The recent morning, San Quentin Prison, Los Angeles County Dynasty. Atty. Nathan Hochman and more than a dozen other prosecutors were crowded into a high-class conference hall surrounded by murderers, rapists and other serious criminals.
Name the crime. One of these guys probably did that.
“You’re not in a room with 100 people every day. Most of them committed murder, committed a very violent crime and were convicted of that,” Hochman said.
Many of these men wore casual blue uniforms and offered long sentences that were unlikely to go outside, like the LA native Marlon Arturo Melendez, who is currently for murder.
Melendez sat in a “shared circle.” They chatted about the decline in gang violence in decades since Melendez was first imprisoned over 20 years ago, and Melendez said he found Hochman “interesting.”
Within San Quentin, this kind of interaction between prisoners and guests is not uncommon. For decades, Bay prisons have put together a system focused on accountability and rehabilitation, and have carried out incarceration differently.
Like the other men in the room, Melendez takes responsibility for the harm he caused and works to make every day a better man. When he introduces himself, he names his victims – not only the realization that what he did is irreversible, but also the realization that he doesn’t have to be the same man he pulled the trigger.
Whether Melendez or any of these men walks freely, once California’s most infamous lockup is now the place that offers them the opportunity to change and provides the prisoners with the most elusive emotions.
Creating that culture is the theory and practice of incarceration that Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to create standards statewide.
He calls it the California model, but as I wrote before, it is a common practice in other countries (and even in some places in the US). It is based on a simple truth about incarceration. Most people who enter prison come out again. Public safety requires that they act differently when they do so.
“We’re paying to keep them here, or if they come back and hurt someone, we’re paying,” said Brooke Jenkins, the San Francisco district attorney.
Jenkins was the organizer of this unusual day, bringing district attorneys from around the state within San Quentin to better understand how the California model works and why even harsh crime district attorneys should help transform prisons.
As California moves away from 10 years of progressive criminal justice advances with new crackdowns such as the recently passed Proposal 36 (expected to increase the state’s prison population), it continues to pursue controversial plans to reshape prison culture in both prisons and security guards.
Despite a tough economic year in which the state has called for cuts in spending, Newsom has maintained over $200 million from its previous budget to improve San Quentin, allowing its outdated facility to support more than locking people in the cell.
Some of that construction already taking place on the property is expected to be completed next year. This makes San Quentin the most visible example of the California model. However, changes in how prisoners and security guards interact and what rehabilitation opportunities are available are already underway in prisons across the state.
It is a late, deep transformation that not only improves public safety and saves money in the long term, but also has the potential to reconstruct what imprisonment means across the country.
Jenkins’ promotion to help more prosecutors understand and cherish this pervert may also be important, especially to help the public support it. Or even Californians like many in San Francisco and Los Angeles are tired of the perception that California is soft to criminals.
“It’s not medium or progressive, but I think all of us, as moderates, have to admit that there are reforms that still need to happen,” Jenkins told me as he was walking through the prison yard. She took office after a recall of her progressive predecessor, Chesa Boudin, and a rightward shift in San Francisco on criminal policy.
Still, she is speaking up about the need for a second chance. For her, prison reform is more than a California model, but it’s a broader lens that includes the perspectives of those incarcerated and their insights into what is needed to make rehabilitation work.
“It really roots your duty in you. [district attorney’s] The office is fair,” she said.
Rehabilitation makes sense for Hochman, a former federal prosecutor and defense attorney who reverberated the progressive George Gascon last year. He likes to paraphrase the quote from fyodor dostoevsky, “The degree of civilization in society is revealed by entering prison.”
“In my perfect world, the education system, family system, and community would have done all this work on the front end like these people weren’t in a position to commit crimes in the first place,” he said. But when it fails, it’s up to the criminal justice system to help people fix themselves.
Despite being perceived as a tough DA in crime (he prefers “justice in crime”), he is so committed to his rehabilitation goals that he is determined to promote the new men’s central prison in Los Angeles County.
“Los Angeles County is absolutely failing because our prisons and prisons are so inadequate,” he said.
He quickly adds that rehabilitation is not for everyone. Some aren’t ready for it. Some people don’t care. San Quentin’s inmate agrees with him. They often speak up violently about who will be transferred to prison, and they know that their success depends on jailing those who want to change.
“It has to be a choice. You need to understand it yourself,” Oscar Acosta told me. Now in 32 years, he is a “CDC baby” and has been behind the bar since he was 18, as he mentions the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
As the district attorney saw, when the California model works, it’s clear what its value is. Men who were once nothing but risky have the option of living different lives with different values. Even if they were imprisoned.
“I’m a new guy today after being considered the worst and worst,” Melendez told me. “I hope (a district attorney) sees the real change in the people sitting with them and that rehabilitation for punishment is more fruitful and that justice seasoned in restoration is better for everyone.”
Melendez and other imprisoned men in Saint Quentin hope they see them as more than their worst behavior. And they can see that even prosecutors like Jenkins and Hochman are sentenced to the sometimes triple-digit sentences for putting them behind bars, so the past doesn’t always determine the future, and that their investment in change is an investment in a safer community.
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