The Prison They Let You See

With the San Quentin Film Festival underway, public attention is once again drawn to the most well-known prison in California — a facility that offers a plethora of opportunities for rehabilitation programs and media access, making it a focal point for reform narratives. But San Quentin is the prison they let you see. The reality for the majority of California’s incarcerated population is starkly different: they are denied access to meaningful programs, educational materials, and basic opportunities for rehabilitation.

With its sand-colored walls stretching out into the San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge as a backdrop, the image of San Quentin is deceptively pristine. The prison’s proximity to progressive activism in Berkeley, Oakland, and San Francisco has enabled it to host college classes, art workshops, and podcasts like Ear Hustle, which gained mainstream success and even a Pulitzer Prize nomination. (One of Ear Hustle’s former “inside” hosts, Rahsaan “New York” Thomas, is the man behind the festival.) But this polished facade hides the reality of most prisons in California.

All forms of imprisonment in the U.S. serve to dehumanize, isolate, and outcast, so I wouldn’t go as far to say that San Quentin is not a “good” prison. Still, projects like the film festival and Ear Hustle are examples of rehabilitative programs that are both effective and possible within the confines of our current system of incarceration. The infusion of $360 million into San Quentin as part of Governor Gavin Newsom’s transformation plan has allowed for the development of a fully operational recording studio, a robust art studio, and a medley of trade skill courses, all of which aim to aid in emotional, mental, and interpersonal development.

The funding of San Quentin is considerably higher than what is allocated for most other prisons in the state, particularly those in rural areas; those much smaller budgets are focused primarily on maintaining basic operations rather than enhancing rehabilitation programs. Most of the incarcerated men and women I’ve worked with, caged in remote areas of the state such as Kern Valley and Vacaville, are denied access to even basic tools, never mind programs that train individuals for jobs on the outside, programs like The Last Mile, which has taught IT courses at SQ. 

Ivan Kilgore, an incarcerated activist serving a life sentence, wrote Domestic Genocide: The Institutionalization of Society, a 350-page critique of racial capitalism, by working on it for one allotted hour per day at a lone computer set up in the middle of a gymnasium. And despite numerous members of the media — Jon Stewart, CNN’s Lisa Ling, PBS’s Frontline team, and NBC News’ Lester Holt, to name a few — being escorted through the halls of San Quentin, administrators at Kilgore’s current facility, CSP Solano, insisted that filming was not allowed when I asked to document my first meeting with him since the release of my book, in which he and his organization are featured. Solano is not a prison they want you to see.