Almost 3,000 incarcerated individuals at San Quentin Rehabilitation Center are receiving free backpacks and stationery supplies, courtesy of The People in Blue (TPIB).
The Special Incarcerated Group, working to help change the culture in California prisons, got permission from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to give every incarcerated individual a free backpack as part of an orientation event they put on at San Quentin on May 21st.
“The purpose of this is to encourage the San Quentin population to get involved in rehabilitation,” said Arthur Jackson, president and co-founder of TPIB. “Our goal is to create an environment for healing.”
The sun was out and music was playing to create a festive vibe. TPIB set up an assembly line near the gym on the Lower Yard, where incarcerated people signed up, got a ticket, and walked over to pick up their new rehabilitation bags.
Courtney Rein, one of the group’s sponsors, and Darnell “Moe” Washington, a formerly incarcerated San Quentin resident, teamed up to order almost 4,000 backpacks from Amazon.
Washington, who is the founder of the nonprofit organization African American Communities Healing, used his organization to help facilitate the purchases, thanks to a generous donation of $15,000 made by Jeff Marcous.
Working to ‘become better people’
While TPIB passed out the backpacks, San Quentin medical staff set up a nearby table to provide incarcerated residents with Narcan, a safety agent used to prevent overdoses and deaths from opioid abuse.
Volunteers also handed out information from the prison’s Integrated Substance Use Disorder Treatment Program, which informed incarcerated individuals about the dangers of opioid abuse.
Steve Brooks, vice-president and co-founder of TPIB, helped direct traffic as more than two thousand incarcerated individuals picked up what he referred to as their “orientation kits.”
“We’re out here to encourage people to seek out rehabilitation and healing,” said Brooks. “We want everyone to get in the mindset that we’re here to address our criminal issues, become better people, and to get back home to our families.”
“A backpack is a backpack, but to me it’s about what the backpack symbolizes and the mindset it can create among the incarcerated.”
Correctional Officer Kruse
A group of officers called the California model team helped with the backpack distribution. The team was assembled by Warden Chance Andes to perform the specific function of bringing more humanity into the prison. Correctional Officer Kruse is part of the team.
“A backpack is a backpack,” said Kruse. “But to me it’s about what the backpack symbolizes and the mindset it can create among the incarcerated.”
TPIB was established in April 2023 in response to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s announcement that California prisons will be transformed to something more humane, similar to a Scandinavian model. Gov. Newsom referred to it as “the California model.”
Four pillars of reform
CDCR Secretary Jeffrey Macomber has fully embraced the idea for the California model, adopting four pillars as its foundation: dynamic security, normalization, peer support and trauma-informed care.
Gov. Newsom declared on March 17 of last year that, “this system isn’t working for anybody.” The governor said officers are suffering PTSD and some are committing suicide. He also said the recidivism rate among the incarcerated is consistently high.
TPIB’s main focus is on creating better relationships between the incarcerated and staff and creating an environment free of trauma where actual healing can take place.
The group said it has many more activities and events to propose to CDCR and San Quentin that they hope will help change the toxic culture inside California prisons.
“This event turned out better than we anticipated,” said Jackson. “We didn’t anticipate this many people coming out, and we didn’t anticipate it going as well as it did.”
The post A better future’s in the bag: Rehabilitation packs foster healing mission at San Quentin appeared first on Local News Matters.