret the results and decide what they mean, and help figure out the ‘So what?’ ‘What do we do to address what we found?’ ‘What actions do we take?’ ‘How do we improve the program?’ To me, that’s the most exciting part of research and evaluation and I’m really looking forward to doing that at Mount Tam College.

How will your work support the ongoing improvement of Mount Tamalpais College? How will it enhance student success?  

For all research and evaluation, the idea is that you’re engaged in a cycle of gathering information so that you can set goals, gathering data to figure out if you’re meeting your goals, collecting additional information to figure out why or why not, and then making course adjustments. Part of that process is just making sure you have data to know if you are being successful.

A question for Mount Tam is: what does student success mean? In more traditional colleges, a typical marker of student success is first-year retention—how many of the students who enrolled one fall return the following fall—but obviously that doesn’t work for us. Another one is time to graduation. That also doesn’t work perfectly for this population; from what I understand, it would be difficult for our students to take a full-time course load of 12-15 credits. So student success is going to look different…I think it’s going to have to incorporate learning what the goals are of particular students involved and not just tying to degree completion, but also tying to whether students are getting what they need to accomplish their own personal goals.

What are your interests outside of work?

I love trail running, especially long distance mountain trail running in other countries. I have a couple of friends I like to sign up for adventure races with—we like to sign up for things that scare us a little bit. One of my favorite races was a marathon that started at Mount Everest base camp.  That was really challenging and scary and exhilaratingly fun. I did another marathon with a friend that went along the Inca Trail route to Machu Picchu. I love the process of signing up for something that scares me a little bit and figuring out a plan to prepare to get there to do it.

Journalism at San Quentin

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Attribution: This article originally appeared in SFWeekly on April 29, 2021. Read Story

When a COVID-19 outbreak ravaged San Quentin State Prison last May, infecting over half the incarcerated population and killing 28 prisoners, Juan Haines was one of the inmates who tested positive. Rather than placing him in the already maxed-out infirmary, guards moved him to Badger Unit, one of the prison’s solitary confinement wards.

He was quarantined in cell 314, a squalid 4-foot by 10-foot enclosure with no electricity. He was provided scant medical attention and let out only to shower once every three days. Perched on the top bunk, Haines turned to writing. Using pen and paper, he documented the harrowing conditions of the prison and sealed his report in an envelope.

He addressed his letter to the editors of The Appeal, a news outlet dedicated to telling the stories of underserved communities, including the experiences of incarcerated individuals. San Quentin’s treatment of sick inmates was no longer a secret. 

“People were dying left and right,” Haines said during a collect-call telephone interview for this story. “I’m housed in North Block. We’re pretty much double-celled in there, so it was already overcrowded. It was particularly deadly because the buildings are unventilated and the windows are welded shut.”

When Haines penned his letter, he was not only reaching out to a group of fellow human beings, he was also appealing to a professional kinship. Haines is a journalist — an incarcerated journalist — reporting from within an institution historically synonymous with silence. 

As the senior editor of one of the few prisoner-run newspapers in the nation, the San Quentin News, Haines and his incarcerated colleagues work with a team of professional volunteer staff and advisors to produce a monthly paper distributed to inmates across California prisons. Known as “the pulse of San Quentin,” the San Quentin News is a vital source of information for individuals doing time throughout the state, as it provides updates on new state policies and the latest on reform efforts.

In 2015, reporters like Haines were officially recognized as professionals when they became members of the Society of Professional Journalists. Under the guidance of the SPJ, the first chapter inside a prison was born. 

Today, over 40 incarcerated journalists work inside the walls of San Quentin, writing and producing print, radio, and video journalism that has been published locally and nationally in a variety of outlets — including The San Jose Mercury News, The Marshall Project, The Appeal and KQED.

Inside Scoop

In addition to providing his fellow inmates a stream of information tailored to their daily lives, Haines and his peers come to the table with a perspective that few, if any, reporters on the outside could hope to offer.

When COVID-19 hit, the San Quentin journalists — much like members of the press trapped inside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 — were faced with a potentially lethal challenge and a serious scoop. It was the exclusive nobody wanted.

The crisis erupted shortly after the transfer of inmates from the California Institute for Men, a prison already suffering through a major outbreak. The transfers, some of whom hadn’t been tested in up to four weeks, mixed into the San Quentin population.

Haines, who tested positive for COVID-19 in June, wrote a number of stories about the conditions that made San Quentin susceptible to the deadly outbreak, exposing the failures of prison administrators along the way.

Inside the walls of the crowded San Quentin — one of several California prisons operating at more than 100 percent capacity — prisoners feared reporting their symptoms, lest they be quarantined in solitary confinement. Some had the once-a-year privilege of seeing their children revoked due to the outbreak. Others lived out their final days in their cells. 

The California State Senate is currently investigating the San Quentin COVID-19 outbreak. Many prisoners have filed lawsuits and petitioned to be released or relocated. Although San Quentin’s COVID-19 rates have dipped in recent months, infections across the California Department of Corrections’ 35 prisons persist among many of the system’s most vulnerable populations. Over the past year, almost 50,000 CDCR prisoners have tested positive for COVID-19; 222 have lost their lives. 

“It’s terrible. It’s a human rights crime of the highest order,” says Hadar Aviram, a UC Hastings law professor. In October, Aviram wrote a case brief on behalf of the ACLU of Northern California, which was representing San Quentin prisoners. That brief ultimately led the California Court of Appeals to rule that the CDCR administration had acted with “deliberate indifference” in their handling of the outbreak. The court ordered the CDCR to reduce San Quentin’s prisoner population to 50 percent capacity.

In late December, the California Supreme Court sent the case back to the Court of Appeals, effectively putting the order on hold. Today, activists around the Bay Area continue rallying for fair treatment of those behind bars. Aviram, who many regard as a leading voice of prison reform advocacy, says the ongoing litigation around safeguarding inmates during the pandemic amplified the need for reform many have long been fighting for. “I think the virus is illuminating a lot of pockets of suffering and neglect that were there before.”

Aviram works closely with local advocacy groups. Most recently, she’s joined forces with the Stop San Quentin Outbreak Coalition. The coalition, composed of lawyers, family members of inmates, former prisoners, concerned citizens, and young activists, marched to the prison walls in July with bullhorns and banners — publicly demanding that Gov. Gavin Newsom reduce the incarcerated population and take action against the California prison outbreaks.

Aviram says the work of the incarcerated journalists has been essential to activists. “What we desperately need is people trying to advocate for people inside. We can only advocate if we know the facts,” Aviram said. “Folks like the San Quentin News are doing a crucial job because they are the ones closest to what’s actually happening. They’re the ones getting the stories. It’s crucial to have journalism behind bars.”

According to Rahsaan Thomas, an incarcerated journalist interviewed for this story, prison officials do not censor the San Quentin News unless a story incites violence or is perceived to be disruptive to prison security. “As long as there’s no security issue, they can’t tell us what to say, and they generally don’t,” Thomas says.

As for the way members of the prison population — or powerful individuals on the outside — perceive his work, that’s a different concern.

“I do feel like I have to be careful about how I word things sometimes,” Thomas continues. “It could hurt me on parole board. It could affect politicians’ decisions on letting me go early. I am mindful of that.”

Thomas, who’s serving 55 years-to-life for second-degree murder, has developed considerable influence as a chronicler of prison life. 

Through the pandemic, he curated an online art exhibit called “Meet Us Quickly” centering the work of incarcerated artists with the Museum of African Diaspora. He is the co-producer and co-host of a podcast called Ear Hustle, which boasts over 20 million downloads. Working in collaboration with outside producers, Thomas shares snapshots of his daily life with the intent of breaking down stereotypes about people behind bars. 

“You get entertained and you also understand we’re just like you,” Thomas says. “They see you as a non-human, of course, they’re not going to help you. It’s very important to have journalists in here to get the story right so the public gets the full picture and correct information and they can make the best decisions when it comes to breaking these cycles.”

More to Say

As the saying goes in the news business, “If it bleeds, it leads.” And the Marin County prison’s battle with COVID-19 has served to draw a new wave of readership to the San Quentin News.

But the journalists working inside the prison are interested in plenty of topics that have nothing to do with the virus, and their mission — to “report on rehabilitative efforts to increase public safety and achieve social justice” — remains a guiding force.

“I’ve been at San Quentin since 2007, and I’ve been reporting the good, the bad, and the ugly,” says Haines, who’s serving a 55 years-to-life sentence for robbing a bank in 1996. 

“There’s a lot of great things that happen here as far as rehabilitation is concerned, and the opportunities for people to show accountability, redemption, and rehabilitation.”

Open some of the latest editions of the paper and you’ll find hundreds of inmates in caps and gowns graduating from rehabilitative programs, op-eds about Newsom’s new reform policies, or an inmate earning his Master’s of Business and Administration degree. Other editions feature prison administrators and inmates working together to host their annual Mental Wellness Week; Google executives visiting participants of the prison’s coding class; a sit-down visit between the San Francisco Police Department and the men they put behind bars; or public defenders stopping by for a four-course meal prepared by “San Quentin Cooks,” a rehabilitative program aimed at teaching skills for reintegration into the workforce upon release.

“Incarcerated people housed in jails and prisons all over the country write into the newspaper seeking to receive their own copies of the newspaper. Issues that are relevant in California are also relevant elsewhere,” says Lt. Sam Robinson, San Quentin’s Public Information Officer and administrative supervisor of the San Quentin News. “The stories I see that resonate the most are the success stories of people graduating with high school diplomas, GEDs, vocational certificates, or college degrees in addition to the stories of how people have grown and changed their lives through participation in rehabilitative programming, inspire others that they can evolve and have life-changing accomplishments as well.” 

Success Story

This was true for Jesse Vasquez, former editor-in-chief for the San Quentin News, who says his involvement with the newspaper and other rehabilitation programs are the reason he’s a free man today after spending half his life in prison. 

“We [San Quentin News reporters] want to be an instrument of social justice,” Vasquez says. “What society expects in a prison is violence, riots, drugs, and stuff like that, but that isn’t news to the outside. Minds have been trained to think that prisons harbor the most horrible of individuals, and yet you see that they’re graduating, they’re participating in Shakespeare and putting on performances.”

Vasquez was arrested and convicted for attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon after a drive-by shooting at the age of 17. He says from a young age, he knew he would likely fall into the prison system. 

“It was the way that I lived in my neighborhood, the things that I saw led me to believe that violence was a form of conflict resolution and that was the way that you solve problems.”

His own experience growing up in the prison system made him cynical. He didn’t believe that he and others caught up in the carceral system would ever find another way forward. Then, he says, the San Quentin News gave him reason to second guess his nihilistic views. He was serving time at Folsom State Prison when he read his first copy of the paper.

“I started reading the newspaper and I kind of thought it was just state propaganda,” he says. “I had never seen a prison like this. Every prison I was at had limited programming and there was this us-against-them mentality between staff and the incarcerated.”

But then, something began to change. Vasquez decided that if he were going to be locked up, he’d rather be in an institution that at least attempted to give the inmates a creative outlet and a voice. And so, when he had the opportunity to transfer prisons in 2016, he chose San Quentin.

“I can honestly say that up until the point I got to San Quentin, I was content with being in prison,” Vasquez says. “I had come to terms at a young age that I was likely going to die in these institutions. When I got to San Quentin, that contentment shifted to where I wasn’t satisfied with dying in prison. I wasn’t satisfied with staying in prison the way prison was. I wanted to do something about it because everybody else seemed to think we could do something about it.”

Vasquez, who now manages a housing program in Oakland for formerly incarcerated people, says his relationship with volunteer staff and advisors set him up for success. 

“They mentored me and helped me understand who I was and my professional capacity. That environment facilitated that growth where I’m able to navigate better. I have these skills that I developed because of the volunteers taking the time out of their day to come and visit us inside and impart to us their wisdom and understanding.”

Catalyst for Change

The San Quentin News is not only an inspiration to the incarcerated — it is a catalyst for change throughout California’s carceral system, as more prison news publications spring up around the state. Vasquez says while he was working at San Quentin’s paper, multiple prisons reached out inquiring about how to start a paper or newsletter of their own. 

The Mule Creek Post at Mule Creek State Prison, The Pioneer at Kern Valley State Prison, and Solano Vision at California State Prison Solano are active prison news publications in the mold of the San Quentin News. 

However, according to Steve McNamara, a volunteer advisor for the San Quentin News, while other prison publications are doing their best, they are all missing a key piece of the puzzle: civilian mentorship and support. “Some of the other prisons have begun to experiment with other papers, but of course what they really need in the beginning are volunteers who have some experience in this business and who are willing to devote time to get it off the ground,” says McNamara, former owner of Marin County’s Pacific Sun newspaper.

McNamara, an advisor for the San Quentin News since 2008, says those looking for proof that the paper has made a difference in the culture of the prison just need to look at the data behind prisoner transfers. As it turns out, Vasquez isn’t the only one who has sought to be moved to San Quentin in recent years.

“Inmates angle to get transferred to San Quentin,” McNamara says. “It used to be a scary place, and it is no more.”

McNamara concedes that the prison newspaper itself may not deserve all the credit. Rather, it is the underlying secret to the success of the San Quentin News that has turned the tide. Its proximity to the left-leaning, highly progressive Bay Area means San Quentin benefits from a wealth of willing volunteers all aiming to change the criminal justice system for the better.

At San Quentin, the paper is just one of ample rehabilitation activities and programs aided by thousands of volunteers — all of which are intended to build skills and facilitate avenues of success for the incarcerated.

“All the programs involve a close relationship between the participants and the volunteers who come in,” McNamara says. “They are people who are there predisposed towards believing in the reform of the criminal justice system.” 

Crime & Punishment

Although the Bay Area’s left-leaning population may drive support for programs like the San Quentin News, jailhouse journalism isn’t favored among all Bay Area residents.

“These guys are individuals who’ve committed grave and violent acts against innocent victims,” says Marc Klaas, founder of the KlaasKids Foundation, a victim’s rights organization based in the Bay Area. “They’ve been put in San Quentin and they’re put in these prisons because they’ve lost their right to public access. They’ve lost their right to be able to express their views.”

Klaas is a public figure who speaks on behalf of many victims of crime and their families. His daughter, Polly Klaas, was kidnapped from her Petaluma home at knife-point during a slumber party and later strangled to death at the age of 12 in 1993. Polly’s killer, Richard Allen Davis, sits on San Quentin’s death row.

Since the age of 12, Davis had been in and out of the prison system for both misdemeanors and felonies. In June of 1993, he was released on parole from the California Men’s Colony in San Luis Obispo after serving only half of a sentence for another violent kidnapping in 1984. 

“When my little girl was kidnapped and murdered in 1993, we had a crime epidemic in the entire United States, and it was because there were some very soft-on-crime policies,” Klaas says.

“The guy that kidnapped Polly, for instance, had been convicted twice previously of kidnapping. For his second kidnapping, he was released from prison after serving only eight years of a 16-year sentence, and only three months later my daughter was dead at his hands,” Klaas said. “Now 27 years later there’s a movement to ensure that he’s treated fairly?”

Davis’ extensive criminal record fueled advocacy for the passage of California’s controversial “three-strikes law” for repeat offenders in 1994. The law significantly increases prison sentences for convicts with two or more previous felonies, which has led some to be handed life sentences for non-violent crimes. 

Prison reform advocates say “three strikes” leads to overcrowding in prisons, perpetuating mass incarceration, and deters incarcerated individuals sentenced to life without parole from participating in effective rehabilitative programs. 

Klaas doesn’t entirely disregard support for rehabilitation but says it shouldn’t apply to everyone.

“I believe there are individuals that can be rehabilitated. For instance, I think that people who find themselves in prison because of drug-related situations can be treated and moved back onto a positive path, but once you get into the business of hurting people, of violence against people, I think you’ve taken a step too far and I don’t know if these are people we should be rehabilitating.”

Restorative Justice

The message of victim’s rights advocates has long resonated with political leaders and, according to UC Hastings’ Hadar Aviram, that tough-on-crime position is at once understandable and a roadblock to meaningful prison reform.

“I think that it is very important to listen to victims. And at the same time, it is also important to remember that victims should not be the moral arbiters for every public policy that has to do with justice,” Aviram says. “One of the things that we’ve seen in the culture of California is that victim advocacy groups and victim’s rights movements hijack the conversation to the point that no politician on the right or the left can afford to be seen as soft on crime.” 

UC Berkeley law professor Jonathan Simon believes that rehabilitative measures should be offered to all prisoners. According to Simon, a legal scholar and historian, they are an effective means of addressing the underlying reasons individuals commit crimes, particularly violent offenses. 

“Undoubtedly, the most serious crimes generate strong emotions, but we’ve enhanced it by myopic focus on the act and unwillingness to consider the person’s life courses,” Simon says.

“If we’re going to incarcerate people we should give them access to education and other things that allow them to protect their integrity.” 

To Simon, San Quentin’s COVID-19 crisis is proof that California’s prisons have reached a breaking point and that the correctional system is in need of a serious overhaul.

“When institutions become so toxified that they’re not able to correct themselves by responding to the needs of the humans that they’re managing, it’s time to look for radically different solutions,” he says. “I think it’s hard to conclude from this COVID crisis that we’re not there.”

And yet, as damaging as the pandemic was to public perceptions of CDCR, and as much as the outbreaks amplified public sympathy for the incarcerated and sparked discussions around reform, Simon isn’t holding his breath. With litigation to thinning inmate populations at a standstill, he recognizes a powerful set of beliefs aligned against change. 

“I think it’s a sign of how durable some of these crime myths are, that even at a time when there’s a lot of agreement that we need to change things, it’s been hard to convince the state to dramatically shift,” Simon says. “There’s a whole series of beliefs that are well worn into our legal thinking about imprisonment. One is what I like to describe as the myth of debt, that somehow there’s a debt that a crime creates, and unless somebody pays the full amount of it back, that everybody else has been cheated in some way. It’s powerful. It leads to the opposite, that is a system that can’t stop collecting.”

Still, Simon and other prison reform advocates do see signs of movement — chiefly in the engagement of the young activists who speak out when they recognize injustice. 

“The Black Lives Matter movement, as well as lot of other Americans who joined protest movements over the summer in response to George Floyd’s murder, are pretty significant,” he says, “because it’s the first time we’ve ever had a social justice and racial justice movement that’s squarely focused on the criminal-legal system as the [primary] target. I think that’s very positive in terms of driving change.”

While activists around America have marched in the streets for those historically silenced, the incarcerated journalists inside San Quentin continue to fight — and write — for justice. In that battle, a pen and paper are their weapons of choice.

“I have a saying for people who want to voice themselves,” says San Quentin News editor Juan Haines. “I tell them, ‘Pick up a pen, hold in firmly in your hand, and push it forward.’”

Lily Sinkovitz is a contributing writer. news@sfweekly.com

Showtime for Former Student Aaron Taylor

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Six months out on parole from San Quentin State Prison, former Mount Tamalpais College student Aaron ‘Showtime’ Taylor earned the opportunity he had worked toward for 26 years: serving as guest PA announcer for a Golden State Warriors home game. The game, against the Houston Rockets on April 10, showcased Taylor’s unique talent as a play-by-play announcer, a skill he perfected during years of calling basketball games on the yard at San Quentin. 

“I worked hard in 26 years to rehabilitate myself,” Taylor said in a postgame interview alongside Stephen Curry. “In the process of doing that, I just embraced the attitude that I could be more than what I was. Once I embraced the attitude that I could be more than what I was, then it was time for me to tell other people, you can be more than what you think you are.”

The Warriors discovered his talent during one of their annual visits to play San Quentin’s basketball team, the San Quentin Warriors, a game chronicled in 2017 by fellow Mount Tam student and San Quentin News journalist Rahsaan Thomas. As ‘the voice of San Quentin sports,’ Taylor’s work to take his skills to the NBA has attracted the notice of multiple media outlets, including a feature on The Kelly Clarkson Show. Read more about his journey to the big time.