Wall City: Forget Me Not

WALL CITY SPRING 2023 ■ Volume 6 Issue 1

A San Quentin News Publication

FORGET M E

N O T

How the incarcerated struggle to stay connected after decades in prison

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WATERLINES The Golden Gate Ferry leaves San Quentin in its wake.

Beneath pastel skies, a scene of incongruent beauty unfolds as the sun sets behind the 170-year-old facility.

For families of San Quentin’s 4,000-plus residents, West Block’s outer facade reflects a daunting, impenetrable fortress, where loved ones struggle to keep hope alive under the watchful gaze of the guard towers.

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T H E

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WALL CITY 3 SQNews Archive Photo

Departments THE VIEW The sun goes down behind San Quentin EDITORIAL New policy keeps prisoners in touch

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BY THE NUMBERS Graphics show the

6 ripple effects of the carceral system

LIFELINE The value of the written word

TEN TOES IN Building healthier connections

VIGNETTES Family support and rehabilitation

THE REASON WHY A peom by Niko Herrera

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10 Breaking the Silence For two lifers, the coronavirus pandemic had a silver lining

By Joshua Strange

15 No Matter How Far A mother and a grandmother go the distance over and over again

By Edwin E. Chavez

LONG-SUFFERING Unconditional love, absolute forgiveness

DEAR WORLD A poem by Rahan Asaan OVER THE WALL It’s good to be King

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Friendships Through Fences A lifer reflects on how his chosen family helps him heal

By Jerry Maleek Gearin

COVER: Missing in Action (2023)

by Hector Cadena, San Quentin resident

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WALL CITY

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SPRING 2023 Volume 6 Issue 1 Editor-in-Chief

Steve Brooks

Managing Editor

Andrew Hardy

Circulation

Layout Designer

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phone calls for prisoners

Andrew Hardy Lt. G. Berry

CDCR Information Officer II

Terri Hardy

Advisers

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family connections with free

Vincent O’Bannon

Public Information Officer

Chief, Strategic Communications and External Affairs

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California prisons strengthen

Kat Smith James King

Photography

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David Ditto Rich Fernandez

Contributors

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By Steve Brooks, Editor-in-Chief

Krissi Khokhobashvili Alastair Boone Dan Fost Alissa Greenberg Sarah Horowitz Pat Joseph Kate McQueen

Sharing Stories Inspiring Change Wall City magazine is produced by:

San Quentin News Wall City magazine shares in-depth stories from a diverse group of incarcerated and system-impacted people, with the aim of inspiring conversations about the American criminal justice system.

Wall City is an educational tool for the public to learn about the criminal justice system from the perspective of system-impacted individuals, and to promote literacy and rehabilitative change among the incarcerated.

Wall City is funded by the generous support from readers like you and grants from:

Vincent O’Bannon // SQNews

Friends of San Quentin News is the non-profit organization that facilitates financial and other support of SQNews and Wall City from the outside community. Contributions may be tax deductible.

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It is striking to remember that not too long ago there was what felt like a crusade to keep prisoners isolated from the outside world. For example, in the past, phone companies like GTL and Securus raised phone rates so high that the companies were accused of trying to break bonds between many incarcerated people and their families. Only a chosen few could afford to foot the bill. According to Worth Rises, a nonprofit organization, companies “drained the pockets of poor Black and Brown families, mostly women, across the country, all the while, earning billions in profits.”

Senate bill 1008, referred to as the Keep Families Connected Act, was “designed to eliminate the fees that have helped fuel a $1.4 billion dollar prison telecom industry and has put one in three American families into debt,” according to Worth Rises. Governor Gavin Newsom agreed, signing the bill into law in 2022.

I think back to how, early in my incarceration, I would call home every day. But daily phone calls soon became weekly, then once a month, and finally, none at all.

I began to avoid phones because it was a reminder that my family was forced to stop accepting my calls. They could no longer afford to pay the bill. I understood, but it still felt like I wasn’t loved.

Many incarcerated people have resorted to other ways of communicating with families by getting illegal landlines or buying illegal cell phones. A cell phone could easily net a smuggler up to $2,000 depending on the prisoner’s level of desperation. Prison officials began to use cellphone sniffing dogs to track these phones down.

Officials contended that the phones were being used to order murders, drugs, extortion, gang hits, and escape plots. Prison security squads found tens of thousands of illegal cell phones in California prison cells.

But many prisoners say that these phones were not being used to commit crimes, but rather, to keep connected with family.

Since the pandemic began in 2020, lawmakers across the country have begun to make family connection a little easier. New York City and San Francisco’s jails were among the first to make phone calls free.

San Diego and Los Angeles followed. Connecticut was the first state to make phone calls free for incarcerated people at the beginning of the pandemic. And now, California is following suit.

Research shows that incarcerated people who are able to keep in frequent contact with their loved ones are more successful re-entering society than those who have limited or no contact. Since 2021, California prisons have been contracting with GTL to provide free tablets to the incarcerated to make phone calls, emails and video calls.

As I walk along the phone lines at SQSP, I bump into men waiting for their turn to talk. I can hear the sounds of happy voices living vicariously through their families, sharing memories, celebrating childhood developmental milestones, birthdays, graduations, new jobs and marriages. It is important that this trend continue so that people in custody can return home to a loving and healthy family. This June, tablets are expected to arrive here at San Quentin, which could drastically change the landscape of communication for prison residents.

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B Y

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There are about two million people imprisoned in the Land of the Free.

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The impact of our carceral system goes far beyond those who are incarcarcerated.

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◄ Roughly 5 million Americans are formerly incarcerated. ◄ Roughly 19 million have a felony record. ◄ 77 million have a criminal record.

113 million American adults have an immediate family member who has been incarcerated. sharing stories ■ inspiring change

More than ever, connection to families and communities is recognized as an essential component of rehabilitation.

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Number of people incarcerated in:

State Prisons — 1,042,000 Local Jails —547,000 Federal Jails and Prisons — 208,000

-13%

Youth Facilities — 36,000 Immigration Detention — 32,000 Involuntary Commitment — 22,000 Territorial Prisons — 10,000

-25% Receiving visitors made state prisoners less likely to return to prison.

Prisoners in a Missouri study who received visits from loved ones were 13% less likely to return to prison for a new felony conviction, and 25% less likely to return to prison for a violation of the terms of their probation or parole.

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Source: All data on these pages was adapted from the Prison Policy Initiative’s Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2022

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Indian Reservation & Military — 3,000

Fourteen states across the country have banned physical mail from reaching prisoners.

Instead, incoming mail is scanned by prison officials, who then deliver photocopies or electronic PDF files to the prisoner.

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Lifeline The value of the written word

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I arrived at Deuel Vocational Institute (DVI) in Tarcy, California. Staring up at those five tiers let me know I’d finally made it to the “Big House.” I had to climb those stairs to an empty cell on the fifth tier all by myself. I sat on the bed next to my bedroll, a wool blanket, a sheet, a towel, my hygiene kit — which included one razor, a small bar of soap, and some toothpowder, and five “non-sufficient funds” (NSF) metered envelopes — all inside a pillowcase with no pillow. This was everything I had in the world. I wondered how I was going to survive.

Then it was mail call. I could hear the officer walking down the tier: The sound of his jangling keys as his harsh voice called out names made my heart beat faster as he drew ever closer.

“Coles!” the officer barked at the door.

I excitedly said my last two numbers of my CDCR number so the officer could match it to my last name. Mom sent me a Garfield card that said: “I know things are tough right now, but just remember…every flower that ever bloomed had to go through a whole lot of dirt to get there!”

I was so excited! Mom didn’t forget me! I took the card to mean, “Cheer up!

It looks bad now but it’ll get greater later.” The warmth of her words made me want to respond quickly.

I cast about for something, anything, to write her back. I found a lunch bag and 8

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a red wax pencil. I wrote some careful words of love to Mom on the paper bag, stuffed it into one of my NSF envelopes, and dropped it in the mailbox with a prayer on my way to chow that evening.

A week later, I received a $250 money order with a note from Mom saying, “I know they ain’t got my baby writing on paper bags!”

Whoever said “absence makes the heart grow fonder” clearly has had to miss someone over a period of days or weeks due to a brief holiday or vacation.

What do you say of someone who has been gone for years? Decades? I believe this is where the phrase “out of sight, out of mind” comes from, where not seeing someone for too long can lead to that someone being forgotten.

This is especially true in prison. There are only three legal ways to maintain contact with loved ones: visiting, collect calls and letters. I had my first in-person visit in 2021; I have been incarcerated since 2006. Collect calls are a maze fraught with disrespectful callers, changing schedules, and winding lines. Illegal means, such as using cell phones, have caused me no end of trouble, including a five-year denial at the parole Board in September 2021. My only recourse is snail mail.

In prison, snail mail is dismally slow.

Keeping contact via letters is all rules, regulations and delays. Letters arrive three to eight or more days after they

reach the prison. In some cases, weeks or months of delays means mail can arrive after any information inside is relevant.

Sometimes we get return-to-sender letters, mail notifications of unacceptable parcels, rerouted mail, and packets in need of more postage that take a month or more to return, disrupting conversations needed so incarcerated people and their loved ones are never out of sight out of mind. Contact with my loved ones is vital to my rehabilitation.

Don’t get me wrong, I love writing let-

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Courtesy Mesro Coles-El

By Mesro Coles-El

ters! I love reading letters! They are tiny gifts of time someone took out of their precious human lives to give me. My mom still writes me regularly, even after her stroke.

My supporters always write letters and send stamps to keep our conversations going. Snail mail has led to great collaborations, including co-imagining a class with Professor Selby Schwartz of Stanford University called “Radical Acts of Public Art: Rhetoric and Artivism.” This first-year writing class analyzes the in-

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tersection of art and activism. One aspect of this class is that both sets of students write me letters.

These gifts include anything and everything, from questions about coping with incarceration to asking for advice.

Some include class assignments or share their own public art in the form of photojournalism, poetry or murals drawn and colored by hand. Some of this art is on my wall, including a beach drawn with colored pencils and a picture of a hand-painted mural of several Victorian

houses. I make sure to write them back individually so they know I see them and they are in my thoughts. I have every letter anyone has ever sent me.

We live in a technological age where incarcerated people should be able to reach out and touch their loved ones instantly and constantly. One solution is email and zoom calls. Virtual visitng is already a huge success. Having this technology close at hand would not jeopardize prison security, and can be easily monitored.

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Breaking the Silence For two lifers, the coronavirus pandemic had a silver lining

By Joshua Strange

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Quentin’s Darren Settlemeyer will never forget his first phone call with his son after 20 years of estrangement.

When Darren reconnected with his son in 2020, he was 20 years into a life sentence and had not seen or spoken to his son since being incarcerated.

His son had been only three years old when drugs, drama, and the police closed in on Darren, and his young family was ripped apart.

Darren was briefly able to connect with his son through letters when he turned 10, but after that, the trail went cold as his son’s mom tried to cope with problems of her own, tragically dying four years later. As his son entered his early teens, a time of maximal boyhood angst, he was suddenly parentless. Taken in by one of his older brothers, he went on to beat the odds by staying out of trouan

Jianca Lazarus

“Hello Dad,” his son answered warmly, the sound of his voice cutting through 20 years of silence, uncertainty, and regret.

ble and finding success. As he turned from a boy into a young man and eventually started a family of his own, he kept polite but firm distance from his imprisoned father.

“If I was to sum up prison in one word, it would be ‘disconnected,’ ” Darren said.

When COVID shook the world, however, everything changed.

In June of 2020, Darren’s son began hearing disturbing reports about a COVID outbreak raging at San Quentin. It was one of the worst viral outbreaks in the history of U.S. prisons, eventually claiming the lives of 28 incarcerated men and a correctional sergeant. As the body count kept climbing with each newscast, Darren’s son became increasingly worried his dad might die before he got a chance to develop a relationship with him — or even to say hello.

Shortly after, Darren received an unexpected printout of an email sent to the prison by his sister with a message from his son’s fiancée. It contained

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a phone number and an invitation to call. His son’s fiancée said they were worried about him, but further she was tired of hearing Darren’s son complain that he might miss the chance to connect with his longlost father.

“I was scared,” Darren said about receiving the invitation. “I always thought I’d start off with a letter, you know, but with the phone number in there, I had no choice but to call. I’m so glad I did.”

He gave credit to one of his friends who snapped him out of his hesitation over whether to call or just write a letter — borne of self-conscious uncertainty — by giving him his phone time slot and ordering him down the stairs to make the call.

By the time Darren reached the bottom of the five flights of stairs of San Quentin’s North Block — the beehive-like “home” that he shared with more than 700 people — the uncertainty was gone, replaced with nervous excitement. He walked past the openair segregated showers, squeezed past the men waiting line in various stages of undress, strode past the officers desk to the bank of 12 old-fashioned pay phone booths, and, after waiting for his turn, dialed the number that reached out through the ether to his long lost son.

“Hello, this is Global TelLink, you have a call from… ‘Darren Settlemeyer’…. at the California State Prison San Quentin, San Quentin, California.

This call and your telephone number will be monitored and recorded. Say or dial five to accept,” said the robotic female voice. Darren tried to wait patiently as the seconds stretched into what felt like minutes.

“Hello Dad,” his son answered warmly, the sound of his voice cutting through 20 years of silence, uncertainty, and regret.

Darren’s estrangement from his son is an all-toocommon part of the collateral damage that comes with crime and incarceration, damage borne by more than just those who are being officially punished for breaking the law. Mass incarceration is yet another factor contributing to the epidemic of disconnection sweeping the nation and dividing families. But while COVID has tragically disrupted and claimed numerous lives inside and outside of prison walls, many San Quentin residents have also reported reconnecting with long-lost loved ones during the pandemic. Nobody wants to lose someone prematurely before having a chance to say what needs to be said — to have the hard conversations and ask the tough questions

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Vincent O’Bannon // SQNews

After four and a half decades, an unexpected letter arrived.

about what happened and why, or to simply talk about the weather and hear the sound of their voice, and maybe even to share hope for better days to come.

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teve Drown, also serving a life sentence ,

reflected on these reconnections during a San Quentin Shakespeare class performance piece in the prison’s chapel titled COVID Story. During a monologue, Steve shared how his kid brother reached out to him unexpectedly during the pandemic after 44 years of incarceration — and silence.

His brother, who is a police officer, was seeing the devastating effects of COVID firsthand, and it motivated him to reach out to the older brother he had never known. In a letter to Steve he wrote, “As I age, I see things through a different lens. I’ve spent a lot of time in recent years reflecting on my life and my family. I’ve become saddened by the fact this was not how life was supposed to be  a brother whom I have never met, a family estranged.”

Steve said later that when he saw the return address on the envelope from his brother he was hesitant to open it, uncertain as whether it would contain recriminations stirred up from the bitter family politics that had boiled over after his arrest and incarceration. Uncertain as to whether he could handle any additional emotional stress of top of enduring the harsh daily grind of prison life for decades with no end in sight.

The envelope rested gently in his trembling hands as he sat on his bunk with his head bowed, staring down at the hand-written address, lost in his private thoughts, oblivious to the boisterous noise of the overcrowded prison all around him. Two hours later, he opened and read the letter.

“What I saw inside,” he recounted, “was a young man who had grown up, raised a family, and realized that he needed to reach out.” Steve felt of flood of relief wash over him that the letter was positive and encouraging. It was a ray hope for him amongst the dark turmoil of COVID in prison and the painful physical and emotional separation from his family.

Steve explained that his family kept thinking that he’d be out of prison in 15 to 20 years, based on their experience from the Midwest. Yet with each denial by the parole board, some of his family became increasingly suspicious that he was messing up and getting in trouble, a manipulator caught up trying to make a name for himself in the grimy world of prison politics. They assumed the denials were a reflection

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of his character, of who he was now. But what they didn’t understand, he said, was that while he was a changed man, a man of integrity, he was caught up in a different kind of prison politics — the politics of a board that often cared more about appearances than the actual risks and merits of a potential parolee.

Even though Steve still hasn’t seen what his brother looks like as a grown man, his brother has now seen him, thanks to online videos and pictures from his prison Shakespeare performances. And they write to

The envelope rested gently in his trembling hands as he sat on his bunk, lost in his private thoughts.

Two hours later, he opened and read the letter. each other occasionally. Steve said such family reconnections were one of the silver linings of the pandemic. He closed his monologue on stage by reminding the audience, “If someone reaches out to you, grab on, hold on, and keep squeezing.”

Steve says there are many misconceptions about people in prison, from society and sometimes from their families, too. “Pull back the curtain just a quarter of an inch,” he said, “and you might be surprised what you see.”

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ll sides acknowledge the importance of

maintaining family connections — from the benefits to family members to reducing recidivism and improving the well-being of the incarcerated.

Loved ones help those on the inside cope with the stresses of incarceration, and the incarcerated help those on the outside cope with the pressures of modern life in the free world.

Yet even when connected, maintaining family ties in prison is hard. On top of the emotional difficulties involved with crime and forced separations due to incarceration, there are many barriers to communicating with loved ones — from long phone lines to high costs to onerous visitation requirements. Waiting in line for up to an hour just to secure a 15-minute phone call every day — as many incarcerated sons

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San Quentin News prints 35,000 copies of each monthly issue and distributes them to every prison facility in California. Our coverage of rehabilitative efforts and opportunities show the incarcerated that even in prison, we have choices. We strive to inspire positive change and ultimately to increase public safety. We encourage self-improvement through education, vocation, and rehabilitation.

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The incarcerated journalists of Wall City magazine show the world the struggles, achievements, and humanity of the people inside prisons. Wall City improves the public’s perceptions about the incarcerated and aims to inspire crucial public support for returning citizens for their success on parole. Successful reentry equals less recidivism, lower crime rates, and safer neighborhoods. By creating a fairer opportunity for marginalized people returning to society, Wall City reduces reincarceration, advances social justice, and works toward greater public safety.

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and daughters, mothers and fathers must do — is frustrating. Not surprisingly, conflict over phones is one of the most common causes of physical altercations in prisons.

Imagine trying to have a heart-to-heart conversation with your intimate partner or needing to give fatherly or motherly counsel to your child with only 15 minutes to work with. Imagine being interrupted every five minutes during this call by a loud, robotic voice stating your conversation is being recorded. Imagine being interrupted by some tough guy with bulging muscles and a tattooed face telling you you’re on “his” phone. Imagine having to split those precious 15 minutes between multiple children or family members. Imagine having your phone or visiting “privileges” revoked for unrelated disciplinary reasons or curtailed by a parade of lockdowns.

Multiply these hardships by the 2.2 million people currently held in custody in the U.S. — with 70% to 80% of them being parents, according to a recent report by the ACLU — and you start to get a sense of the magnitude of the damage to the fabric of America’s families by the disconnections created by mass incarceration, especially to the all the children growing up without their mothers or fathers.

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arren knows about the hardships of

growing up without a father. The last time he was around his father he was only two years old, far too young to even have memories to hold on to. When he turned 21, Darren set out to find his father, eventually learning his identity, only to discover it was too late: five years earlier his father had succumbed to cancer after being exposed to Agent Orange in the Vietnam War. The double disappointment was emotionally devastating for Darren at the time. First by not having his father around growing up, and then by having his hopes of finally getting to know him tragically dashed.

Much later in his life, as Darren sat behind bars with the full weight of a life sentence bearing down on him, the only thing that kept him from giving into the despair of suicide was knowing he did not want to deprive his son of the chance of getting to know him later in life.

He decided he could not subject his son to the same double tragedy he experienced with his father. More than 20 years of perseverance later, and thanks to the silver linings of COVID, Darren’s son has.

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No Matter How Far With two sons serving life sentences, one mother crisscrosses California for overnight family visits

By Edwin E. Chavez

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lizabeth Hurren has always put her chil-

Courtesy Maria Elizabeth Hurren

dren first. Her native El Salvador was a land in turmoil in the early 1980s. There was rarely enough food to go around, and the mother of six often went hungry for her family, not knowing what tomorrow would bring.

In 1981, her country erupted into civil war. Just 26 years old, compelled by a desperate need to provide her children a better future, she decided to leave El Salvador; it was the most difficult decision of her entire life. She knew she would face great risk and likely danger, but her children deserved a chance, and for that, she would cross any distance. Such was her love for her children.

That brave, unflinching woman is my mother.

She knew the journey ahead would be impossible with small children in tow. Her oldest child, Roberto, was 12 years old in 1981. Marcos was 10, Gabriel eight, and I was seven.

My sister, Eli, and little baby Amilcar, were five and three.

But with no other option remaining, she tearfully left us with her partner, Frank, the father of my two youngest siblings, and struck out for the north.

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For the next six years she did everything she could for her kids. Finding work wherever possible, she sent money to Frank to put food in our bellies — money he wasted on prostitutes, rather than feeding his own children.

After settling in Los Angeles, she sent first for Roberto, then for Gabriel. She returned for the rest of us in 1989. She never gave up on her dream of having all her children back together, and she persevered tirelessly until at last that dream could be realized.

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elizabeth hurren

and her mother visit the author ’s brother, gabriel , at salinas valley state prison

to eat or sleep for months at a time. She also endured the pain of becoming a widow in 1994 after losing my stepfather, Archie, to lung cancer. Her heart was strained and hurting, though somehow she continued to love us unconditionally.

My mother’s first overnight visit was with Gabriel in 2017. She packed her elderly mother, Lala, and Babushka, Lala’s service dog, into the car and embarked on the six-hour drive from her home to Salinas Valley State Prison.

Lala was stoic as ever, but my mother was a bundle of nerves. Overwhelmed by expectation, the time on the road felt interminable. Even with my grandmother for company, Mom got lost in her thoughts and memories. Regret and self-reproach swarmed around her as their wheels ate up the miles.

When they arrived, my mother and grandmother endured security screening, having their persons and belongings inspected for contraband and disallowed items. Like all overnight visitors, they were permitted only a very specific allowance of personal items: two sets of clothes, hygiene items, and physicianprescribed medication.

As they were being processed, elsewhere in the prison, so was my brother. Gabriel had to submit to a drug test and be strip-searched, and have his personal items sifted through, before an officer escorted him to his assigned family visiting unit — a small space set up to

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Courtesy Maria Elizabeth Hurren

The late 1980s saw my mother in the prime of her life. She was a slim woman with beautiful brown eyes and a loving smile. She liked old faded jeans with colorful blouses and high heels. Her wavy hair was long; her laughter sounded like freedom.

There were few worries in her world. Yes, she worked hard, for little money, and the world was rarely kind to a woman alone. But her children were with her, and that was the only dream that had ever mattered.

That dream, though, would soon be shattered by the children she had sacrificed everything for. Nine years after she left El Salvador, two of her sons were behind bars; at one point in 1996, her four oldest were incarcerated.

Roberto, her firstborn, was destined to break her heart. He spent most of his life behind bars in El Salvador and California. He was deported to El Salvador in 1989, where he was presumed murdered ten years later, his body never found.

Gabriel, then 16, was arrested in 1992 and received a 29-years-to-life sentence for gang-related murder and attempted murder.

In 1995, three days after my 19th birthday, I was arrested for attempted murder, for which I eventually pled guilty and received 13 years plus seven-to-life.

And, if my transgressions weren’t bad enough, I decided to drag my brother down as well. Marcus was arrested in 1996 after I persuaded him to smuggle contraband into the county jail.

Today, Gabriel and I are still incarcerated.

People who don’t know better might blame our mother for her children’s sins, and she certainly suffered the consequences. In truth, she bore no responsibility for our crimes. She has always been the personification of honesty, perseverance, and faith. Her children could have had no better example to follow.

Yet the effect of having children behind bars took a tremendous toll on her. She developed high blood pressure and anxiety; she lost weight not being able

resemble a studio apartment.

And then they waited, until at last they were brought together.

Those first minutes were agonizing. My mother cried and cried, as my brother tried valiantly — though unsuccessfully — to hold back tears of his own. The longing to hold her child was over, if only for a fleeting couple of days.

My mother took note of small, simple things about my brother, like how Gabriel was unsure of himself around little Babushka, a territorial pug-Chihuahua mix who grumbled every time he got close to Grandma.

Gabriel had liked to cook since he was a kid, and appointed himself chef for the three-day visit. He had a peculiar way of preparing food, Mom said, mixing everything together. Beans and rice, salmon or steak; his philosophy was that everything ends up at the same destination.

They stayed up until 3:00 in the morning that first night, talking about childhood adventures and the things Gabriel missed: walking our old dog, Clyde, going to the park to play basketball, and being home with family.

That visit reignited a faint glimmer of hope in my mother’s heart, the hope that she would one day have her broken and fragmented family back together again.

That hope is slowly inching forward.

After serving 32 years, Gabriel was found suitable for parole. Mom and Lala again made the trek to Salinas Valley in October, 2022, intending to pick him up at the prison gate. Instead, she was turned away after being informed that Gabriel had been taken into custody by Immigration agents. He is not free yet, as he faces the threat of deportation. He is like a man withering away from starvation and standing before a banquet, unable to reach out a take a single bite.

The day is swiftly approaching when I will be the only son behind bars. I am happy for my brother’s coming freedom, and I have the highest of hopes for his future. As his little brother, I have long followed in his footsteps; now I await my turn to come home as well.

My first family visit with Mom and Lala came in July 2019. I had not seen them since my departure from San Diego’s R. J. Donovan Correctional Facility the year before, and we hadn’t

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been alone as a family since my arrest.

First to arrive at the family visiting unit, I nearly went into shock. There were two bedrooms, a kitchen with a stove and refrigerator, fresh food purchased and delivered by an outside vendor. There was a 32-inch television mounted on the wall, a DVD player for movies, even a private bathroom with a shower.

I don’t know what I’d expected, but I arrived at a realization most people might not understand: That our very humanity, the core of our humanness, can be altered or diminished by our environment, by the conditions we are forced to endure. By then, I had lived in monastic prison cells for nearly three decades. I had only vague recollections of private bathrooms and showers.

I remember walking into the family unit, seeing the sofas and the huge TV, and mumbling aloud, “I screwed up big-time. Is this what it feels like to have a nice place of your own?” I sat helpless and alone on the sofa and cried like a baby.

I had been laboring to better myself for years by then, earning several college degrees and enrolling in self-help programs. I was already committed to turning my life around.

But in that moment, I was struck with clarity like never before: I had betrayed my mother’s love. She had worked tirelessly to give her children a future, and I destroyed that dream. I knew the struggles that my mother had to endure just to see me, the hundreds of miles she had to travel, the financial cost she had to bear. The guilt and shame of bringing my mother and grandmother inside a prison overwhelmed me, and though I was able to recover before my visitors arrived, those powerful thoughts and emotions remained.

Seeing the three of them for the first time — my mother, Lala, little Babushka — was like a temporary ticket out of prison. I imagined we were on a picnic somewhere. Like a curious child, I got close to Babushka; it had been so long since I’d even seen a dog, I wanted to smell her. She had that singular animal scent, like she had been baking in the sun, rolling in the grass, wrestling with other dogs. It was wonderful.

I was embarrassed not knowing how to operate a microwave, or how to set the stove dial.

Trying to operate a modern TV and DVD player was challenging without a remote control; I

A HISTORY OF FAMILY VISITING Overnight family visits were first introduced to California prisoners in 1974. Sometimes referred to as conjugal visits, they are available to prisoners’ spouses, children and other immediate family members. At San Quentin, visitors arrive around 8:00 in the morning and spend the next two nights in spartan yet homelike surroundings.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation provides overnight family visiting to help foster and maintain family ties.

Without these intimate visits, a prisoner’s culture and familial bonds can be lost forever. But per CDCR regulations, family contact is not a right — it’s a privilege.

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In 1996, Gov. Pete Wilson stripped this privilege from prisoners serving life sentences.

After a 20-year hiatus, the program was reinstated under Gov. Jerry Brown in 2016, though CDCR policy still excludes certain prisoners, including those convicted of violent offenses against a minor or family member, domestic violence, or any sexual offense.

—Edwin E. Chavez

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couldn’t even figure out how to turn it on. I was trapped in my own version of Back to the Future.

Later, I tried to scramble eggs, with disastrous results.

While I was cooking, Babushka ran out of the room and went out to relieve herself. I panicked and ran after her, leaving the food on the stove. The smell of something burning woke my mother from her nap, and at the ripe old age of 43, I felt like a small child about to be scolded.

But I had brought my MP3 player. I plugged it into the stereo and played some music from my youth. We listened to the late Rocio Durcal, a famous Spanish singer from the 1980s and ’90s. My mother and grandma immediately recognized the music, and we were transported to a different place in time.

Alone, with no guards hovering over us, no other prisoners crowded elbow-to-elbow, I found the courage to open up to my mother, to confess a traumatic secret I’d carried all my life: At nine years old, with civil war raging across El Salvador, I was kidnapped and raped by rebels, left for dead in the cornfields. By some miracle, a farmer discovered my unconscious body lying on the ground, still bound and bleeding. I survived but never spoke a word about it until 2019.

My family is aging. My mother is 68; my grandmother is 90. Though nothing would stand in my mother’s way if she had a choice, the distance and their health could soon prevent them both from traveling. The deadly coronavirus pandemic wreaked havoc on San Quentin, causing repeated quarantines. In all of 2022, I got to see my mother once, and I fear the day she won’t be able to come at all. She said as long as God gives her the ability, nothing will prevent her seeing me; that if she was not able to hold her son, to talk with me in person, it would devastate her.

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Nonetheless, overnight family visits are a powerful force for restoring family and community connections.

Prison is a lonely and desolate place, and this kind of connection motivates incarcerated people to rehabilitate themselves, to pursue an education and self-help programs, to come home a better person. That very first overnight visit staggered me with a powerful and unexpected understanding of the impact my criminality had on my own family. These visits have helped me grow as a person, to appreciate my family more than ever, and given me the strength to stay focused and not give up.

Overnight family visits with loved ones are a valuable component of prisoners’ rehabilitation; they facilitate strengthened bonds between husbands and wives, parents and children, prisoners and the world outside. If maintaining familial bonds is indeed one of CDCR’s top priorities, family visits should be encouraged for every prisoner.

If family visits should ever be discontinued, it would mean the end of an era that brought me closer to a mother I was often separated from, and brought healing to us both. It gave me the strength of character to reveal to her a crippling childhood trauma. Over time, it’s given me the chance to really understand and appreciate life’s struggles, and how this quiet but powerful lady never stopped loving me.

Compared to others in prison who are disconnected from their families, I know I am blessed. My mother is a living, breathing superhero. A cape over her shoulders couldn’t add to this woman’s power. I will ever be awestruck by her perseverance, and the incredible, limitless love of this small woman for her children.

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Courtesy Maria Elizabeth Hurren

ion e graduat his colleg es at br le r ce er the autho grandmoth other and m is h with

Lala is now suffering from dementia and was recently hospitalized after her blood pressure plummeted, causing her to fall. She just sent me a heartbreaking birthday card with a message that ripped a hole in my chest: I don’t want to die until you come home to be with us.

Despite her relentless positivity and her refusal to complain, I know logging thousands of miles to visit her sons has not been easy on my mother. Each facility has different practices, different officers and different cultures. In her experience, the guards at Salinas Valley conducted themselves with respect and professionalism, allowing my mother and grandmother to maintain some measure of dignity throughout a distinctly undignified process.

Her experience at San Quentin has been less favorable, she said. Due to arbitrary enforcement of ambiguous policies, she was not allowed to bring a hairbrush, personal underwear, even a bar of soap. They regularly process her and Lala very late, past noon at times, and the visits last only two nights, compared to three at Salinas Valley. It’s also a much longer drive from her house in Sun City — 10 hours each way — to spend less than 48 hours with me.

Ten Toes In A long-standing program stresses the importance of healthy relationships

By K at Smith Contributing Writer

Darlene Burke sat in the church pews at San Quentin State Prison, watching 200 men in blue prison uniforms sing in a choir, lead a sermon, and one by one apologize to the women in their life. Each man sought for forgiveness from their mothers, sisters, girlfriends, wives in the San Quentin chapel.

That was Burke’s first introduction to San Quentin, and she thought to herself, “I cannot believe this.”

The church experience she witnessed was part of an event held at San Quentin five years ago called Sister I’m Sorry. Burke told the San Quentin News afterward that it had been a powerful first introduction to prison.

“Typically, it is the women who support the men in prison and we are never acknowledged, often ostracized, told we have low self-esteem and are stupid because we choose to love y’all,” Burke said. “And I just want you men to know: When a woman invests in a man, she’s looking for a man in return.”

Burke has been facilitating her program, Ten Toes In, at various prisons since 2015.

She’s been from San Quentin to Lancaster, conducting workshops and talking about her program. The program serves as a mentorship and domestic violence prevention program “to support, educate and empower couples during and after incarceration,” according to their website.

“I tried to go in and do a workshop but they told me they got too many volunteers!”

Burke said. “I need to have the administration be receptive to us. I don’t need to knock down walls.”

San Quentin does not have the Ten Toes In program incorporated into any of their curricula. Currently, Burke is facilitating

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her six-month Intimate Relationships 101 curricula at Ironwood State Prison.

“The beauty of Ironwood is very nostalgic for me because I spent four years there with my ex-fiancé,” Burke said. “Going in there as a facilitator versus [as] an inmate is surreal.”

Burke founded Ten Toes In because her ex-fiancé was incarcerated. She went in search of a support group for women who were involved with incarcerated men. The group started as a dinner amongst friends in February 2014. As these dinners continued, they thought to themselves, “You know what? Maybe we should start sharing our stories,” Burke said.

In May of that same year, Burke and her incarcerated fiancé broke up.

“I thought to myself, ‘What do I do?

Do I continue to push with Ten Toes In?’” Burke said. “God put [it] in my spirit that it’s not about me — it’s about the people we will help.”

In June 2014, she hosted the first Ten Toes In event at the DoubleTree Hotel, which was an unstructured sharing of stories, according to Burke. Then, in January 2015, Ten Toes In became an official 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

“What I realized is that it can’t just be about the sisters; it has to be about the brothers. We have to educate the brothers,” Burke said. “Engage them to make them see this [is] going to be an asset for their relationship. If my ex-fiancé had something like Ten Toes In when we were together, maybe things would not have turned out the way things did.”

Ten Toes In offers a couples support group, a mentorship support group for for-

merly incarcerated men, and a sister support group, along with their in-prison curriculum.

“The ultimate goal is to change brothers’ perceptions as it relates to brothers’ relationships; most have never experienced healthy relationships,” Burke said.

The Intimate Relationships 101 curriculum focuses on leading discussions dealing with power and control, the five ‘love languages,’ what a man wants in a relationship, versus what a woman wants.

Burke said that the men can use these notes while incarcerated and at home to prepare for a healthy, successful re-entry.

The Mentorship Support Group offers formerly incarcerated men a space to find the same support upon re-entry to society.

According to Burke, men who have gone through Ten Toes In have a 98% success rate of no recidivism — only two have ever gone back, and one of them is now back home.

“This is a space where a brother can come in and say, ‘You know what? I got triggered, and when I got triggered I did this,’” Burke said. “And the other brothers sit back and talk to him and help him through it. This is all about building a healthy family and making the community safer, giving tools to brothers that have been incarcerated.

There’s no excuse to go back. No excuse.”

Educating the women about their partners’ re-entry is just as important as supporting the men, Burke believes, because these women are not dealing with the average man.

“These men have endured lots of trauma, not only being incarcerated but also with childhood experiences, with juvenile detention. Men show their best versions when they are incarcerated, but when they’re home you get to see everything. You have to give women the tools, knowledge, information about their men so they can know: ‘Oh my God, this is what TTI taught us.’”

And Burke does this all with no funding and no volunteers.

“When you are so passionate about the work you do, you’ll be in your office twenty-four/seven,” Burke said. “It truly is like that saying, ‘If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life,’ and that’s where I’m at.”

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V I G N E T T E S

Q:

Working on myself will always be rewarding. But the support of my family keeps me grounded. It tells me that I’m not alone at this stage of my life, and lets me know that I will have the support I need when I go home. ◄ Roland Cardiel

WHAT ROLE DOES FAMILY SUPPORT PLAY IN YOUR REHABILITATION?

To me personally, it pushes and drives me to do my best. My family helps me strive to be the best of myself, not to be the old me, but to see me being successful in all I do.

— Jason Satterfield ▼

▲ The beacon in a prisoner’s future is the hope of returning to their family, and their unconditional love and support… Having a loving family gives the person hope while incarcerated, and help upon release.

— Gary Beavers 20

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on Co

ur t

es

yR

an

dy

Th

om

ps

My wife is my ► inspiration. She tells me how much she believes in me, and it’s my goal every single day to live up to her faith.

That’s the force that drives me to challenge myself, and to become a better man.

— Randy Thompson

▲ I’m taking the time to become a better man for my family. I want to be a better son and brother.

Without their support this journey would be twice as hard. Without my family, I don’t know if rehabilitation would even be possible.

My desire to be a better man, capable of supporting my own family one day, is dependent upon my experience with [their] unconditional love.

— Joseph Marsala ▼

Unless otherwise noted, all photos by Dante D. Jones // SQNews

— William Harris

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Friendships Through Fences A lifer reflects on the past, and the second family of his choosing

By Jerry Maleek Gearin

Jianca Lazarus

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A

s I walked across the stage to re-

ceive my graduation certificate from the Guiding Rage Into Power self-help group, I looked out into the crowd and saw my best friend Christian’s parents, Ron and Barbara. They couldn’t know how much their presence meant to my rehabilitation. Nobody in my family had ever celebrated any of my accomplishments. Now, here I was in prison, with my second family smiling at me.

I smiled back.

Christian and his family are models of goodness.

Their kindness changed the way I felt toward people, and the world in general.

Christian and I met in 1994, working at the San Jose Country Club. He was 20 and a part-time lifeguard; I was a 26-year-old maintenance assistant. He grew up in San Jose and attended James Lick High not far from where we lived. We actually lived across the street from each other.

I moved to San Jose in November 1993 to improve my quality of life. I grew up in the unincorporated area of North Richmond; my neighborhood had its own culture.

There were drugs, prostitution, and violence. I thought my neighborhood was a place to achieve success. But I was terribly wrong. I had a past that was plagued with all sorts of criminal behavior. I never discussed the exact nature of me moving to San Jose with Christian. Actually, he never asked. Deep down I believe he knew. I told him a little about my struggles, but he never judged me. He embraced me like family, despite the fact that we had such different backgrounds.

I had issues with trusting people because of my experience as a young child with domestic violence and physical abuse. My mother disciplined me in a way that taught me that fear controls people. This was the worst lesson I ever learned. Whenever the school or the police called my mother, she expressed her love with a belt.

She was a tough woman and loving at the same time.

I learned growing up that self-preservation by any means is how you survive in this world. People in my neighborhood always had some type of angle, for instance benefiting from other’s losses. People would always boast about what they got and what you did not have. They had the goal of putting others beneath

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them and often had ulterior motives. People in my old neighborhood were selfish. They would advance themselves at others’ expense. I remember my father saying, “Don’t let people in this neighborhood see you counting money.”

When my mother passed away in June of 2007, she was the last one left from my immediate family. My father and four brothers preceded her in death.

Christian and his parents were able to attend my mother’s funeral-representing me. This meant so much to me. They actually drove to my old neighborhood, where crime happens by the second. This gesture of traveling to an inner-city neighborhood to pay respects to someone they never met made me feel connected to them. This thoughtfulness reminded me of the kind of unconditional love that I believe family should show each other. There is not a day of my incarceration I do not think about them. Losing family members while in prison can be devastating without support. Having an extended family saved me. Thank God for that second chance.

I didn’t have to worry about whether or not I could trust my second family. Ron and Barbara were very nice and polite. I could see where Christian got his character traits. They always cared about other people’s welfare.

They were not judgmental at all. Christian’s parents welcomed me into their home without any hesitation.

Whenever they did something together, I was included.

This gesture of inclusion made me feel like family. One day they were going to visit some friends and asked me if I would I like to go. I tried to resist as much as possible, not knowing anything about their friends. But Barbara kept on insisting, so I gave in. I never knew where she worked, but I knew she was an advocate for juvenile offenders. They treated me with the type of respect and kindness that I needed — something I was not use to having. We all got into the family car, and when I met their friends, it was a reflection of how Christian and his parents treated me. They were just as nice as Christian’s parents. I guess birds of a feather seem to flock together.

The parents of my old friends never really cared about anyone but themselves. This was different.

My communication with Christian and his parents went into hiatus for a few months, between the time I

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“

When I mentioned to Ron that I wanted to become a drug counselor, he paid the tuition for a Drug Treatment correspondence course at Strafford Career Institute. This was the first time someone actually invested in me.

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Jerry Maleek Gearin

WALL CITY

ally invested in me. I wanted to become a drug treatment specialist/counselor because many years of my life were consumed in drugs. I wanted to give other addicts a specialized understanding of drug abuse. I completed the course in three and half months, within the 90 percentile. I later discovered the neuroscience of the brain activity when under the influence of drugs. My security level was constantly dropping, because of my model behavior.

Seven years later in 2011, I was transferred to San Quentin State Prison where self-help programs were more available. I enrolled in Addiction Recovery Counseling — a 16-week drug-counseling program.

This program introduced me to Narcotics Anonymous. I would always tell Ron and Barbara about how things were going with my reform and they said to me, “We are proud of what you are doing.” I do not think they knew how much their encouraging

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to me; I did not know the culture of prison.

Despite being on the phone, I still had to be aware of my surroundings at all times; violent attacks can occur when a person is most vulnerable. I explained to Ron that on the inside, we had to adopt basic survival skills.

I told him we used soap as glue, and we washed and sewed our own clothes. We had to keep an extra food supply, just in case we went on lockdown and were restricted from shopping at the prison’s canteen. He was amazed at how I was adapting. I did most of the talking, but it was comforting to talk to someone who listened, because people in prison do not want to hear your problems.

I was transferred to California Training Facility in 2004 because my security level decreased. I mentioned to Ron that I wanted to become a drug counselor, so he paid for my tuition for a Drug Treatment correspondence course at Strafford Career Institute. This was the first time someone actu-

Jianca Lazarus

was transferred from Santa Clara County Jail to California State Prison Reception Center in August of 1996. My first prison was Salinas Valley State Prison in Soledad California, a maximum-security facility.

There was not too much kindness at this prison, I would see or hear about people being stabbed, and assaulted in many different ways. I felt as though I was doing time in the wild. At one point, I did not know if I would survive 35 years in this type of environment. I later learned how you conduct yourself plays a significant role of surviving in prison.

One day while at Salinas Valley State Prison, I decided to call Ron. I felt such relief to hear his voice. I was not sure what direction my life was going in. I had thoughts about getting into a riot and ending up seriously hurt. I had already seen people getting disciplined, beaten until they gave up. I did not have any idea if harm would come

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The Reason Why

By Niko Herrera

Tony Singh // SQNews

words meant.

In 2012, I enrolled in the Patten University, now called Mount Tamalpais College at San Quentin. I was in pursuit of a quality education; I kept a GPA of 3.53.

Barbara said that I had a better grade point average than she did. I do not think that’s true, she was just being supportive. The first thing I learned in college was how to think critically. I had trouble explaining in-depth my past history to Christian and his parents, but after a while it became easier. I shared most of my thoughts in stories and essays. I was encouraged to continue to writing.

I have not seen Christian since he visited me in 2006.

He did not like visiting me in prison. I believe Christian did not like seeing me locked up, so he only visited once.

He moved from the Bay Area to Boston, Massachusetts to start a family. As years went by we communicated via mail. He sent me birthday greetings, money, care packages, and pictures of his wife and kids. Christian’s parents Ron and Barbara have visited me frequently for the past 27 plus years. In 2020 during the pandemic, I suffered from Pulmonary Embolism, an illness that affected my lungs. It was hard for me to breathe; when I got out of the hospital, I received a video visit every weekend from my second family. Even though my illness almost cost me my life, they were there for me. Growing up I did not have this much support, especially when things got tough. I have accomplished many things with their support.

I often think about reconnecting with Christian, what it would be like. We had the love of basketball in common. We loved the game so much; we once played in the rain at night, and use a car’s headlights so we could see. Christian’s father Ron put the basketball hoop up in the driveway of their home. His father shot hoops with us from time to time, he had a good shot. Christian and I once played some guys in a game of basketball and he was such an unselfish player. This type of inclusiveness not only helped me become a better basketball player, but a better team mate. Christian and I became friends instantly. We just clicked. I believe a part of Christian’s character rubbed off on me.

Christian was easy to talk to. Having a friend with a positive demeanor was new to me — something I was not use to being around. I’d love to see him now, we would just sit back and reminisce about the old days, maybe take in a Warriors game? I wonder if his wife and kids would accept me ? Will it be like when we first met?

I plan on traveling to Boston, putting on a Golden State Warriors Jersey, and challenging him to a one-onone basketball game, bad knees and all. I might get more than I anticipated, because Boston is enemy territory for a Warriors fan. They beat the Celtics in game six on their home court in the 2022 NBA finals, but it would be good to see my old friend again.

You’re so hard to love, and I know the reason why You’re so insecure; you need to put that to the side That is not the way baby, that you’re gonna fly You’re so hard to love, and I know the reason why You wanted Mom’s attention; she was with some other guy When I had a bad dream, she was not in sight Looking for my mama, but she kept into the night You’re so hard to love, and I know the reason why Daddy wasn’t there; he was somewhere getting high Banging with the homies. He was always down to ride But I wish he would have come home, took me for a drive You’re so hard to love, and I know the reason why Your hood wasn’t good where you grew up; it was trifling, and by the age of nine, seen a couple people die Thinking it was normal to carry around a knife You’re so hard to love, and I know the reason why Used to get bullied, he was always undersized You’re so hard to love, and I know the reason why Never good enough, contemplating suicide You always felt alone and nobody really tried.

Fighting at school just to feel all right All you wanted was some love—can’t somebody hold me tight?

You’re so hard to love, I know the reason why I’ve done some bad things, I ain’t trying to glorify The system got me down and I’m tired of doing time When you put them cuffs on,why they got to be so tight?

I been in a dark world with only red and blue lights You’re so hard to love, and I know the reason why Got yourself played by a pretty, evil, dime She took my heart and broke it; Something inside me died Now I’m hardheaded and everybody’s lying Always paranoid, but it’s all up in my mind Not looking at myself, or these demons that I hide.

You’re so hard to love, and I know the reason why Abuse is always wrong, on every single side I thought you was my friend; I was barely over five Hurting those around you, but we know who’s hurt inside Why do we do these things?

Why do we victimize?

You can hold tears for years, but sometimes you gotta cry Forgiveness is the best thing— now that is not a lie You’re so hard to love, I think I know the reason why I was only hurt; I didn’t mean to do those crimes.

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Long - Suffering unconditional love, absolute forgiveness

By Anthony Manuel Caravalho

I

have been incarcerated for eight years .

Vincent O’Bannon // SQNews

Throughout that time, my wife’s love has been my beacon of hope.

On Valentine’s Day in 2020, Lily visited me at San Quentin. After 10 years of marriage, I knew something was wrong. She could barely look me in my eyes as she mustered the strength to be there for me and care for me. Lily had been diagnosed with breast cancer, a fact I wouldn’t learn for months because she didn’t want me to suffer. She underwent chemo while I was infected with COVID inside San Quentin. We couldn’t talk to each other by phone for almost a month because the COVID outbreak put me in a quarantined unit where we didn’t have phone service and visits were canceled.

The inability to be there for Lily during her cancer treatment was excruciating. I can only thank God for protecting her because I could not help her battle breast cancer the way she helped save me from the loneliness and isolation that come with incarceration.

This is the reality of romantic relationships for incarcerated people, who are forced to watch the people they love endure hardship without being able to lend a supportive hand.

Memories would streak through my mind, my conscience reminding me what a terrible husband I was.

The drinking, the drugging, the faithlessness... I was completely, vastly undeserving of her unwavering commitment.

“How come you never left me?” I finally asked her.

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“Because I’m too old,” she joked in return, not missing a beat. But this is her humble grace shining through. This is her gentle reassurance that I am forgiven, that her love, even now, knows neither bounds nor limits.

This stunningly beautiful woman never failed to be there for me, no matter my own failings.

I know I can never retract the devastation I put

Lily had been diagnosed with breast cancer, a fact I wouldn’t learn for months because she

Source: The United State Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report: Survey of Prison Inmates, 2016

didn’t want me to suffer.

Lily through, that I created for my entire family.

All that is left to me is to make my life a living amends by mirroring her forgiveness and paying forward the grace she has shown this nowhumbled man.

The guilt of having been a bad husband is common to many of the men in San Quentin.

“I was drinking about three pints of alcohol daily and I had a problem with meth,” said Loren Mears, who has been incarcerated for six years. “I’m still amazed God allows me to talk to my wife, Wendy.”

For Mears, prison offered an opportunity to sober up and try to save his marriage. He was lucky, because his wife understood that battling his addiction required a power greater than himThe U.S. Department of Justice — Bureau of Justice Statistics reported marital status statistics for state prisoners nationwide.

According to the 2016 study, nearly one-in-five state prisoners in America were divorced.

4.9% SEPARATED

self. Over time, Mears committed to Alcoholics Anonymous and Al Anon and got on the waiting list for the Integrated Substance Use Treatment Disorder program. With the help of these programs, he gained the strength and clarity of mind to focus on repairing his marriage.

“I grasped the spiritual component of Alcoholics Anonymous, started going to church; quite frankly I gave up everything else in here.”

Mears has been sober nine years. He credits Wendy and his Christian faith for assisting his recovery. He has come to believe that fighting his addiction every day is vital to protecting what he values most. When he speaks to his wife, he often shares a Bible verse and a prayer in order to show how grateful he is to be in a place that has given him the maturity to have a successful relationship with her.

After 35 years of incarceration, Kevin Fuqua’s marriage has been down a long and challenging road. There are times his wife, Stacie, has considered divorce, and his long incarceration created many struggles for the couple, including a lack of trust and financial strains.

Restoring integrity took years, but the two have managed to stay together.

Fuqua nearly made it home to Stacie in 2021,

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14.9% MARRIED

19.1% DIVORCED 58.4% NEVER MARRIED

2.7% WIDOWED

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In 2005 the New that “between a married man’s arrest and the end of his first year in prison, 80 percent of marriages break up.

For female inmates, the divorce rate is closer to 100 percent.”

A more recent study found that each year of incarceration increases the odds that the inmate’s marriage will end in divorce (before or after the inmate gets out of prison) by an average of 32 percent.

culture of divorce would spread to the next generation. She would often say to me: “Oh Anthony, you and your mother’s generation, you get in arguments with your spouses and go sleep with the neighbors like they do on Dallas and Dynasty (1980s nighttime soap operas). Your generation will never understand what it means to have a true loving relationship.”

I knew what she meant. In her days people stayed together until death, no matter what. True, this locked some people in unhappy relationships, but, for others, it led to strong familial bonds that helped individuals stay afloat. But things have changed. People don’t stay together as much anymore. Too often, intergenerational traumas and other issues disinte-

My Grandmother Leona would often complain about how society had deteriorated from the world she once knew.

At age 86, she struggled to understand her daughters’ divorces. She worried that the

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Courtesy Loren Mears

York Times estimated

when he received a date from the Board of Parole on May 7, which would have allowed him to go home 150 days later. However, he suffered false accusations related to the state’s unemployment check scandal and had to stay incarcerated “pending investigation” for another 24 months. “[Many of us] understand the scars we have put on our families,” said Fuqua. “Remember, families will put us on a perch, questioning us or challenging us if something goes wrong. We must acknowledge this as we reenter their lives, we must accept any reservations our families have, and recognize the years of endurance and hope they have given to us.”

Fuqua worked hard to develop the deep personal insight and emotional intelligence that his family needed from him.Key to his transformation has been his work as a facilitator of San Quentin’s T.R.U.S.T. program — Teaching Responsibility Utilizing Sociological Training.

“Thank God, Stacie knew I would never jeopardize all the work I have done,” said Fuqua. “She still believes in me,” he said.

The men in this story are just a sampling of the many residents who cherish the loving and forgiving relationships of marriage, and understand the immense healing power of healthy family bonds. Ironically, marriages that were far from perfect can improve while one member is behind bars.

We get the opportunity to learn from our mistakes while we are incarcerated. I believe others can do the same if they make use of the tools that are available to them while they are here.

Dear World

By Rahan Asaan Dear World: Hello, how have you been?

I’ve missed you since I’ve been away.

I’m writing because I can’t hold in these horrors I live every day.

I’m not okay, but I’ll survive, I just hope not to lose my soul.

This place tends to eat you alive as time begins to take its toll.

Trapped with the worst of mankind, (still doing the best that I can) It won’t matter if I lose my mind; after all, wasn’t this the plan?

Dear World, I’m reaching out to you, while apologizing for my crimes.

But I’m exposing the wrongs my captors do which I’ve witnessed a thousand times; I see evil in their eyes and hear hatred in their voices; I’m forced to listen to their lies since they’ve left me few choices.

They can take from us all we own, with the exception of my pride.

They read my mail and block your phone Hoping your love can’t get inside.

Dear World, will I see you again, or am I trapped behind these doors?

Vincent O’Bannon // SQNews

Dante D. Jones // SQNews — Illustration by Andrew Hardy // SQNews

grates families. We should take Grandma Leona’s advice seriously and repair the intergenerational trauma that has endured throughout the decades. Incarceration, ironically, provides an opportunity for us to do so.

Sitting in a carceral institution has allowed me — and others like me — to see the true value in having a loving and healthy relationship with another human being — especially a human being like my wife Lily. Some of us have been blessed with an undying commitment and the opportunity to fix what could have been eternally broken.

Wives like Lily, Wendy, and Stacie are rare. But they do give us all hope that marriage isn’t a dying business.

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Please write back, but until then: Lots of love.

Sincerely yours…

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KING Ella Baker’s co -program director shares some hard -won wisdom

It’s good to be

I

2010, my father died. At the time, I was roughly 2,000 miles away, incarcerated at California Men’s Colony East. It had been about six years since my arrest, trial, and sentencing, and six years since we’d last seen each other. It had been more than a year since cancer and chemo had stolen his ability to talk on the phone. And it was two weeks after his death that word arrived to me, thanks to a family member realizing that I was still writing him after his death. n

incarcerated knows that this is far from the most horrible example of impersonal cruelty prisons exact upon families in the name of justice. And no one who has been incarcerated will be surprised at what I experienced next. As word spread on the yard of my father’s passing, multiple older men began reaching out to me. Perhaps I reminded them of the sons and daughters they’d been separated from, or perhaps they felt empathy based upon their own experiences of losing loved ones while incarcerated. Whatever the reason, they began cooking meals for me, stopping by the cell to talk crap about sports, or just to see how I was doing.

For not the first time, I was consoled and comforted by people the legal system had decided were irredeemable, and never worthy of freedom again. Like me, these were survivors of America’s devastating tough-on-crime era, a time which saw even shoplifters sentenced to life sentences, and every young Black

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Vincent O’Bannon // SQNews

A

nyone reading this who is currently or formerly

O V E R

male or Latinx person as a threat to be dealt with in the harshest terms.

It was that experience that finally brought clarity to something I’d been observing for years, but did not yet have the words for. People who are incarcerated are first and foremost people. We form communities, support one another, and strive to live out our days to the best of our ability. Often young and impulsive when we are first introduced to the criminal justice system, we age, mature and learn to live and let live, while hoping those who have the power to dictate our quality of life do not harm us too much. That is not to say that we do not also suffer from the same afflictions that plague all of American society. Prisons have a high number of people with mental health issues, and just as many problems with substance abuse as anybody. You learn not to leave a radio unattended, or the value of having a cellie you can trust.

Toward the end of my incarceration, I was privileged to go to a prison where in-person college classes were being offered.

There I learned about democracy, government, and the ways that legislative policies impact people who rarely look like the people who are making the legislative policies. I began paying attention to the organizations on the outside who were working diligently to change laws that had led to California having one of the highest numbers of incarcerated people in the world. And I began to see that, while their intentions were good, they needed the help and support of currently incarcerated people to help them understand the system, and the things that needed to change.

People who are incarcerated know firsthand how unjust our criminal justice system is. It is a system that criminalizes survivors, and re victimizes people who have been harmed by others. Imagine the family member who loses a loved one to violence, has to endure a trial, perhaps even testify. Then in the event of a conviction, they are offered no further support

T H E

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or help healing for 25 years, only to be called by a prosecutor, notifying them that the person convicted is eligible for release, and they are needed to come to the parole hearing to speak against it. Once again, they are called upon to relive the worst time in their lives, in service of a justice system that has been punishing the other person for 25 years.

For the person in prison, incarceration takes the feelings of callousness, low self-worth, and shame that often fuel harmful acts to a whole ’nother level.

Yet due to the communities that form, and the natural maturity one develops over the decades, people learn to heal, or at least cope with those feelings in spite of the violence of incarceration. Somewhat ironically, those who are in prisons form and participate in healing communities that give them a hard-earned emotional maturity that survivors and victims frequently don’t have access to.

Ultimately, if we are ever going to create a society that is inclusive, equitable, and open to all, we cannot do it without the participation of people who are currently incarcerated. During the years of my incarceration, I watched other incarcerated people work to advocate for parole opportunities for children who’d been sentenced to life sentences. I watched friends draft and lobby for changes to California’s felony murder law, so that people who hadn’t committed murders, or intended for anyone to die, would no longer be charged with murder, and I watched as time and time again, incarcerated people sent money, asked their families to support, or spread the word on the yard about each of the efforts to repeal or change the three strikes law. What I’m trying to describe is democracy in action. It is the deep work of people who are isolated from society, working to be included in that society. I can tell you firsthand that those who are working to change laws have grown past the point of breaking them.

Courtesy James King

James King is a formerly incarcerated graduate of Patten College and the Prison University Project.

He was the first-ever Inside Fellow for the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland, California.

King left San Quentin and returned to the community just before the coronavirus pandemic. He has become a powerful voice for prison reform at the state legislative level, and he continues his efforts to effect real change in the justice system, especially decarceration and civil rights for prisoners. sharing stories ■ inspiring change

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WALL CITY ADVISER

ALASTAIR BOONE

ON TABLE MOUNTAIN, CAPETOWN, SOUTH AFRICA

Wall City is written and produced by the incarcerated staff of San Quentin News to advance social justice and build safer neighborhoods by reporting on rehabilitative efforts in California prisons. Friends of San Quentin News is the nonprofit organization that facilitates financial and other support from the outside community to print and distribute our publications. The Social Good Fund, Inc., is a USC §501(c)3 nonprofit organization (tax identification number 46-1323531).

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