Mount Tamalpais College

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Student Steve Brooks Honored by Society of Professional Journalists

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Steve Brooks was awarded a Contest Award by the Society of Professional Journalists Northern California for his commentary on criminal justice in California in “The Hidden Heroes Forgotten Inside” and “‘Violent Criminals’ Deserve Second Chances, Too”.

A full list of the SPJ’s 2020 Excellence in Journalism award recipients is here.

Steve was on track to graduate last year with the Class of 2020, but we were forced to cancel graduation due to COVID-19. He shared a commencement address on the importance of education which is available here.

Even in a Pandemic, San Quentin Must Restore Rehabilitation Programs

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With COVID-19 running amok in lockups across the state, California’s prison population at San Quentin State Prison is suffering a double blow. As of Oct. 20, there were more than 2,200 confirmed cases of COVID-19 among its residents and 28 deaths.

Not only must the other residents live in fear of getting sick, their minds are being starved by lack of stimulation. A state of emergency has virtually confined them to their cells like penned cattle. And with the holidays fast approaching, the level of anxiety might be further heightened with the exclusion of the customary observances that have been a programming hallmark at San Quentin State Prison for decades. This lack of exposure to rehabilitative programming deprives them of the resources that would prepare them for their return to society.

When I was first incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison in the fall of 2016, it was a hub of rehabilitation. The Prison University Project provided an avenue for me to improve myself academically. Criminal Gangs Anonymous and Millati Islami, an Islamic 12-step program, offered peer-to-peer support and recovery-based studies on the underlying causes of substance abuse, recidivism and criminality.

At my parole suitability hearing, the panel members from the Board of Parole Hearings remarked that it was my participation in rehabilitative programming that guided their decision to find me suitable for parole. They reasoned that it would be one thing to be able to enjoy the fruits of scholarship by securing a well-paying job, and another to have those gains go up in smoke in the form of vaporized rocks ingested through a crack pipe.

During the coronavirus outbreak at San Quentin State Prison, social isolation protocols were implemented and rehabilitative programming was suspended in response to the coronavirus. While those measures seemed justified, it has been nearly eight months since all rehabilitative programming was discontinued, and it looks as if no attempts are being made to address the programming needs of San Quentin State Prison’s rehabilitation-starved residents.

The indefinite suspension of rehabilitative programming runs counter to the mission of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Since 2004, the CDCR has invoked rehabilitative programming as an essential function of its operations, along with corrections officers, civilian support personnel and medical staff. None of these other components faced indefinite suspension, and neither should rehabilitative programming.

Restoring programming could be done safely. One approach would be to install more kiosks in the housing units, like the kiosks that are currently available for legal research. Secure media platforms such as kiosks, electronic tablets, e-readers and correspondence coursework would give prison officials enough latitude to continue rehabilitative programming activities that will meet the needs of the residents, as well as address any security concerns during the pandemic. But the use of these media seems to have been overlooked or dismissed.

The installation of additional kiosks might be costly, and not everyone can afford an electronic tablet or e-reader. The staff needed to maintain security and provide technical support might also strain resources. In addition to that, I am certain there are those who might say: “These people got themselves into prison, so why waste precious resources when society is being equally challenged by the pandemic?” But the suspension of rehabilitative resources could prove more costly than folks might imagine.

Take the case of an incarcerated individual who suffers from the disease of addiction and receives no in-prison substance abuse treatment. CDCR recidivism tracking data, from 2014 to 2017, shows that of those who did not receive in-prison treatment 47.8% were convicted within three years of being released. By comparison, of those who completed both in-prison treatment and aftercare 18.5% were convicted within three years of being released. According to California’s Legislative Analyst Office, in 2018-2019, it costs about $81,000 per year to incarcerate someone in prison in California. The data speaks for itself: rehabilitative programming works and is less costly. It also shows the antiquated approach — which proposes we leave those who fell from grace to their own devices — does not work and is more costly.

Rehabilitative programming was my key to freedom. And rehabilitative programming continues to play a pivotal role in my recovery. Moreover, in my case, it is because of rehabilitative programming that society has thus far gained the benefit of having another citizen that can contribute to the well-being of all of its citizens.

Pandemic notwithstanding, rehabilitative programming should be reinstated and California’s authorities need to step up to the plate to see to it that my comrades have a decent shot at returning to their communities better off than when they suffered what can arguably be construed as one of the worst moments of their lives. That is what the CDCR declared in its mission statement and this is what the public should expect.

Attribution: This article originally appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle on December 14, 2020. Read Story

Student Juan Moreno Haines on COVID-19 Inside San Quentin

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Prison University Project student and Senior Editor of the San Quentin News Juan Moreno Haines has emerged as a voice of the incarcerated experience during the COVID-19 crisis. His published pieces collected below reflect what’s happening inside San Quentin in real time.

Please note that the Prison University Project became Mount Tamalpais College in September 2020.

Inside San Quentin Prison, You Sit and Wait Until COVID-19 Comes for You

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As a working prison journalist, I wanted to keep my eyes and ears wide-open. I wanted to detail everything going on around me as COVID-19 raged out of control here. But a fog crept through me. Was it just a cold, a sinus infection, influenza—all things I’ve battled before? I woke to strange chills in the night; there was an acrid aftertaste along the back of my tongue. Maybe I just needed to pull out a blanket.

Is this what COVID-19 feels like? My temperature had been normal every day. My breathing remained strong and clear. I wanted to believe that meant I was fine.

Even though I knew I wasn’t.

On June 22 and 23, everyone in my building, San Quentin’s North Block, lined up for COVID-19 testing. I had just begun to feel weirdly awful. I overheard other guys describing the same things I was feeling. None of us wanted to alert the medical staff. So, you admit you’re sick? Well, let’s remove you from the few familiar comforts you have and throw you in an empty cell for a 14-day quarantine. That’s the protocol we all feared worse than COVID-19.

The guards called names throughout the day. “Pack all your property, you’re moving.” We assumed these guys had tested positive, but that wasn’t made clear. My cellie and I listened intently whenever a fresh set of names got called, holding our breath. When we weren’t on the list, we went back about our days, locked in the cell. So far, so good.

All I wanted to do the night of June 25 was watch some television before, hopefully, passing out. I hadn’t slept well all week.

Then the guards called my cellie’s name, with another group of housing moves, just after 8 p.m. “Damn,” he said as he jumped off his bunk.

For the next hour and a half, I lay on my bunk, staying out of the way as he packed up. As usual, the tier officer came by around 9 p.m. and double-locked all the cell doors. The building went quiet. Around 9:30 p.m., they repeated the list of names from earlier. “Get ready to move.”

Then they added one more. “Garcia, 409, you’re moving, too. Pack your stuff.”

Now it was my turn to say “Damn.”

San Quentin’s South Block, where quarantined inmates are housed, is separated into four alphabetized units — Alpine, Badger, Carson and Donner. Sometime after 11 p.m., one of the North Block’s Inmate Disability Assistance Program workers, my buddy Ron Ehde, stopped by. “You’re getting housed over in Donner,” Ehde told my cellie, sharing information he had gleaned from events of the day. By no means was it official, but it was more than anyone else would provide for several days. “It looks like that’s where guys who tested positive are being put right now.”

“And you, your test probably came back negative,” Ehde explained to me. “But you’ve been celled up with a positive. So they have to quarantine you somewhere else, over in Carson.”

Six of us made our way across the prison around midnight, pushing rickety carts overflowing with boxes, bags, odds and ends. Four men, including my cellie, disappeared into Donner. I was left at the edge of Carson with another prisoner. An officer there gave us our cell numbers on the third tier.

After a couple of trips lugging boxes up and down, I began to wonder if I was experiencing the COVID shortness of breath. I was woozy and sweating. Strange faces stared silently out at me from the cells I passed. This was an administrative segregation (ADSEG) housing unit—each man housed alone, left to stew in his own thoughts.

I peered into the open door of a depressingly dirty cell. “Has this cell been properly disinfected?” I asked.

“This cell’s been empty for a long time, since way before there was any COVID,” the officer said. “You don’t gotta worry about any of that.”

I knew the deal—just get all my stuff into the cell and let him close the door. I’d have to clean the entire cell before I could begin to feel comfortable—8 p.m. in bed watching TV seemed a lifetime ago.

There’s a demented cacophony of human voices universal to any ADSEG unit. Listening to my new neighbors in Carson, I could hear anger, pain, frustration. Some of these guys had been stuck here for months.

Eventually, I did receive a notice informing me that I’d tested positive for COVID-19—one more number in a group that has now passed 2,000. Fifteen San Quentin inmates have died.

During a routine temperature and breathing check, I told a nurse about my bouts of nausea, my night sweats, my constant weakness.

“You have no shortness of breath. You don’t need any hospitalization,” the nurse told me. “Your body is just fighting off the virus. Keep taking your Tylenol and drinking lots of water.

“You’re one of the lucky ones, sir.”

I don’t feel lucky.

Attribution: This article originally appeared in the Washington Post on July 23, 2020. Read Story