The Giants will donate resources, support mental health efforts, and increase awareness for prison reform.

San Quentin team to be renamed San Quentin Giants.

SAN QUENTIN, Calif. (August 24, 2023) – Pollen Initiative – an organization dedicated to cultivating rehabilitative programs inside prisons across the U.S. – today announced a new partnership with the San Francisco Giants to provide philanthropic support to San Quentin Baseball, the official baseball team of San Quentin Rehabilitation Center (SQRC). In an effort to support meaningful prison reform initiatives and powerful rehabilitation programs, the program will strengthen one of the prison’s longest running and most successful restorative initiatives. As part of the partnership, the team will also be renamed the San Quentin Giants.

For more than 70 years, the San Quentin Baseball team has helped the incarcerated population at SQSP develop valuable skills, including teamwork, discipline, and effective communication – crucial tools for success inside prison walls and upon reentry into the broader society.

“We are proud to work alongside the Pollen Initiative to support the impactful rehabilitative programs at San Quentin Rehabilitation Center, while bringing greater awareness to prison reform within our community at large,” said Shana Daum, San Francisco Giants senior vice president of communications and community relations. “Through the power of baseball, the San Quentin Giants will be equipped with the tools and resources needed for future success.”

For decades, the Giants have worked closely with San Quentin Baseball on impactful prison reform efforts, and today’s announcement elevates the Giants contributions to a new level. As part of this new partnership, the Giants will provide uniforms and equipment as well as mental health and physical performance support to the team at SQRC.

Personnel from the Giants will also participate in discussions at the prison to help foster a constructive dialogue about prison reform and social justice issues confronted by those who are incarcerated. The program will serve as a foundation for future

collaborations as SQRC looks to expand its life-affirming, transformational opportunities for participants.

“I am grateful for the long-standing support, that the San Quentin baseball team, and administration has received from the San Francisco Giants organization. I’m especially excited about the reinvigorated collaboration moving forward,” says Ron Broomfield, director of CDCR’s Division of Adult Institutions. “Sports can create hope in a place associated with hopelessness and despair. It is one of the most powerful means of breaking down language, social and racial barriers. That along with the mental health aspect of this partnership makes it that much more powerful and impactful. I am confident that the San Quentin baseball team will continue to thrive, providing the incarcerated population with opportunities for recreation, personal growth, and rehabilitation.”

“We are proud to help facilitate this meaningful partnership that will mean more individuals can experience the positive and restorative benefits of sports through this transformational program,” said Branden Terrell, advisor at Pollen and lead coordinator for the partnership. “Support from the San Francisco Giants will help raise awareness for valuable restorative programming that makes communities safer, and

have a remarkable impact on those incarcerated at San Quentin Rehabilitation Center. We look forward to bringing more valuable programs like this to this prison, further reducing recidivism and improving our Bay Area community.”

# # #

We aim to turn the stigma of incarceration into a catalyst for growth, community impact and transformation. The Pollen Initiative – formerly known as the Friends of San Quentin News – is an organization dedicated to cultivating rehabilitative programs inside prisons across the U.S., with a special focus on media centers inside prisons and jails. Through hands-on journalism and audiovisual training, as well as leadership programs that facilitate personal growth and transferable skills, the projects led by incarcerated writers and media producers contribute to more balanced, grounded narratives both inside and outside. We support a collection of hand-picked existing prison newsrooms, like the historic San Quentin News, as well as emerging newsrooms, media projects and other rehabilitative programs.

One of the oldest teams in Major League Baseball, the 140-year-old franchise moved to San Francisco from New York in 1958. After playing a total of 42 years in Seals Stadium and Candlestick Park, the team moved to the privately constructed, downtown ballpark on the corner of 3rd and King in 2000. The organization is widely recognized for its innovative business practices and baseball excellence having been named in the past decade the Sports Organization of the Year by Street & Smith’s Sports Business Journal, Organization of the Year by Baseball America and ESPN’s Sports Humanitarian Team of the Year. Oracle Park is also the only ballpark in the country to have earned Silver, Gold and Platinum LEED certification for an existing building.

Since opening its gates, Oracle Park has become internationally-renowned as a premier venue in the world of both sports and entertainment. On the diamond, more than 67 million spectators have witnessed countless magical moments, including three World Series Championships (2010, 2012 & 2014), the raising of four National League Pennants and eight playoff appearances. The ballpark has also hosted some of music’s biggest acts, including Lady Gaga, Beyoncé & Jay Z, Ed Sheeran, the Rolling Stones, the Eagles, Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band, Green Day and Billy Joel.

Contacts:

San Francisco Giants | Sophie Lair

 slair@sfgiants.com

FGS Global | Jeremy Pelofsky

 SanQuentinNews@fgsglobal.com

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Chayne Hampton is the manager at Santa Cruz Plumbing Inc., operating the company’s residential plumbing department.

Plumbing was prominent in Hampton’s life growing up in Santa Cruz. His father has been working for the UA Local 38 Plumbers & Pipefitters union in San Francisco since Hampton was born. Around age 20, Hampton began to work alongside his father. But that soon ended because of what Hampton calls “bad life choices.” Hampton struggled with a drug addiction that ultimately led him in 2016 to serve three years at San Quentin State Prison for burglary. After his release in 2019, he entered rehab and sought employment. He reached out to Santa Cruz Plumbing owner Jason Allison, who gave Hampton a chance. He started out as a shop hand, eventually working his way up to manager.

Transitioning from incarceration to the workforce is no easy feat. Hampton says people “have to learn how to operate in a world that’s not the world that you’ve been in.” Many will pass judgment, he says, but if someone is a hard worker their past shouldn’t hold them back. Hampton relishes the simplicities of life, having gone through losing his freedom while in prison. He prides himself on maintaining a job long term, something he struggled with in the past. He enjoys what he describes as “normal-people stuff,” like traveling, working out and spending time with his wife.

Hampton also shared stories on the “Ear Hustle” podcast, as well as narrating parts of the audio version of the book “This is Ear Hustle: Unflinching Stories of Everyday Prison Life” by Nigel Poor and Earlonne Woods. He hopes to be able to progress in his career, either growing the residential plumbing sector or working for himself and beginning a family business.

Education:

• San Lorenzo Valley High School
• Cabrillo College: construction estimating, plumbing code, blueprint reading

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

(Kevin Painchaud / Lookout Santa Cruz)

Lookout: Can you walk me through how you became involved in the plumbing industry?

Chayne Hampton: My dad’s a plumber and he works for the [plumbing] union in San Francisco, and he’s worked there since before I was born. When I turned 20-something, I tried to join the union and I ended up getting in. I was commuting over the hill with my dad and that commute was just kind of a nightmare. I can see it now in retrospect how draining that drive is and just working in the city in general. They would pay you a lot but it’s a lot of time off your life. But that’s not why I left the union — I made some bad life choices that ended my career there.

I went to jail two times before I went to prison. Just little six-month stint[s]. I thought that would be the end of it, they would never send me away because I was such a petty criminal. The judge looked at what I was doing and saw that it was gradually getting worse and worse. I was taking bigger and bigger risks and that got me a prison sentence. I ended up going to prison for a little bit and when I got out I was in a rehab, New Life on the Westside.

I turned in an application [to] Anne Keating, who’s our HR person [at Santa Cruz Plumbing]; [she] got my application, showed it to [company owner] Jason [Allison]. One of my past employment [experiences] was at San Quentin, [at] the waste management plant. I was trying to make it look pretty without saying I’d been to prison. Jason, not being an idiot, put it together and gave me a call and he said, “I’m very empathetic to a guy in your position. Where are you at? I’m going to come talk to you.” So he came to where I was at. He was like, “All right dude, we’re going to start you at this [wage],” which in retrospect was exactly how much money I needed to make at that time. Now I make twice that.

I had minimal experience, at that point I think I was a [shop hand]. [Jason said,] “All right, we’ll get you digging some holes.” So that’s where I started, digging a little bit [and] organizing the truck, nothing too complicated because, I mean, I was like a baby. After a while, slowly more responsibilities [were] put on my lap. Jason is pretty hands-on and he saw where I had some strength, which was mostly relatability with people, deescalating situations [with] customers [or] other contractors, just general customer-service skills. My employment took a bit of a shift to more management, so I have guys working under me. I’ve been doing this now for about a year.

Lookout: What does a typical day look like for you?

Hampton: For me, I just started checking my emails. [But] whenever I get started I get parts [and] lay [it out for the] guys, like, “This is the job we’re doing today.” Then I’ll go to the job with them and get a material list for them so that they don’t have to drive back and forth to the supply house, kind of streamline things. [I’ll] check in with the customer to make sure they’re doing OK, no one is making a mess, everyone is parking where they should be parking, let them know if the water is going [to] be off. From there, I head back to the office [to] follow up on quotes that I had written and then from time to time I [find] myself in the field tying up loose ends, [like if] a customer needs to be walked through how their new tankless water heater works, then that’s the last thing I’ll do in the day.

Lookout: What was the experience of transitioning from prison back to the workforce?

Hampton: I mean, I didn’t think I had a snowball’s chance in hell. I’ve got tattoos. Even before going to prison I lived in a prison of my own making. Through lifestyle choices I created a very small world for myself, [it was] very limiting. I [could] never be too far away from the action. My life was confined to six or seven blocks in each direction. I was crippled by drugs and addiction, mentally and physically.

I didn’t have any proper skills. But Jason, once again, I [have] to give this guy all the props in the world. I don’t know what he saw in me, maybe he thought I’d only last a week or a year. I’ve never done anything [for work] for five years [and now] someone just took a shot on me. I have buddies who are in the same situation as me, and [it’s] “I can’t find work” and this and that. It’s not easy for a lot of dudes with tattoos on their face and a rough background or a record, but it’s not impossible. I also have a ton of friends who brought themselves into unions. You’ve just got to be willing to start from the bottom. I was trying to be very humble about it: You want me to dig holes? I’ll dig holes.

Lookout: What was it like working in the sewage treatment plant at San Quentin?

Hampton: So my sewage treatment job, when I first got it, I was like, “Cool, sewage treatment, I’m going [to have] a breaker and some chemicals, maybe some goggles.” Yeah, I had goggles, but my tools were a pitchfork and a hose. I would go into this thing they called the pit where all the sewage travels through it. I would have to unclog these drains with the pitchfork and the hose. When you make food in prison you make it in a spread bag [a plastic bag] and when you’re done with it guys will just tie it and then flush it. So when I’d be in there spraying off sewage, sometimes I’d hit one of those bags, it’d ricochet into my face. That’s why I was going to have the goggles and that’s when I stopped having a beard.

They tell you this is your job then you show up for it and if you [try] to refuse it, it’s going to be bad. There’s this weird illusion of free will [that] people think is so necessary, but after being incarcerated, I’ll tell you what, I miss sometimes having someone tell me when to do things. Like, sure, you’re free, but at the same time, that’s a lot of thinking, decision-making, responsibility [and] accountability.

When I applied for the job [at Santa Cruz Plumbing], of course with Jason I was all-in. I was in the union but I don’t necessarily want to tell this guy I’ve been to prison. I’m just going to be honest, but also say, I worked in the sewage treatment plant in San Quentin. San Quentin is not just a prison, I’m pretty sure it’s a town. He took one look at that and was like, “mm-hmm.” So he figured it out.

Lookout: What do you love most about your job?

Hampton: I like interacting with people. I like getting people set up and stoked. Maybe changing the narrative a little bit that you can’t trust your mechanic, you can’t trust your plumber. Everybody is trying to sell you something extra. It’s like no, man, I’m really not. You just have this active water leak I’m trying to get taken care of. My wife called me from the mechanic and she’s just, “Oh, they’re trying to sell me this fluid. I don’t know if I need it.” I was like, “Maybe you need it.” Everyone’s so scared and I get it. One of the things I like doing is [to] just surprise people by giving them what they want and maybe telling them what they need.

I’ve been able to hire guys too, Jason has allowed me to have that responsibility. There’s been guys that were like me, I’m like, “Let’s give you a chance.” Not all of them have worked out but like one of them did, [and] that’s great. Who doesn’t like a comeback story?

Lookout: What have been your biggest challenges in your career?

Hampton: Realizing what a lack of proper education I had going into this, whether it’s spelling, mathematics, writing an email properly, talking to people [professionally]. Those are these huge hurdles I’m working on every day. Those are things I’ve had to adapt to. Also being kind of a self-starter, my days aren’t always laid out for me. I’ve got to keep myself busy and productive.

(Kevin Painchaud / Lookout Santa Cruz)

Lookout: What advice would you give to someone who is interested in this type of career?

Hampton: Just be humble and ready to show up. I mean, just because you got paid $25 an hour under the table by Jimmy Jams Plumbing in Boulder Creek doesn’t mean you’re necessarily going to get that somewhere else. And that’s OK, then you go and you learn. I’ve taken classes at Cabrillo that correlate with my career: construction estimating, plumbing code, blueprint reading. Those weren’t things I asked my boss to pay for, either. It’s not his responsibility, it’s your responsibility. If you want to get paid more, be worth more. I know that’s a tough thing. The trades are riddled with guys that have problems showing up on time or attitudes. Just be stoked you got a job, show up a little early, stay a little late. Don’t look [at] your time clock, [or write] every email like, “I actually [finished] work at 3:05, [so] I should get paid for those five minutes.” You should get paid for those five minutes but my dad always told me, “If you got to stay a little late to fix your mistake, don’t make Jason pay for it.”

Lookout: Who is the best person suited for the job?

Hampton: I mean, anybody. Man, women, [or] whoever, a worker [is] a worker. Maybe you’re working with a guy who doesn’t speak any English, but plumbing’s like a universal language, like mathematics. You watch YouTube videos on silent on how to cook things, you could watch a plumbing tutorial in Spanish while you only speak English and still learn something. Just bust ass, move fast and don’t make too big of a mess.

You have to be able to work with dispatch, guys who are ordering parts and you have to have some degree of communication skills and traveling up on your own. It’s a team effort.

Lookout: What can someone expect to be paid when they’re going into this career field?

Hampton: I don’t know, maybe $20-ish if you have a license? You’re not only getting a job but you’re also getting hands-on training that translates to other places. You could probably get a job for more starting at a restaurant, for example. It’s like, what’s your intention?

If you’re really good you can make like $75 an hour. If you’re doing your own thing you could charge $125 an hour, you could charge whatever you feel like you’re worth, as long as you’re being fair with the customer and honest. If you’re new to a company but you’ve done plumbing for 15 years, they may start you off at a certain dollar amount and then once you’re able to prove yourself then your price will go up.

Lookout: What’s the difference between a union and non-union plumbing?

Hampton: A lot, it’s a big question. [In a] union, there’s guaranteed work. It’s hard to say, because some people prefer the union, but you have to pay dues to the union. You’re not allowed to really strike out on your own, like your knowledge is essentially theirs. Prevailing wages, some projects are only union, like this is a union plumber job and it’s prevailing wage. That could be upwards of $75 an hour, but that prevailing wage job doesn’t necessarily last forever.

Lookout: What is something that most people misunderstand about your job?

Hampton: There’s a lot more to it than you think. It’s not just unclogging toilets, it’s also opening up walls, installing new plumbing systems [and] knowing how hot water works. I understand it’s just water, but [it’s] temperatures, also gas and gas pressure. Like what size should your gas line be if it’s servicing these three different fixtures? I’ve got to find out what’s on the fixtures and this degree of math to size something correctly because it’s going to go underground. I don’t think it’s a trade you would see depicted in a movie. Like I’m Mario and Luigi and we just got these plungers. There’s a lot to it. There’s a complement of electrical and HVAC [heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems]. They all culminate into one.

Lookout: What kind of jobs do you think there will be out there in the plumbing field?

Hampton: I think the technology around plumbing is always changing, new applications, making it so jobs can be done quicker. There’s all kinds of routes that you want to take [because] plumbing is not just water and poop. It’s also gas [appliances]. There’s new water heaters that are electric — in California, we’re trying to go in that electric direction. That means your old gas water heaters have to go, and your new electric ones have to go in.

Lookout: What does the trajectory of your job look like?

Hampton: For me, I would like to grow [into] the service department and have more guys. Jason, the owner, is responsible for over 100 guys. If I could have my little department where I’m doing that in my own way, that’s the goal. Maybe one day be competent enough to do something on my own or have my dad involved and keep it in the family. Jason started his company from the ground up, out of his garage. I do more residential stuff at people’s houses, if I were able to grow that. Right now we have five guys. When we have 10 guys, we’d really have a thriving service department along with [a] thriving construction side.

(Kevin Painchaud / Lookout Santa Cruz)

Lookout: What would be your advice to someone who is getting out of jail or in a position where they ask, “What’s my next step?”

Hampton: Apply, apply, apply. Just apply and be forthcoming. I genuinely believe there are business owners out there [who] want to be that person that gave that dude [a] chance and he just crushed it. Understand though, too, other guys have come before you and they let people down. Understand that people are going to pass judgment. Don’t lie, be forthcoming. The bottom line is, none of that [stuff] will matter if you’re a really good plumber or you’re a really good hand [or] worker.

Lookout: What motivates you every single day to continue on considering all the hurdles you’ve gone through?

Hampton: Personally, it’s the security of having something to do every day. I know that idle hands [are] like the devil’s playground. Too much idle time, either you’re just on social media or you’re distracting yourself in one shape or form. At least this way, I’m driving around on this side of the hill. That’s the great part. I could be on the Westside, in Aptos or Felton all in the same day and that just keeps me busy. I also have a wife now, she works here cleaning vacation rentals. We’re a DINK [couple], dual income, no kids. So we like to go out to dinner, travel or whatever and those things cost money.

Lookout: What does the future look like for you?

Hampton: I would like to get a dog. Me and my wife want to go to Italy. It’s a lot of normal-people stuff that maybe to the average person is like, “Yeah, that [stuff] is cool.” But understand I came from a place where, like I said, I’ve never done anything for five years. I don’t know how else to describe it, I’ve had a job for five years, like I’ve been fired from everywhere I ever worked. The second I got off drugs and started trying, I was able to keep things. I think that was a pretty big constant in my life before, I was always losing things. Whether it was something as simple as losing the money I had in my pocket for the drugs, losing this and losing that, and losing my freedom. Now I try, and I genuinely put in the effort. It’s just my belief that when you put in the effort you get gifts.

The post For Chayne Hampton, ‘plumbing isn’t just water and poop’ applies from San Quentin to Santa Cruz appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Nigel Duara, Cal Matters

California’s best-known prison is being reorganized into a rehabilitation center under a plan the governor announced Friday — a move hailed as revolutionary by some prison reform advocates but derided by prison abolitionists as mere window dressing, rather than the more dramatic changes the you want to.

Gov. Gavin Newsom said the state will spend $20 million to begin restructuring San Quentin State Prison from a facility housing 3,300 inmates in a high-security San Francisco Bay Area location to a “center for innovation focused on… Education, rehabilitation and breaking the cycle of crime.”

What that will look like in the end remains unclear for the time being. The new facility will be designed by an advisory committee made up of crime victims, ex-prisoners and academics, according to Newsom’s office. The democratically controlled legislature must also approve funding for the rehabilitation plan.

“This is certainly new, bold and ambitious, and I’m pleased to see it as a step in the right direction,” said Sharon Dolovich, director of the UCLA Prison Law and Policy Program.

“Sometimes it slips between cup and lip, so who knows how it will turn out. But the idea is right.”

Newsom’s office has not provided a final cost estimate for the facility’s restructuring. He marked four more state prisons to close since taking office in 2019, a trend made possible by the declining inmate population at California state prisons.

He said the increased emphasis on rehabilitation would better prepare inmates to rejoin their communities.

“We are here to do more and get better, to reconcile and to face the hard realities. We are as stupid as we want to be,” he said in a statement in prison. “Two-thirds of the people who get out of prison every year within three years violate a parole order or commit some other damned crime. Where’s the security in that?”

A Newsom spokesman said he does not expect to lay off prison staff as part of the change.

However, San Quentin is known as the home of California’s Death Row The state has not executed an inmate since 2006. Newsom in 2019 declared a moratorium on executions. In 2022, he announced a plan to disband death row and send convicted inmates to other locations.

The new plan would complete the closure of death row and shut down a prison industry agency camp. The facility would be renamed the San Quentin Rehabilitation Center.

Some of the larger questions about the reorganization will remain unanswered until the prison’s advisory committee makes a decision, including which inmates will be eligible for the rehabilitation center.

The new facility will also offer job training, according to the governor’s office, although the advisory committee must decide which jobs inmates will be trained for. In prisons in other states where job training is a priority, jobs include plumbing and long-distance transportation.

The plan for the new facility is based on prisons in Scandinavian countries, including Norway, which significantly improved its recidivism rate from 60% to 70% in the 1980s to around 20% today as it began to grant more freedom to prisoners and focused its prisons on rehabilitation.

In these prisons, inmates can wear their own clothes, cook their own food, and move relatively freely within the prison walls. This model has taken root in states as different as deep blue Connecticut and deep red North Dakota.

Conditions in San Quentin

As early as 1983, San Quentin was a symbol of California’s inability to safely house its inmates. A federal one Ministry of Justice report from that year pointed to overcrowded conditions, filthy facilities and “serious management problems.”

More than 20 years later, prisoners from San Quentin were among them to file a lawsuit against California’s prison system and claimed that the medical care they received was inadequate. As part of that lawsuit, a judge found that up to 10 deaths in San Quentin were due to preventable causes.

More recently, at least seven prisoners from San Quentin a hunger strike to protest what they described as dire conditions during a massive COVID-19 outbreak and quarantine at the facility in 2021.

Gangs could operate in San Quentin as they did in most California prisons. Even in his highest security unit, the Safe Housing Unit, which keeps particularly dangerous or influential inmates in solitary confinement for up to an hour or two a day, is a former member of a California prison gang CalMatters announced that he was able to lead a crew of Mexican mafia gang members out of the unit.

The prison, California’s oldest, also has a long list of maintenance needs that add up more than $1.6 billion in 2021. A report from the Legislative Analyst’s Office last month showed the state has the capacity to shut down up to nine prisons and eight yards by 2027, as California’s inmate population continues to shrink, and recommended closing those prisons with the greatest maintenance needs.

A model for rehabilitation in California

But San Quentin is also a center of opportunity for inmates, with a award-winning prison newspaper, the inmate-hosted podcast Ear Hustle, and a degree program that allows inmates to earn an associate’s degree in general studies after completing 20 classes.

Turning the few things that work at San Quentin on its head would be one of the downsides to restructuring the prison, said Brian Kaneda, associate director of Californians United for a Responsible Budget, which has a list of 10 prisons, the Newsom scheduled to close by 2027.

“One reason San Quentin isn’t on our list for closures is that it has good programming,” Kaneda said. “Well, there’s no such thing as a bad prison to close, we’d love for San Quentin to close, but what’s happening with the programming there?”

The broader plan, Kaneda said, set off “a major alarm bell” for prison abolitionists.

“The last thing California needs is a new incarceration philosophy spearheaded by (the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation) who have proven poor stewards of public trust,” Kaneda said.

The Assembly’s Republican caucus did not immediately respond to messages from CalMatters seeking comment.

A bill passed by lawmakers last year would have created a similar pilot program on other prison campuses. News vetoed the bill and blamed his expense.

the author of the bill, Assemblyman Carlos Villapuda, a Stockton Democrat, said he traveled to Norway with CDCR officials this year to better understand how their prisons work. Villapudua’s proposal focused on trucking, an industry in his district that he said needed fresh blood.

The proposal he devised would have allowed people incarcerated to obtain their commercial driver’s license while still in prison.

“Before you are released, you will be tested by the state,” Villapudua said. “This will be the answer to many of our prayers.”

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The post Gavin Newsom strikes to ‘remodel’ San Quentin as California jail inhabitants shrinks appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

By Katy St Clair
Bay City News

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday unveiled his plan to transform the San Quentin State Penitentiary into a facility where services and support are more important than punishment, naming the new model the San Quentin Rehabilitation Center.

The governor met with former and current prison staff and inmates, elected officials and advocates of criminal justice reform on Friday for a press conference at the prison announcing the project, which some are calling a Scandinavian approach to incarceration.

“I don’t call it a Scandinavian model,” Newsom said on Friday when asked about the comparison. “This is the California model. The California way, informed by best practices around the world.”

Newsom said he hopes to make San Quentin “the world’s pre-eminent institution for restorative justice.”

Under the new plan, San Quentin would hold only about 2,000 inmates who are serving lighter sentences, and transfer more than 500 inmates who have to spend more time on larger crimes, including those on death row, to other facilities.

The transition would happen by 2025, Newsom said, and he has pledged $20 million for it.

The so-called Scandinavian model emphasizes education, training and rehabilitation over punishment, with the idea that people should leave prison no worse than they came in. Newsom said some approaches have already begun in smaller prisons across the state, but this one would be the largest scale.

In San Quentin, the new model allows prisoners to learn lucrative trades to improve their chances of making it when they get out. Inmates can become plumbers, electricians or truck drivers.

Currently, San Quentin already has its own college program, an award-winning inmate-produced newspaper, and several other opportunities for enrichment.

State Senator Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg, also shared his support for the new direction.

“We have put politics ahead of smart politics when it comes to our criminal justice system,” he said. “Newsom’s action today is not just about reform. It’s about changing lives. It’s about ending the prison pipeline that has impacted California’s communities of color. It’s about creating a path for whole families and a stronger future for this state. And it’s about saving taxpayers’ money.”

At the heart of the need for a new approach, both McGuire and the governor said, is the state’s 70 percent recidivism rate. And while he said his office was merely looking at global models of reform and would create its own model, he cited Norway’s 20 percent recidivism rate as an argument for restorative justice over simply emplacement of people.

When asked what challenges he faces in implementing the new model, Newsom jokingly replied.

“Fires, droughts, social unrest, pandemics?” he joked, adding, “Ron Desantis?”

Then he got serious.

“Interested people find excuses. Committed people find ways to get things done,” he said.

Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco/San Mateo, spoke at the press conference in support of the program.

“For a couple of decades, we had the idea that we could be safer as a state,” he said. “If we took our inmates to the most remote parts of the state, if we could just send them out, separate them from their communities, separate them from us, separate them from their loved ones and family members, we’d be safer somehow.

“Actually, I think the exact opposite is needed,” Ting said.

San Quentin, located on prime Marin real estate overlooking the bay, is California’s oldest prison and was once home to the country’s largest death row prison. It currently houses about 3,300 inmates.

In 2019, Newsom imposed a moratorium on executions in the state and ordered the death chamber in San Quentin to be dismantled.

Copyright © 2023 Bay City News, Inc. All rights reserved. Republication, retransmission, or redistribution without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. Bay City News is a 24/7 news service covering the greater Bay Area.

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Two guards walk towards the entrance of San Quentin State Prison during a media tour of California’s Death Row in San Quentin, California December 29, 2015. REUTERS/Stephen Lam

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) – The infamous San Francisco Bay State Penitentiary, which has housed the largest death row population in the United States, is being converted into a prison where less dangerous prisoners receive education, training and rehabilitation under a new plan of the California Governor Gavin Newsom.

The Democratic governor will discuss his proposed remodeling of San Quentin State Penitentiary during a visit Friday.

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The facility will be renamed the San Quentin Rehabilitation Center and the inmates serving their sentences there will be relocated to another location in the California correctional system. The state has 668 prisoners facing the death penalty, almost all male, and about 100 have already been transferred, state prison officials said.

“Today we are taking the next step in our quest for true rehabilitation, justice and safer communities through this proven secured investment, creating a new model for safety and justice — the California model — that will lead the nation,” Newsom said in a statement on Thursday the coming changes.

Newsom’s move, who recently began his second term, follows his 2019 moratorium on executions and dismantling of the prison’s gas chamber, as well as his 2022 announcement that some inmates would be transferred from San Quentin to other prisons.

Full details of the plan were not immediately released, although officials said the facility will focus on “education, rehabilitation and breaking the cycle of crime.”

San Quentin, California’s oldest prison, housed high-profile criminals such as cult leader Charles Manson, convicted murderers and serial killers, and was the scene of violent riots in the 1960s and 1970s. But it has also been the site of some of the most innovative inmate programs in the country.

Newsom’s office cited Norway’s approach to incarceration, which focuses on preparing people to return to society, as inspiration for the program. Oregon and North Dakota have also drawn inspiration from the Scandinavian country’s politics.

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In Norwegian maximum-security prisons, cells often look more like dormitories with additional furniture like chairs, desks and even televisions, and prisoners have access to kitchens and activities like basketball. The country has a low recidivism rate.

In the renovated San Quentin, job training programs would prepare people to get high-paying jobs as plumbers, electricians or truck drivers after they’re released, Newsom told the Los Angeles Times.

A group of public safety experts, crime victims and ex-prisoners will advise the state on the transformation. Newsom is committing $20 million to launch the plan.

Republican Assembly Member Tom Lackey criticized Newsom’s criminal justice system priorities and said the governor and Democratic lawmakers should spend more time focusing their efforts on assisting crime victims.

“Communities win when we make rehabilitation efforts, but what about the victims?” said Lakai. “Have we rehabilitated her?”

Meanwhile, Taina Vargas, executive director of Initiate Justice Action, a Los Angeles-based advocacy group, said she’s pleased the state is moving toward rehabilitating inmates, but more drastic changes are needed to transform the criminal justice system that does so many people imprisoned.

“Longer term, I think we want to prevent people from going to jail in the first place, which means we want to provide more opportunities for high-paying jobs in the community,” she said.

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California voters upheld the death penalty in 2016 and voted to speed up executions. Newsom’s decision to stop her in one of his first major acts as governor was quickly dismissed by critics, including prosecutors who said he was ignoring voters.

But Californians have also backed the relaxation of certain criminal sanctions to reduce mass incarceration as part of a more recent move away from the hard-crime policies once dominant in the state.

San Quentin, north of San Francisco, was also home to some of the country’s most innovative inmate programs, reflecting the Bay Area’s politically liberal beliefs.

Among other things, San Quentin is home to Mount Tamalpais College, the country’s first accredited junior college to be entirely behind bars. The school offers inmates courses in literature, astronomy, US government, and others to earn an Associate of Arts degree.

The college’s $5 million annual budget is funded through private donations with volunteer faculty members from nearby top universities, including Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley.

The prison also operates a newspaper called the San Quentin News, and several inmates recorded and produced the hugely popular podcast Ear Hustle while in prison.

Newsom’s announcement came during a four-day political tour of California, rather than a traditional address to the state.

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Luis went to prison on a life sentence 16 years ago, at age 17. Food came on a tray and leftovers were removed on the same brown plastic rectangle.

So he had never cooked or done dishes before moving to the “Little Scandinavia” unit in the Pennsylvania State Correctional Institution at Chester last year — an experiment modeled after Northern European systems of incarceration, where the goal is less about punishment and more about turning out people who can be good neighbors.

Here, Luis (Pennsylvania prison rules prevent me from using his last name) has use of four stainless steel stoves, two blond-wood islands, pots including a bright blue Dutch oven and a fridge that holds groceries from a nearby supermarket. There are even some not-too-sharp knives.

“It dawned on me that all these years I had become conditioned and dependent,” he told me, standing in that spotless kitchen shared by 54 men. Being able to clean up after himself was an autonomy he didn’t even know he wanted, or needed.

The kitchen in the “Little Scandinavia” unit is spotless and stocked with an array of appliances, cooking utensils and fresh groceries.

(Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)

This week, Gov. Gavin Newsom will announce that California will take its own leap forward, rethinking the purpose of prison by “ending San Quentin as we know it,” he told me Wednesday.

By 2025, California’s first and most infamous penitentiary, where criminals including Charles Manson and Scott Peterson have done time, will become something entirely different: the largest center of rehabilitation, education and training in the California prison system, and maybe the nation. No longer will it be a maximum security facility. Instead, it will be a place for turning out good neighbors, incorporating Scandinavian methods.

The vision for a new San Quentin includes job training for careers that can pay six figures, trades such as plumbers, electricians or truck drivers, and using the complex as a last stop of incarceration before release. Tucked in the proposed budget Newsom released weeks ago is $20 million to jump-start the effort.

The plan for San Quentin is “not just about reform, but about innovation,” a chance to “hold ourselves to a higher level of ambition and look to completely reimagine what prison means,” Newsom said.

The “Little Scandinavia” unit features comfortable, open living spaces meant to encourage conversation and connection.

(Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)

Along with Pennsylvania, the Scandinavian philosophy of incarceration has already been implemented in pilot programs in Oregon and ultra-red North Dakota, as well as in small-scale experiments inside a few other California prisons.

But what’s envisioned for San Quentin is on a different scale. The choice of this prison, tucked on a peninsula in wealthy Marin County and overlooking San Francisco Bay, is a statement by Newsom about justice reform and about California — one with the potential not only to change what it means to serve time, but also to create a pathway to safer communities that our current system has failed to deliver.

Despite consent decrees, prison closures and even the de facto end of the death penalty, California’s approach to crime and punishment remains problematic, as it does across the U.S. Our recidivism rates remain stubbornly high, people of color are disproportionately incarcerated, and both conservatives and liberals make loud arguments as to why.

The goal of the Scandinavian approach to incarceration is less about punishment and more about turning out people who can be good neighbors.

(Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)

Fundamentally, we can’t agree on what prison is for — should its main goal be to punish, or guide? To be a source of ongoing suffering, or opportunity?

Many on the right say prison should serve as a deterrent: Serving time is not supposed to be pleasant, and hard conditions teach hard lessons. On the left, many say restorative justice and other means of diverting people from incarceration should be the priority.

But do such dichotomies miss the point?

The reality is that most people who go into prison come out again, more than 30,000 a year in California, Newsom points out. So public safety depends on people choosing to change, and having opportunities for a sustainable, law-abiding life. Otherwise they will simply go back to what they know, be it selling dope, robbing houses or worse.

“Do you want them coming back with humanity and some normalcy, or do you want them coming back more bitter and more beaten down?” Newsom asks.

The Scandinavian model looks at the loss of liberty and separation from community as the punishment. During that separation, life should be as normal as possible so that people can learn to make better choices without being preoccupied by fear and violence.

Gina Clark, superintendent of the Pennsylvania State Correctional Institution in Chester, is still gauging the success of “Little Scandinavia.” Her aim is to turn out inmates who will help rather than hurt their communities.

(Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)

Influencing people to make those better choices, “should be the common goal, no matter what your opinions are, where your beliefs are, what political party you are affiliated with,” Gina Clark, the superintendent of Chester (the Pennsylvania equivalent of a warden) told me.

Clark inherited Little Scandinavia from her predecessor and is waiting for more data before deciding if it works. But incarceration’s purpose, she said, should always look beyond the offender to the community. Will this person help or hurt their community when released? Have we done everything we can to ensure it is the former?

That focus on community safety could make the Scandinavian model the sweet spot of consensus — if people can get past the politics and understand what Chester and now San Quentin are trying to do. And that comes down to understanding the officers who spend their days on the front lines of incarceration.

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The Scandinavian prison model encourages collegiality on the theory that inmates can learn to make better choices when they are not preoccupied by fear and violence.

(Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)

Pennsylvania corrections officer Matt Tompkins has the word “sink” tattooed below the knuckles of one hand and “swim” on the other.

It’s a nod, he said, to lyrics from an old punk song. But for a while it was also how he felt about his job inside Chester, in the same gritty area outside Philadelphia where he was born. Stress and confrontation were constant and he felt like he was sinking. Just like the men he was watching.

“It wears you down,” he told me. “Little by little, over the years.”

Prison guards have high rates of depression and health issues. Studies have shown they face a risk of suicide 39 times higher than for people in all other professions. Tompkins has lost two colleagues that way in seven years.

But his outlook changed in 2019 when Chester began planning Little Scandinavia. A professor from nearby Drexel University, Jordan Hyatt, conceived of the experiment with a European colleague and helped arrange a trip to Norway, Sweden and Denmark, where Tompkins was able to work with his counterparts.

Experts familiar with the Scandinavian prison model say that when correctional officers and inmates break down the “us vs. them” wall, prisons are better places for everyone involved.

(Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)

It was “mind-blowing,” Tompkins said. A European officer asked him what a good day looked like, and Tompkins’ answer was that American standard of law enforcement: when he went home to his family alive.

“Like I don’t get stabbed, I don’t get beat up, I don’t get hurt,” Tompkins said.

That shocked the Scandinavian officer, who saw a good day as one where he changed an inmate’s life for the better.

“I never once thought, as a correctional officer, I had the ability to change somebody’s life. Never dawned on me whatsoever,” Tompkins said. “And that’s when a lightbulb went off in my head. … You recognize that when you have the ability to help someone, it feels good.”

Though Tompkins once dreamed of jumping to the FBI, he now thinks he could retire from Chester. He is so confident of his safety that on the day I interviewed him, he had left his pepper spray in his office.

Shower facilities in the “Little Scandinavia” unit are clean and offer inmates some privacy.

(Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)

In his unit, the officers aren’t saddled by rules against fraternizing with prisoners. Instead, they are trained as mentors and assigned a handful of men for whom they serve as the main contact for getting help, whether that be a personal issue, educational resources or a friendly ear. Sometimes they sit down on the blue couches and just talk.

“I still deal with a lot of individuals with different personalities, different problems, different complexes, and it can be emotionally draining,” Tompkins said. “But that trade-off is a lot easier when you realize you can make a difference.”

Building those relationships leads to “dynamic security,” Hyatt, the researcher, told me — a peace held not through force but through mutual respect and a willingness to hear what the inmates need and want.

Before you roll your eyes, it’s not just Hyatt and Tompkins who say it works. In more than a dozen interviews I did with experts, officers, inmates and former inmates, there was consensus that when guards and incarcerated people break down the us-against-them wall, prisons are better places for everyone involved.

“We are 100% behind the Norway project when it’s done right,” Glen Stailey told me. He’s the head of the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn., the union that represents guards.

Inmates in the “Little Scandinavia” unit are able to order fresh groceries and cook their own meals.

(Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)

Sam Lewis, the executive director of the Anti-Recidivism Coalition, an advocacy organization working to end mass incarceration, told me much the same thing.

“The prisons that we have in America were not meant to transform people into the best versions of themselves. They were built to house and warehouse people,” said Lewis, who himself served 24 years. But the Scandinavian model is “helping people become the best version of themselves. As we bring people home, if we give them real opportunities to make a decent living, think of how we are breaking the cycle.”

Lewis and Stailey traveled to Norway and Sweden in 2019 and were stunned by the way officers and inmates interacted. They saw the potential despite the differences between the U.S. and Scandinavian countries. Officers “value the relationships they build with people in prison, so they value the people in prison,” Lewis said.

That shift, prioritizing care over control, is the heart of what San Quentin is about to do. But it’s the “when it’s done right” part that both Lewis and Stailey worry about.

The entrance to the “Little Scandinavia” unit greets visitors with colorful murals.

(Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)

California is not Norway — gangs, drugs and mental illness plague our system to a degree unimaginable to our Scandinavian counterparts. All of those problems will need to be accounted for, along with convincing correctional officers that less aggression actually makes them safer. San Quentin will need to train officers and give them the space to use that training, meaning more officers for fewer inmates.

But most of all, success will require a cultural shift inside and outside the walls of San Quentin, a belief that those coming out of prison deserve to be our neighbors.

Luis, originally convicted of first degree murder, was recently resentenced due to a change in laws for juvenile offenders. He may be eligible for parole in five years. He credits Little Scandinavia with giving him a chance of success on the outside by offering him the dignity, calm and opportunity to figure himself out.

He no longer sees the way he grew up as normal, no longer looks at violence and crime as inevitable. Now, he thinks about being closer to the son he had when he was 14. Maybe he’ll make him dinner, saute him some shrimp if he gets the chance.

“As humans, we adjust. So if the environment is bad, eventually you start to drift,” he said of regular prison. “Here, it’s productive. So by the time you get out, you’re a better person.”

And that’s a triple win — for Luis, for the officers who watch him today, and for the neighbors he will one day have.

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