Brief Description of San Quentin State Prison:

 

I have served time at San Quentin, the oldest prison in California and home to the state's death row.  I have also served time at some other state prisons as well, but San Quentin is different.  It was opened in 1852 as the state's first prison.  It is located on about 450 acres and it faces the San Francisco Bay.   Although the prison has been expanded over the years,  going through the main gate into the actual prison is like stepping back in time, literally.  The gate itself is original and large enough to easily accommodate an 18-wheeler semi-truck through it!  Once inside the prison, is a grassy area surrounded by the massive gate wall, with a "catwalk" on top of the wall, where armed guards constantly walk and are "on watch." There's a cell block, a hospital, and a building housing several small churches.  In addition to death row, which is separate from the rest of the prison, roughly 4,500 prisoners are housed inside the main prison walls.

 

The cell blocks are identical to those that we see in the movies: long rows of 4 x 9 foot small cells, each with sliding bar doors, a metal toilet, a metal sink, and two steel bunks, stacked five tiers high.  Inmates who are able to get along with others share cells in the largest cell block, in general population.  There is a large building called the adjustment center for inmates, including about 200 condemned murderers who are either too violent or too scared to mix with other inmates.  Richard Allan Davis, who molested and then murdered 12-year-old Polly Klaas, now lives in the adjustment center because the other prisoners hate child molesters/killers.  General population in not allowed in the adjustment center, but we can see inmates from that block being escorted by two guards to other locations wearing handcuffs and ankle chains. Richard Ramirez, the "Night Stalker" was housed there when I served my time at SQ, until his death in 2013.  There is a five-story hospital located in the prison.  There, dozens of inmates wait for treatment, with guards watching them.  There is an entire tier set aside to psych care and there are always inmates in sessions with counselors. We call them "51/50's." They are not "all there," if you know what I mean. You can see an occasional inmate sitting in a locked cage about twice the size of one of those old phone booth, waiting to see a counselor, to spill his guts out to him.  Many inmates have mental health problems- you think?  Behind the hospital is the main yard.  It's about the size of two city blocks and has a baseball field, basketball courts and a 1/4 mile track.  On average, I'd say that about five hundred inmates are in the yard at any given time. The inmates in the yard self-segregate by race and gang affiliation.  The main prison gangs here are the Black Guerrilla Family (BGF), the Aryan Brotherhood (AB), and the Chicano gangs; the Nuestra Family (NF), and the Mexican Mafia (La Eme). The gang members congregate in specific areas of the yard, and the other groups are not allowed allowed to cross "their" turf.  Security in the yard is taken care of by four guards on the ground, armed with a nightstick and mace, and, of course, our friendly guards with rifles in the four gun towers.  

There is a furniture factory, where desks, tables and chairs are made for different state agencies and a small mattress factory where mattresses are made for many of the other prisons that CDC-R runs, as well as for college dorm rooms through-out the state. About 300 inmates work in these factory's.  There are two large "chow halls" (dining rooms) that are separated by a large wall which are able to seat at least 300 inmates each.  Instead of the long rows of tables that we often see in prison movies, these rooms are filled with four-foot square metal tables with four round stools attached to the frame.  Prisoners go through a line with their trays and get served the different portions of the meals and self-segregate to different areas of the chow hall, based on their race. The four side walls for these dinning areas were painted with huge murals roughly 100 feet long and 15-20 feet high.  The murals show a kind of streaming image of different periods of US and California history, and of the artist, Alfredo Santos' life.  Santos painted the murals between 1951 and 1955 while serving time for transportation of heroin. They are kept very clean and look like they were just recently painted!  

Death row is a large enclosed cell block inside the prison, a prison within a prison, which can only be entered through a security point.  It houses anywhere between 700 - 800 death row prisoners at any given time. On the West-side of death row are 8 by 10 foot cages with heavy bars and locks where inmates from the adjustment center spend 1/2 hour of time each day outside their cells.  On the East-side of death row are tennis court-sized rec areas separated by high cement walls with razor wire on top and a catwalk with armed guards above. This is where death row inmates who don't have a problem interacting with each other spend up to 5 hours of time per day out of their cells.  There, they have time to interact with each other. Each area is designated for inmates belonging to the same prison gang.  A fourth area is for non-gang affiliated death row inmates.  

The main death row cell block is a long line of 4 by 9 foot cells five tiers high surrounded by razor-wire and catwalks with armed guards.   On the wall dividing each cell is the name and photo of the prisoner living in that cell.  They stay in these cells most of time.  Their meals are delivered to them.  They are let out to shower in the one-man open showers built in between groups of cells on each side of the block.  They are led out to the exercise compounds for five hours each day.  We heard of one inmate, who apparently has never left his cell, because he is afraid of the other murderers on the block.  Many inmates will have sheets or towels covering part of the bars for privacy.  Some have televisions, books, and today computers are allowed. They are not supplied by the state- you have to have funds on your "books" in order to purchase these items. Oh, and no internet service, of course!  Most of the death row inmates are usually older and fat. They will remain in death row until all their appeals are exhausted, and they finally get lead into the death chamber to receive a cock-tail of meds and they get "the big jab." I guess Scott Peterson is probably one of the younger ones today. He's been on death row for about 10 years for killing his wife Laci and their unborn son in Stockton, CA.

The gas chamber is still there, of course, it's not used any more because of the new lethal injection process in California. It's so much more "sanitary" than being gassed! That takes care of the "cruel and unusual" dilemma that so many of our good citizens in California face.

My personal observations:

Everywhere you go in San Quentin, including the factories, and the main cell blocks, there are many prisoners just hanging around, doing nothing.  There simply is not enough work to keep the majority of the prisoners at San Quentin busy.  I was very fortunate to have had some viable skills. I served as a clerk during my stay here. Something needs to done about this, if we want to see a decrease in the violence that is often seen at the prison.

There are very little programs at the prison that can help prisoners change their lives.  Unfortunately, usually there is nobody under 30 years old in these few existing groups, and most are over 40. I suspect this is because young inmates think that education and treatment programs are for suckers.  As a result, the state then believes that programs are a waste of time and money for prisoners who simply aren't interested. Those prisoners that do want to change must seek to rehabilitate themselves. The days of "rehabilitation" are over in California. Prisons today are built as "warehouses" with one goal in mind: to house the prisoner until his or her sentence is up. It seems ironic to me that CDC has added an "R" to their abbreviation as of lately: CDC-R; California Department of Corrections AND Rehabilitation! There is no rehabilitation! But at least it sounds good, huh?

Anyone who believes that prisoners in California are living comfortably should know that they are not! It is a miserable existence. There are death row prisoners asking for help in expediting their executions, it's so bad! Yes, yes, we know- "we committed the crime, we got to do the time" type stuff- but understand this: it's NOT comfortable! It's miserable! Just thought you should know.

 

Finally,  San Quentin State Prison is a very old, tore-back, falling-down facility that sits on 450 acres of the most valuable real estate in California- Marin County. Although it probably should be torn down and the property sold off, more than likely it won't, because it's too valuable to CDC-R; it's a way to show the public, that "we're tough on crime- just look at our San Quentin- that should prove it." As a result, the image of San Quentin continues to help push tough anti-crime legislation, which means more money for CDC-R. With our economy slowly, but surely, coming out of the recession, CDC-R has continued to remain strong. Their mentality of "we're tough on crime- lock 'em up!" has gone a long way- perhaps farther than it should, in convincing Californians that the solution to our crime problem in the state, is lock-up, with little to no rehabilitation, which equals disaster- because guess what that individual who's been locked up for five or ten years is going to do as soon as he or she gets out? You guessed it! Go rob a liquor store, or even worse- go rob you! And with no remorse...

 

O.G. Ol' School

Sun. 11/02/14

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