Converting a state prison into a rehabilitative center, as the Newsom administration seeks to do with San Quentin, means changing how guards do their jobs.
Instead of shying away from 鈥渙verfamiliarity鈥� with incarcerated people, prison guards should ask them about their families or favorite NFL teams. Instead of only reporting offenses, guards should note positive change in inmates. Instead of adopting a militarized footing against prisoners, guards should meet them in a common area to eat or watch movies.
Those are some of the recommendations from an advisory panel overseeing the conversion of called a 鈥渕odel rehabilitation center.鈥�
A 156-page report released today by the San Quentin Transformation Advisory Council also calls for an end to double-person cells, and better housing for guards who stay on the prison campus in Marin County to avoid long commutes.
The report鈥檚 recommendations are not required to be adopted by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
One of the biggest changes recommended would be retraining prison guards as 鈥渃ommunity correctional officers.鈥� In their new role, prison guards hired for this job would be retrained to understand the traumatic life experiences common to incarcerated people, substance abuse disorders, mental illness and anger management.
Guards with welding, plumbing or carpentry experience would be able to do vocational training in those subjects. Eventually, the community correctional officers would become part of an inmate鈥檚 rehabilitation team.
The report quoted an unnamed correction department official as saying: 鈥淲e train staff like they are going to war. We鈥檙e not going to war. We have to change the training.鈥�
San Quentin houses about 3,300 of California鈥檚 more than 90,000 inmates. In March, Newsom pledged to transform the prison into a rehabilitation hub. He has marked since he took office in 2019, a trend enabled by California鈥檚 falling population of state prison inmates.
Newsom looks to Norway on prison policy
The plan for San Quentin is modeled on prisons in Scandinavian countries, , which significantly decreased its rate of prisoners being convicted of crimes after release from 60%-70% in the 1980s to about 20% today when it began to allow prisoners more freedom and focused its prisons on rehabilitation.
In those prisons, incarcerated people can wear their own clothes, cook their own food and have relative freedom of movement within the prison walls. That model in states as disparate as deep-blue Connecticut and deep-red North Dakota.
California prison officials in 2019 and said they came away impressed. The group included leaders from the union that represents state prison guards, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association.
Newsom estimated it would cost $380 million to remodel the prison as a rehabilitation campus. The new report from his advisory committee urges the administration to look for ways to reduce that expense.
Though California lawmakers have mentioned the prison programs in Norway and North Dakota as successful systems to replicate, it鈥檚 unclear exactly what California鈥檚 model will look like. That鈥檚 something the Legislative Analyst鈥檚 Office pointed out , shortly after Newsom announced the conversion plan for San Quentin.
鈥淲hile the administration has articulated some broad approaches to pursuing the goals of the California Model, such as 鈥榖ecoming a trauma informed organization,鈥� it has not identified any clear changes to policy, practice, or prison environments it deems necessary to achieve the goals,鈥� the report鈥檚 author, Caitlin O鈥橬eil, wrote in May.
San Quentin already home to rehab programs
San Quentin, California鈥檚 oldest prison, has a lengthy list of maintenance needs that totaled . But it also has an , the inmate-hosted podcast Ear Hustle and a program in which inmates can earn an associate鈥檚 degree in general studies after completing 20 classes.
Keith Brown, who served time at California State Prison, Corcoran and is still incarcerated at San Quentin, told CalMatters in July that the experience in San Quentin was notably better.
Corcoran 鈥渄idn鈥檛 have any programs, really, and it (got) real hot there,鈥� Brown said. 鈥淗ere it鈥檚 a little bit better. Asked the principal to take (a) class, and he got me right in.鈥�
The advisory report notes that San Quentin is a desirable location for inmates, with a waiting list that sometimes stretches for years, so the prison should take as many inmates as it can. But San Quentin also has major renovation needs, and the cost just to bring it up to code is prohibitive. The only way to do that, according to the report, is to reduce the number of inmates at San Quentin.
The complications go further still 鈥� California elected officials have shown a distaste for more prison spending while the prison population drops and would prefer to spend that money on community-oriented solutions, but cutting money to the prisons means fewer programs and worse living conditions.
鈥淭here is no magic wand that can resolve all of these tensions,鈥� the advisory group wrote in the report. 鈥淧olicymakers will be grappling with these tradeoffs.鈥�
CalMatters investigative reporter Byrhonda Lyons contributed to this story.