Newsom plans transformation of San Quentin prison

IJ news services

San Quentin State Prison is headed for a major transformation as Gov. Gavin Newsom expands his push to remake the state’s penal system by implementing progressive models from Northern Europe.

Newsom is scheduled to visit the 171-year-old penitentiary Friday (March 17) and detail plans to shift it from a maximum security facility to a center for education and training within the prison system, according to his press office.

“We take the next step in our pursuit of true rehabilitation, justice, and safer communities through this evidenced-backed investment, creating a new model for safety and justice — the California Model — that will lead the nation,” Newsom said in a statement.

San Quentin is California’s oldest prison and was once home to the nation’s largest death row. It currently houses about 3,300 inmates.

That transition is expected to take place by 2025 and incorporate Scandinavian incarceration models.

The reimagining of San Quentin is the latest in a series of steps by the governor to shift California’s incarceration system away from punishment and toward rehabilitation — one of his original campaign promises.

A group made up public safety experts, crime victims and formerly incarcerated people will advise the state on the transformation. Newsom is allocating $20 million to launch the plan.
Inmates on death row will not have their sentences changed, but they will be moved to other prisons, Newsom’s office said.

Norway and other Scandanavian nations rehabilitate inmates by normalizing life, emphasizing services and support over punishment. San Quentin would not be California’s first penitentiary modeling such an approach. At Valley State Prison in Chowchilla, inmates have a garden, barbecue pit and more comfortable furniture.

Norway’s model is not only seen as an improvement for inmates but also for correctional officers. Nearly a third of California correctional officers have at least one symptom of PTSD, 38% report symptoms of depression and 10% entertain suicidal thoughts, according to a 2018 study from the University of California at Berkeley.

Meanwhile, in Norwegian prisons, officers report high levels of job satisfaction and well-being. They are trained to build relationships with inmates and to use the lowest levels of force when approaching potentially confrontational situations.

A “Little Scandinavia” unit in the Pennsylvania State Correctional Institution at Chester — an experiment modeled after Northern European systems of incarceration, has been operating where the goal is less about punishment and more about turning out people who can be good neighbors.
The vision for a new San Quentin includes job training for careers that can pay six figures, trades such as plumbers, electricians or truck drivers, and using the complex as a last stop of incarceration before release.

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

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

Despite consent decrees, prison closures and even the de facto end of the death penalty, California’s approach to crime and punishment has remained problematic, as it is across the U.S.
Newsom points out that most people who go into prison come out again, more than 30,000 a year in California, so public safety depends on people choosing to change, and having opportunities for a sustainable, law-abiding life.

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

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

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

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

San Quentin has housed high-profile criminals such as cult leader Charles Manson, convicted murderers and serial killers, and was the site of violent uprisings in the 1960s and 1970s.
However, the prison has already undergone major changes in recent years, including the shuttering of its death chamber and Newsom’s moratorium on executions for hundreds of inmates that were on death row.

It also offers some nationally-recognized programs and services for its inmates. The prison is home to an award-winning inmate-produced newspaper, as well as the first podcast created and produced in prison, Ear Hustle. And it also has its own accredited liberal arts degree program within the prison confines called Mount Tamalpais College.

The college currently serves about 300 inmates at no cost to the students and has awarded more than 200 degrees, according to college founder and President Jody Lewen.
It was not immediately clear the extent of changes that would be made to those programs under Newsom’s plan.

The Los Angeles Times, Sacramento Bee and Associated Press contributed to this report.