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The California Report

San Quentin Program Helps Incarcerated People Find Their Voice

Keith Mizuguchi
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A man with long, braided hair in a blue prison jumpsuit stands next to a much shorter woman in front of a table of books.
Dr. Jenny Espinoza talks with Hugo Campos, an incarcerated person at San Quentin Rehabilitation Center, during a Back to the Start session at the prison on June 3, 2024. The writing workshop, which Espinoza co-founded, encourages incarcerated people to produce stories about their lives as a way of processing trauma and influencing policy change. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)

Here are the morning’s top stories on Monday, August 12, 2024…

  • A group of incarcerated people, led by a former prison doctor, are trying to influence policy in California. They’re doing this by looking inward, and reflecting on their beginnings.
  • The 2024 Summer Olympic Games have concluded in Paris, with the traditional passing of the Olympic flag. Now attention shifts to Los Angeles, host of the Games four years from now. How’s planning for the L.A. Olympics going and what’s left to do?

In San Quentin Program, Participants Reckon With Their Pasts And Lobby For Statewide Change

Peer counseling sessions are relatively common at San Quentin these days, where hundreds of volunteers come in every week to help people heal and prepare to reenter society. The prison is so well-known for its rehabilitative culture that Gov. Gavin Newsom last year formally renamed it a “rehabilitation center.” The governor also uses it as the centerpiece for his “California Model,” which focuses on humanizing incarcerated people and normalizing positive interactions between them and the guards.

Where this program is different from other peer-to-peer counseling groups is what will happen with the written reflections from incarcerated people. They’ll be typed up and cataloged. Some will be brought to Sacramento to influence state policies pertaining to childhood social welfare issues.

“We actually then work with the participants to leverage their stories for change, for systems change,” said Dr. Jenny Espinoza, co-founder of the program called Back to the Start. Espinoza and other advocates have identified a need for narratives about child welfare, school discipline, juvenile justice, gun safety — issues that are hard for people in the thick of it to comment on. And they have ready storytellers: men who have been through it all with a lot of free time and a sense of debt to society.

Los Angeles Prepares To Host Summer Olympics In 2028

The Paris Games are over, and Los Angeles is off to the races to prepare the city’s transit system for what officials are calling a transit-first 2028 Olympic Games.

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It’s been 40 years since Los Angeles hosted the Olympic Games. Back then, the city housed and commuted 3.4 million visitors without experiencing gridlock. The 1984 Games was called an “automotive nirvana,” and became a model for future Olympics. With the 2028 Summer Games now fast approaching, the clock is ticking for LA Metro to reproduce past successes.

“LA28 will be a transit-first Games, which means that spectators will be encouraged to take public transportation to get to the myriad of world class venues where the Games will be held,” said Kim Parker Gordon, a spokesperson for the L.A. Olympic and Paralympic Games.

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