SAN QUENTIN, Calif. — The people who spend their days and nights at San Quentin Rehabilitation Center call the concrete ramp that connects the complex campus’s entrance to the prison yard “the big hill.”
When the Warriors walk down the big hill for their annual game against inmates, it officially starts what many on the inside consider their Super Bowl.
“This day keeps me straight,” one incarcerated person said.
“It gives us hope, it humanizes us,” said another.
Dressed uniformly in denim, whites and blues, inmates lined up to give their visitors handshakes and fist-bumps. Some asked for autographs. The players — the San Quentin Warriors — warmed up on the court in anticipation of their big game against Golden State’s “Green Team.”
Others scratched notes in their composition books, carried portable digital typewriters, and wore lanyards showing their face and name. They’re the San Quentin News contributors, tasked with chronicling history every day. Like everybody else in the facility, the Warriors’ visit is their main event.
Everyone at San Quentin did terrible things that cost them their freedom. But inside the prison yard humanity sprouts everywhere — on the court, at the dominos table, at chess boards, up and down chin-up bars, and within the prisoner journalists proud to capture it all.
“It’s given me a purpose,” said Edwin E. Chavez, 48, who joined the paper in 2018 and has been incarcerated for the past 26 years.
San Quentin Rehabilitation Center doesn’t resemble the Hollywood version of a prison or even the former version of itself — the one that housed Charles Manson and operated a gas chamber. The 2023 implementation of the California Model, designed to reimagine prison life as reforms aimed at rehabilitating the incarcerated and reducing recidivism, has elevated efforts to reimagine prison life.
Efforts like the basketball team, which requires players to be enrolled in a self-improvement program and be on good behavior to try out, and efforts like the San Quentin News.
“It teaches people empathy,” editor-in-chief Marcus Henderson said. “Journalism is telling someone else’s story. It translates to them becoming better people and better writers.”
Working for the paper, the 43-year-old Henderson said, teaches “transferable skills.” It publishes online and distributes 35,000 copies monthly to each prison in California. Stories are presented in English and Spanish, covering prison policy changes, sports, happenings around the prison and first-person essays. Established in 1940, the award-winning newspaper’s goal is to report on rehabilitative efforts in California prisons to increase public safety and advance social justice.
For incarcerated journalists, researching materials that are brought in, thinking critically, telling stories and interviewing people can be therapeutic.
On Henderson’s first day at San Quentin in 2014, the youth offender reunited with a former cell-mate, Rahsaan Thomas. Thomas, a producer and host of the Pulitzer-nominated “Ear Hustle” podcast, told Henderson to cover a baseball game out in the yard between prisoners and visitors. That never would’ve happened in the facilities where Henderson was incarcerated before — past prisons he’d been at were much less livable and would never allow outsiders.
“He told me, ‘Remember, you’re capturing history,’” Henderson said of Thomas.
At Thomas’s instruction, Henderson interviewed the visitors, which was a major step in his rehabilitation process.
“The interviews brought my humanity back,” Henderson said. “I hadn’t talked to outside people in 15 years.”
Henderson has been editor-in-chief for the past five years, after working up the ranks from the baseball beat. He covered the COVID-19 pandemic and now leads a staff of about 15.
Last Wednesday, the big event to cover was Golden State’s 10th visit to the institution. The tradition began in 2012, after Kirk Lacob met Bill Epling, the Silicon Valley executive who has organized hundreds of games between inmates and outsiders for years.
On the court, the Golden State “Green Team” dominated, taking an all-time 6-4 series lead. Lacob, former All-Star Jerry Stackhouse and player development coach Noel Hightower paced Golden State as current Warriors watched from the sidelines. Moses Moody mingled with friends he’s made in his three trips to the facility. Brandin Podziemski signed autographs. Rookie Quentin Post went 3-0 in chess and assistant coach Anthony Vereen played dominos with inmates.
In a way, the San Quentin Warriors being so thoroughly outmatched was a good thing. As Lacob noted in his halftime speech, it was great to not see a couple of the San Quentin Warriors’ best players from years past; it meant they’re now free.
After the Green Team put the finishing touches on their 102-85 victory, incarcerated people and Warriors visitors took pictures and shook hands. Stackhouse, the new Warriors assistant coach, felt a tap on his shoulder. It was Marty DeWitt, a sports writer for the San Quentin News asking for a postgame interview — surely the unlikeliest of Stackhouse’s illustrious career.
DeWitt, a 60-year-old Rohnert Park native, is serving a 30-to-life sentence for molestation. Working for the newspaper allows him to help others and contribute to something tangible while changing the perception of what a convicted felon is.
“We have different clothes and our activities and movements are restricted, but we’re just like anyone else,” DeWitt said.
To contribute to the news organization, incarcerated people must take two classes: an introductory course, then a more advanced one. They learn things like ledes, headlines, journalism ethics, interviewing skills and story structure.
Chavez, the 48-year-old convict, grew up in El Salvador, where the 12-year civil war caused childhood trauma and displaced him to Los Angeles. His head and chest are plastered with tattoos, remnants of his gang-related past that put him behind bars.
In prison, Chavez learned to read and write. He got his GED while incarcerated and said he has redirected his energy from violence into using his voice with the newspaper. He’s even taught some other Spanish-speaking inmates journalistic principles like AP Style.
For the paper, Chavez translates and reports original Spanish stories, helping to inform the Latinx incarcerated community. He can’t believe that his path has taken him to meetings with Gov. Gavin Newsom and several other dignitaries from the outside.
“People need to see that change is possible,” Chavez said.
“What I’ve done at San Quentin, nobody can take away from me,” he added. “What we’re doing here is real. It’s not fake. It’s not a fairy tale.”
In the media center, San Quentin News’ headquarters around the corner from the basketball court, Chavez proudly digs up an old volume of Wall City — the magazine arm of the newspaper — that features an editorial he wrote on the cover.
Henderson sits nearby, recounting his journey as past issues of the San Quentin News hang up on the wall, relishing the publication’s storied history. In the middle of the office sits Jan Perry, the volunteer advisor whom the staff calls their Steph Curry; like the Warriors superstar, she gets the job done.
Henderson has a lot on his plate. As he discussed his journey and experience at San Quentin, Perry tapped at a keyboard behind him, line-editing an opinion column he’d written. In conversation, I gave him a piece of homework on top of all of his responsibilities.
If you got the chance to interview Steph Curry, what would you ask him?
In a few moments, the first question popped into Henderson’s mind. Even presented with a hypothetical, Henderson zeroed in on rehabilitation.
“I’d ask him what he thinks about people getting second chances,” Henderson said.
He’d probably like Curry’s answer.
“That’s what the system should be about,” Curry told this news organization. “That’s what America should stand for. In the sense of it should be a true rehabilitation process.”
Curry mentioned Aaron “Showtime” Taylor, who used to serve as the public address announcer for the San Quentin Warriors games while he was incarcerated. After getting released, Taylor served as a guest announcer at a Warriors game and is now calling games in the Venice Basketball League.
“I know he’s working jobs around Southern California and taking full advantage of his second chance,” Curry said of Taylor. “That’s how the process should work. It’s really amazing to hear those types of stories of ways that people are making the most of their time. The fact that they have resources and programs in place for inmates to take advantage of, that’s what it should be, and it’s really cool to see.”
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