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"title": "Theater Helped Him Feel Free at San Quentin—Now He’s Paying it Forward",
"headTitle": "Theater Helped Him Feel Free at San Quentin—Now He’s Paying it Forward | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>Editor’s note:\u003c/strong> Two years into the pandemic, artists are charting new paths forward. Across the Bay Area, they’re advocating for better pay, sharing resources and looking out for their communities’ well-being. Welcome to \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://kqed.org/ourcreativefutures\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Our Creative Futures\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a KQED Arts & Culture series that takes stock of the arts in this unpredictable climate. \u003ca href=\"https://artskqed.typeform.com/Artist2022\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Share your story here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2020, Juan Meza thought he was going to die just a few months before he was due to be released from San Quentin State Prison after 24 total years of incarceration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His neck and back were aching, he had an out-of-control fever and his blood pressure was skyrocketing. Meza had COVID during the first wave of the pandemic and, as he sat in his cell, he lamented losing one of the few things that brought him joy in prison—the acting program he participated in with Marin Shakespeare Company. [pullquote size='medium' align='right' citation='Juan Meza, an actor who was formerly incarcerated at San Quentin']‘I was able to show that I am a director, that I am a choreographer, that I am an actor, that I am a set designer, that I am essentially an artist.’[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Acting, performing—doing these things were a release, a very lethargic process of getting stuff out that we needed to and everything. We didn’t have that avenue anymore and we didn’t know if we were going to get it back,” Meza says. “I think that was what was most disconcerting. It was just something that was devastating. Here’s something that we had worked towards, and now we couldn’t do anything again.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.marinshakespeare.org/shakespeare-in-prison/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Marin Shakespeare Company\u003c/a> had been running programming in San Quentin—providing a vital creative, emotional and social outlet for those inside—for 17 years uninterrupted until the pandemic hit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The non-profit theater group has been working with incarcerated people since 2003. Today, they provide drama therapy-inspired acting classes to men, women and youth in 14 different California state prisons with the goal of fostering “self-reflection, self-expression, cooperation, compassion, and goal-setting” among class participants, according to their website.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13915618\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13915618\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/juan-meza-composite-fred-greaves-800x240.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"240\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/juan-meza-composite-fred-greaves-800x240.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/juan-meza-composite-fred-greaves-1020x306.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/juan-meza-composite-fred-greaves-160x48.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/juan-meza-composite-fred-greaves-768x230.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/juan-meza-composite-fred-greaves-1536x461.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/juan-meza-composite-fred-greaves.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Since getting out of San Quentin State Prison in 2020, Colusa resident Juan Meza works in construction by day while continuing to pursue his passion for theater at Marin Shakespeare Company. \u003ccite>(Fred Greaves)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Lesley Currier, Marin Shakespeare’s managing director, says the men in San Quentin draw “a lot of positive benefits” from her organization’s affiliation with the prison. Among them are “people rediscovering their own creativity; rediscovering their own sense of play,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We hear so often: ‘Over the two and a half hours that I spent in the group, I felt like I was free. I didn’t feel like I was in prison,’” Currier says. “Doing something outside the box is really powerful, particularly for people who’ve been labeled, you know, ‘You are not someone who’s going to succeed. You’re a criminal.’ To do something else—to play, to have different roles—really makes you believe that you can do things that you hadn’t thought of doing before.” [aside postID=\"arts_13913890\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meza, who goes by the stage name Losdini, attests that the acting program helped him reveal another side of himself. He got involved with Marin Shakespeare when he transferred to San Quentin after 16 years at another facility. “If I had never stepped into that first class in San Quentin with Marin Shakespeare Company, I would not have been able to reveal my humanity,” he says. “In that I was able to show that I am a director, that I am a choreographer, that I am an actor, that I am a set designer, that I am essentially an artist.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13915621\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13915621\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/fg_san-quentin-theatre_2022_06_21_R5B1148-800x1200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"1200\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/fg_san-quentin-theatre_2022_06_21_R5B1148-800x1200.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/fg_san-quentin-theatre_2022_06_21_R5B1148-1020x1530.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/fg_san-quentin-theatre_2022_06_21_R5B1148-160x240.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/fg_san-quentin-theatre_2022_06_21_R5B1148-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/fg_san-quentin-theatre_2022_06_21_R5B1148-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/fg_san-quentin-theatre_2022_06_21_R5B1148-1366x2048.jpg 1366w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/fg_san-quentin-theatre_2022_06_21_R5B1148.jpg 1667w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Juan Meza plays bass at home in Colusa, California on June 21, 2022. \u003ccite>(Fred Greaves)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But when COVID hit, Meza’s artistry was put on hold and Marin Shakespeare Company had to pivot their classes since their instructors were no longer allowed to visit the prison. First, they recorded a production of \u003cem>Romeo and Juliet\u003c/em>, put on by some of the formerly incarcerated actors who had been through their program, and sent them to the men in San Quentin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the prison prohibited them from sending more videos, the theater company distributed packets with writing exercises to stimulate the men’s creative skills. The prompts had Shakespearean themes that were also relevant to daily life during COVID, like plague, friendship, loyalty and self-care. After receiving the writing packages back, Marin Shakespeare posted the men’s writing to their website and even had some formerly incarcerated actors do dramatic readings of the writing that came from inside.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13915622\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13915622\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/fg_san-quentin-theatre_2022_06_21_R5B1105-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/fg_san-quentin-theatre_2022_06_21_R5B1105-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/fg_san-quentin-theatre_2022_06_21_R5B1105-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/fg_san-quentin-theatre_2022_06_21_R5B1105-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/fg_san-quentin-theatre_2022_06_21_R5B1105-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/fg_san-quentin-theatre_2022_06_21_R5B1105-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/fg_san-quentin-theatre_2022_06_21_R5B1105-2048x1366.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/fg_san-quentin-theatre_2022_06_21_R5B1105-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Juan Meza smokes a cigarette outside his home in Colusa, California June 21, 2022. \u003ccite>(Fred Greaves)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But even this makeshift programming wasn’t enough to distract from the hellish conditions inside San Quentin at the height of the pandemic. San Quentin had the worst COVID outbreak of any prison in California. Over 2,000 inmates were infected and 29 people died from the outbreak, which was caused by a \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-01-28/covid-prison-san-quentin-ruling\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">botched transfer of sick prisoners from Southern California\u003c/a>. The situation was then exacerbated by a lack of personal protective equipment in the prison and overcrowding, which made social distancing impossible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Meza, “there was a lot of fear, there was a lot of anxiety, there’s a lot of unknowns, there was a lot of misinformation going around,” he says. “In a matter of two weeks, we were now locked in a cell again, unable to move, scared, frightened.” [aside postID=\"arts_13913947\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Currier says when the Marin Shakespeare Company was finally able to come back to San Quentin in June 2021, they spent their first couple of classes talking about what the men had experienced during quarantine. Currier says COVID was “really scary for the men” since “everyone knew someone who had died or who had yelled ‘man down,’” the phrase spoken to alert prison personnel that someone needed immediate medical attention.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even today Currier says COVID continues to be used “as an excuse” to take away privileges from the men of San Quentin. Despite this, Marin Shakespeare Company was able to stage three performances in front of a live audience in December 2021 with the men of San Quentin, with a production of \u003cem>Henry IV\u003c/em> to come in August.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13915509\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13915509\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/GettyImages-1322090464-800x534.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/GettyImages-1322090464-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/GettyImages-1322090464-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/GettyImages-1322090464-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/GettyImages-1322090464-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/GettyImages-1322090464.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Members of Shakespeare at San Quentin along with Marin Shakespeare Company’s and Director Suraya Keating (second from bottom on right) gather backstage before they perform “Twelfth Night” at San Quentin State Prison on Friday, August 5, 2011 in San Quentin, Calif. \u003ccite>(Lea Suzuki/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>By the time Marin Shakespeare Company returned to San Quentin, Meza had been paroled. Today, he is continuing his passion for acting and directing (he \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-dF_hTiEE4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">co-directed his first production in May\u003c/a>) with Marin Shakespeare as part of their \u003ca href=\"https://www.marinshakespeare.org/returned-citizens-theatre-troupe/#:~:text=The%20mission%20of%20the%20Returned,understanding%20and%20communication%20through%20theatre.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Returned Citizens Theater Troupe\u003c/a>, a program Currier says gets at the essence of the importance of MSC’s work in prisons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For the last seven years, we have been hiring actors who have been able to get out of prison to tell their stories through theater,” Currier says. “Some of the conversations after those performances have been amazing as many people say to me, ‘Well, it’s just really changed my attitude about criminal justice in this country,’ because the goal is we need to change hearts and minds so that we can change our laws.” [aside postID=\"arts_13914030\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meza says his reasoning for returning to Marin Shakespeare Company post-incarceration is to pay forward what they did for him to the next person.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Now that I’m not incarcerated in prison anymore, I still want to go back to the humans that are inside to sit with them and say, ‘Look, we can do this,’” Meza says. “There’s a niche that I can be in where I understand, like no volunteer will, what it means to be incarcerated. … I have that knowledge, I have that experience. Where other people can only sympathize, I can empathize.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-12127869\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-800x78.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Read more stories from \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://kqed.org/ourcreativefutures\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Our Creative Futures\u003c/a>\u003cem> here. Have something to share? Tell us about how \u003ca href=\"https://artskqed.typeform.com/Artist2022\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the pandemic has impacted your art practice or community\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>Editor’s note:\u003c/strong> Two years into the pandemic, artists are charting new paths forward. Across the Bay Area, they’re advocating for better pay, sharing resources and looking out for their communities’ well-being. Welcome to \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://kqed.org/ourcreativefutures\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Our Creative Futures\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a KQED Arts & Culture series that takes stock of the arts in this unpredictable climate. \u003ca href=\"https://artskqed.typeform.com/Artist2022\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Share your story here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2020, Juan Meza thought he was going to die just a few months before he was due to be released from San Quentin State Prison after 24 total years of incarceration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His neck and back were aching, he had an out-of-control fever and his blood pressure was skyrocketing. Meza had COVID during the first wave of the pandemic and, as he sat in his cell, he lamented losing one of the few things that brought him joy in prison—the acting program he participated in with Marin Shakespeare Company. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Acting, performing—doing these things were a release, a very lethargic process of getting stuff out that we needed to and everything. We didn’t have that avenue anymore and we didn’t know if we were going to get it back,” Meza says. “I think that was what was most disconcerting. It was just something that was devastating. Here’s something that we had worked towards, and now we couldn’t do anything again.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.marinshakespeare.org/shakespeare-in-prison/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Marin Shakespeare Company\u003c/a> had been running programming in San Quentin—providing a vital creative, emotional and social outlet for those inside—for 17 years uninterrupted until the pandemic hit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The non-profit theater group has been working with incarcerated people since 2003. Today, they provide drama therapy-inspired acting classes to men, women and youth in 14 different California state prisons with the goal of fostering “self-reflection, self-expression, cooperation, compassion, and goal-setting” among class participants, according to their website.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13915618\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13915618\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/juan-meza-composite-fred-greaves-800x240.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"240\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/juan-meza-composite-fred-greaves-800x240.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/juan-meza-composite-fred-greaves-1020x306.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/juan-meza-composite-fred-greaves-160x48.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/juan-meza-composite-fred-greaves-768x230.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/juan-meza-composite-fred-greaves-1536x461.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/juan-meza-composite-fred-greaves.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Since getting out of San Quentin State Prison in 2020, Colusa resident Juan Meza works in construction by day while continuing to pursue his passion for theater at Marin Shakespeare Company. \u003ccite>(Fred Greaves)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Lesley Currier, Marin Shakespeare’s managing director, says the men in San Quentin draw “a lot of positive benefits” from her organization’s affiliation with the prison. Among them are “people rediscovering their own creativity; rediscovering their own sense of play,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We hear so often: ‘Over the two and a half hours that I spent in the group, I felt like I was free. I didn’t feel like I was in prison,’” Currier says. “Doing something outside the box is really powerful, particularly for people who’ve been labeled, you know, ‘You are not someone who’s going to succeed. You’re a criminal.’ To do something else—to play, to have different roles—really makes you believe that you can do things that you hadn’t thought of doing before.” \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meza, who goes by the stage name Losdini, attests that the acting program helped him reveal another side of himself. He got involved with Marin Shakespeare when he transferred to San Quentin after 16 years at another facility. “If I had never stepped into that first class in San Quentin with Marin Shakespeare Company, I would not have been able to reveal my humanity,” he says. “In that I was able to show that I am a director, that I am a choreographer, that I am an actor, that I am a set designer, that I am essentially an artist.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13915621\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13915621\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/fg_san-quentin-theatre_2022_06_21_R5B1148-800x1200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"1200\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/fg_san-quentin-theatre_2022_06_21_R5B1148-800x1200.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/fg_san-quentin-theatre_2022_06_21_R5B1148-1020x1530.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/fg_san-quentin-theatre_2022_06_21_R5B1148-160x240.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/fg_san-quentin-theatre_2022_06_21_R5B1148-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/fg_san-quentin-theatre_2022_06_21_R5B1148-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/fg_san-quentin-theatre_2022_06_21_R5B1148-1366x2048.jpg 1366w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/fg_san-quentin-theatre_2022_06_21_R5B1148.jpg 1667w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Juan Meza plays bass at home in Colusa, California on June 21, 2022. \u003ccite>(Fred Greaves)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But when COVID hit, Meza’s artistry was put on hold and Marin Shakespeare Company had to pivot their classes since their instructors were no longer allowed to visit the prison. First, they recorded a production of \u003cem>Romeo and Juliet\u003c/em>, put on by some of the formerly incarcerated actors who had been through their program, and sent them to the men in San Quentin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the prison prohibited them from sending more videos, the theater company distributed packets with writing exercises to stimulate the men’s creative skills. The prompts had Shakespearean themes that were also relevant to daily life during COVID, like plague, friendship, loyalty and self-care. After receiving the writing packages back, Marin Shakespeare posted the men’s writing to their website and even had some formerly incarcerated actors do dramatic readings of the writing that came from inside.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13915622\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13915622\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/fg_san-quentin-theatre_2022_06_21_R5B1105-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/fg_san-quentin-theatre_2022_06_21_R5B1105-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/fg_san-quentin-theatre_2022_06_21_R5B1105-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/fg_san-quentin-theatre_2022_06_21_R5B1105-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/fg_san-quentin-theatre_2022_06_21_R5B1105-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/fg_san-quentin-theatre_2022_06_21_R5B1105-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/fg_san-quentin-theatre_2022_06_21_R5B1105-2048x1366.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/fg_san-quentin-theatre_2022_06_21_R5B1105-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Juan Meza smokes a cigarette outside his home in Colusa, California June 21, 2022. \u003ccite>(Fred Greaves)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But even this makeshift programming wasn’t enough to distract from the hellish conditions inside San Quentin at the height of the pandemic. San Quentin had the worst COVID outbreak of any prison in California. Over 2,000 inmates were infected and 29 people died from the outbreak, which was caused by a \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-01-28/covid-prison-san-quentin-ruling\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">botched transfer of sick prisoners from Southern California\u003c/a>. The situation was then exacerbated by a lack of personal protective equipment in the prison and overcrowding, which made social distancing impossible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Meza, “there was a lot of fear, there was a lot of anxiety, there’s a lot of unknowns, there was a lot of misinformation going around,” he says. “In a matter of two weeks, we were now locked in a cell again, unable to move, scared, frightened.” \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Currier says when the Marin Shakespeare Company was finally able to come back to San Quentin in June 2021, they spent their first couple of classes talking about what the men had experienced during quarantine. Currier says COVID was “really scary for the men” since “everyone knew someone who had died or who had yelled ‘man down,’” the phrase spoken to alert prison personnel that someone needed immediate medical attention.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even today Currier says COVID continues to be used “as an excuse” to take away privileges from the men of San Quentin. Despite this, Marin Shakespeare Company was able to stage three performances in front of a live audience in December 2021 with the men of San Quentin, with a production of \u003cem>Henry IV\u003c/em> to come in August.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13915509\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13915509\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/GettyImages-1322090464-800x534.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/GettyImages-1322090464-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/GettyImages-1322090464-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/GettyImages-1322090464-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/GettyImages-1322090464-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/GettyImages-1322090464.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Members of Shakespeare at San Quentin along with Marin Shakespeare Company’s and Director Suraya Keating (second from bottom on right) gather backstage before they perform “Twelfth Night” at San Quentin State Prison on Friday, August 5, 2011 in San Quentin, Calif. \u003ccite>(Lea Suzuki/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>By the time Marin Shakespeare Company returned to San Quentin, Meza had been paroled. Today, he is continuing his passion for acting and directing (he \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-dF_hTiEE4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">co-directed his first production in May\u003c/a>) with Marin Shakespeare as part of their \u003ca href=\"https://www.marinshakespeare.org/returned-citizens-theatre-troupe/#:~:text=The%20mission%20of%20the%20Returned,understanding%20and%20communication%20through%20theatre.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Returned Citizens Theater Troupe\u003c/a>, a program Currier says gets at the essence of the importance of MSC’s work in prisons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For the last seven years, we have been hiring actors who have been able to get out of prison to tell their stories through theater,” Currier says. “Some of the conversations after those performances have been amazing as many people say to me, ‘Well, it’s just really changed my attitude about criminal justice in this country,’ because the goal is we need to change hearts and minds so that we can change our laws.” \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meza says his reasoning for returning to Marin Shakespeare Company post-incarceration is to pay forward what they did for him to the next person.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Now that I’m not incarcerated in prison anymore, I still want to go back to the humans that are inside to sit with them and say, ‘Look, we can do this,’” Meza says. “There’s a niche that I can be in where I understand, like no volunteer will, what it means to be incarcerated. … I have that knowledge, I have that experience. Where other people can only sympathize, I can empathize.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-12127869\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-800x78.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Read more stories from \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://kqed.org/ourcreativefutures\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Our Creative Futures\u003c/a>\u003cem> here. Have something to share? Tell us about how \u003ca href=\"https://artskqed.typeform.com/Artist2022\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the pandemic has impacted your art practice or community\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Ken Burns Visits San Quentin to Preview 'Country Music' Documentary For Inmates",
"headTitle": "Ken Burns Visits San Quentin to Preview ‘Country Music’ Documentary For Inmates | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Ken Burns, the prolific documentary filmmaker, addressed roughly 100 inmates at San Quentin State Prison on Wednesday with a message about redemption, destigmatizing incarceration and country music.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Country star Merle Haggard, Burns explained, was once reluctant to acknowledge his stint at prisons including San Quentin, fearful it would hurt his professional reputation. But Johnny Cash, well-known for concert recordings at Folsom State Prison and San Quentin, urged Haggard to be open about his time behind bars, and to draw on his experiences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What Cash knew, and country music affirms, Burns said, is that “the value of a human being does not end when you walk in the front door of a place like this,” adding, “I know I’m preaching to the choir.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13862094\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13862094\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/IMG_1555-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Rahsaan Thomas, Ear Hustle co-host and San Quentin News contributor, speaks with Ken Burns. \" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/IMG_1555-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/IMG_1555-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/IMG_1555-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/IMG_1555-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/IMG_1555-1200x675.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/IMG_1555.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rahsaan Thomas, ‘Ear Hustle’ co-host and San Quentin News contributor, speaks with Ken Burns. \u003ccite>(Geraldine Montes/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The occasion was a preview of \u003cem>Country Music\u003c/em>, Burns’ forthcoming eight-part, 16-hour series on the “uniquely American art form.” He played clips from the series, focused on Cash and Haggard’s ties to California’s penal system, before fielding questions from Rahsaan Thomas, “inside” co-host of \u003cem>Ear Hustle\u003c/em> and a contributor to \u003cem>San Quentin News\u003c/em>, plus other incarcerated audience members. \u003cem>Country Music\u003c/em> airs on PBS stations, including KQED, from Sept. 15–25.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The event, which general population inmates attended voluntarily, occurred in a 373-capacity protestant chapel next to a neatly landscaped courtyard where men in blue denim mowed lawns. In addition to Cash, the prison has hosted musical acts including Metallica, Crime and, most recently, Queens of the Stone Age.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The clips, together running a half hour, followed Haggard from his impoverished Central Valley upbringing to his time in prison (he witnessed Cash’s performance at San Quentin in 1959, while an inmate), and the development of his “outlaw” persona. Cash, meanwhile, is seen struggling with methamphetamine addiction before the concert recordings at Folsom and San Quentin draw acclaim and restart his career.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13862096\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13862096\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/IMG_1720-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Curly Ray Martin (L), who once shared a cell with Merle Haggard, sits next to Country Music writer and co-producer Dayton Duncan (R).\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/IMG_1720-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/IMG_1720-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/IMG_1720-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/IMG_1720-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/IMG_1720-1200x675.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/IMG_1720.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Curly Ray Martin (L), who once shared a cell with Merle Haggard, sits next to ‘Country Music’ writer and co-producer Dayton Duncan (R). \u003ccite>(Geraldine Montes/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Dayton Duncan, \u003cem>Country Music\u003c/em>‘s writer and co-producer who took questions alongside Burns and co-producer Julie Dunfey, described San Quentin as central to Haggard’s story. “You know, how important was Valley Forge to George Washington?” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Duncan, choking up, then acknowledged the presence of an 80-year-old inmate named Curly Ray Martin, who once shared a cell with Haggard. “Merle taught me how to play bass,” said Martin, who performed with West Coast artists such as Rose Maddox before being incarcerated 52 years ago. “Listenin’ to Merle in here, his songs, everybody knew he was destined to be a big star,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thomas, who chatted with reporters about Robert Mueller’s congressional testimony that morning (“You’d be surprised by the political savvy on the yard,” he said), brought up Burns’ 2012 documentary \u003cem>The Central Park Five\u003c/em>, about five teenagers wrongly imprisoned after being coerced to confess to rape in 1989. Thomas asked the filmmaker about his views on criminal-justice reform.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13862095\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13862095\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/IMG_1660-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"San Quentin News reporters interview Ken Burns.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/IMG_1660-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/IMG_1660-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/IMG_1660-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/IMG_1660-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/IMG_1660-1200x675.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/IMG_1660.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">San Quentin News reporters interview Ken Burns. \u003ccite>(Geraldine Montes/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Burns responded that interrogation practices deserve scrutiny. Mentioning \u003cem>College Behind Bars\u003c/em>, a forthcoming Lynn Novick documentary he executive produced, Burns stressed the role of education in reducing recidivism. “This is the time,” he said, noting such reforms have bipartisan support. “It can’t come too soon.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than a dozen incarcerated audience members stepped up to a microphone to ask questions, almost all of them professing intimate knowledge of Burns’ work. (PBS is one of few channels available in prison.) One of them, a FirstWatch filmmaker, noted the “Ken Burns effect,” a style of panning and zooming, available to use through iMovie.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Laughing, Burns replied, “You have to thank Steve Jobs for that one.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Anthony Evans, an inmate, asked how the film addresses the “symbiotic relationship between country and the blues.” Duncan responded that the documentary traces the international roots of country, and examines the former market division between “race” and “hillbilly” music. Burns similarly noted the debate over how to categorize Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” reflects how black people’s contributions to country have long been minimized or ignored.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s appropriate we’re in a chapel,” Burns said. “I want to share with you the gospel of country music.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Ken Burns, the prolific documentary filmmaker, addressed roughly 100 inmates at San Quentin State Prison on Wednesday with a message about redemption, destigmatizing incarceration and country music.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Country star Merle Haggard, Burns explained, was once reluctant to acknowledge his stint at prisons including San Quentin, fearful it would hurt his professional reputation. But Johnny Cash, well-known for concert recordings at Folsom State Prison and San Quentin, urged Haggard to be open about his time behind bars, and to draw on his experiences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What Cash knew, and country music affirms, Burns said, is that “the value of a human being does not end when you walk in the front door of a place like this,” adding, “I know I’m preaching to the choir.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13862094\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13862094\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/IMG_1555-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Rahsaan Thomas, Ear Hustle co-host and San Quentin News contributor, speaks with Ken Burns. \" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/IMG_1555-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/IMG_1555-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/IMG_1555-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/IMG_1555-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/IMG_1555-1200x675.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/IMG_1555.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rahsaan Thomas, ‘Ear Hustle’ co-host and San Quentin News contributor, speaks with Ken Burns. \u003ccite>(Geraldine Montes/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The occasion was a preview of \u003cem>Country Music\u003c/em>, Burns’ forthcoming eight-part, 16-hour series on the “uniquely American art form.” He played clips from the series, focused on Cash and Haggard’s ties to California’s penal system, before fielding questions from Rahsaan Thomas, “inside” co-host of \u003cem>Ear Hustle\u003c/em> and a contributor to \u003cem>San Quentin News\u003c/em>, plus other incarcerated audience members. \u003cem>Country Music\u003c/em> airs on PBS stations, including KQED, from Sept. 15–25.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The event, which general population inmates attended voluntarily, occurred in a 373-capacity protestant chapel next to a neatly landscaped courtyard where men in blue denim mowed lawns. In addition to Cash, the prison has hosted musical acts including Metallica, Crime and, most recently, Queens of the Stone Age.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The clips, together running a half hour, followed Haggard from his impoverished Central Valley upbringing to his time in prison (he witnessed Cash’s performance at San Quentin in 1959, while an inmate), and the development of his “outlaw” persona. Cash, meanwhile, is seen struggling with methamphetamine addiction before the concert recordings at Folsom and San Quentin draw acclaim and restart his career.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13862096\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13862096\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/IMG_1720-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Curly Ray Martin (L), who once shared a cell with Merle Haggard, sits next to Country Music writer and co-producer Dayton Duncan (R).\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/IMG_1720-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/IMG_1720-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/IMG_1720-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/IMG_1720-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/IMG_1720-1200x675.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/IMG_1720.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Curly Ray Martin (L), who once shared a cell with Merle Haggard, sits next to ‘Country Music’ writer and co-producer Dayton Duncan (R). \u003ccite>(Geraldine Montes/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Dayton Duncan, \u003cem>Country Music\u003c/em>‘s writer and co-producer who took questions alongside Burns and co-producer Julie Dunfey, described San Quentin as central to Haggard’s story. “You know, how important was Valley Forge to George Washington?” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Duncan, choking up, then acknowledged the presence of an 80-year-old inmate named Curly Ray Martin, who once shared a cell with Haggard. “Merle taught me how to play bass,” said Martin, who performed with West Coast artists such as Rose Maddox before being incarcerated 52 years ago. “Listenin’ to Merle in here, his songs, everybody knew he was destined to be a big star,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thomas, who chatted with reporters about Robert Mueller’s congressional testimony that morning (“You’d be surprised by the political savvy on the yard,” he said), brought up Burns’ 2012 documentary \u003cem>The Central Park Five\u003c/em>, about five teenagers wrongly imprisoned after being coerced to confess to rape in 1989. Thomas asked the filmmaker about his views on criminal-justice reform.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13862095\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13862095\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/IMG_1660-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"San Quentin News reporters interview Ken Burns.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/IMG_1660-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/IMG_1660-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/IMG_1660-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/IMG_1660-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/IMG_1660-1200x675.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/IMG_1660.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">San Quentin News reporters interview Ken Burns. \u003ccite>(Geraldine Montes/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Burns responded that interrogation practices deserve scrutiny. Mentioning \u003cem>College Behind Bars\u003c/em>, a forthcoming Lynn Novick documentary he executive produced, Burns stressed the role of education in reducing recidivism. “This is the time,” he said, noting such reforms have bipartisan support. “It can’t come too soon.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than a dozen incarcerated audience members stepped up to a microphone to ask questions, almost all of them professing intimate knowledge of Burns’ work. (PBS is one of few channels available in prison.) One of them, a FirstWatch filmmaker, noted the “Ken Burns effect,” a style of panning and zooming, available to use through iMovie.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Laughing, Burns replied, “You have to thank Steve Jobs for that one.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Anthony Evans, an inmate, asked how the film addresses the “symbiotic relationship between country and the blues.” Duncan responded that the documentary traces the international roots of country, and examines the former market division between “race” and “hillbilly” music. Burns similarly noted the debate over how to categorize Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” reflects how black people’s contributions to country have long been minimized or ignored.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s appropriate we’re in a chapel,” Burns said. “I want to share with you the gospel of country music.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>In California, inmates typically are granted parole by doing good deeds or showing they have been rehabilitated by becoming pastors, drug counselors or youth advocates. For Walter “Earlonne” Woods, the path to freedom was podcasting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Woods, 47, was recently released from San Quentin State Prison after California Gov. Jerry Brown commuted his 31-years-to-life sentence for attempted armed robbery. Brown cited Woods’ leadership in helping other inmates and his work at \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.earhustlesq.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ear Hustle\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, a podcast he co-hosts and co-produces that documents everyday life inside the prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”bovN0iytS11UduaaABra2NsTOerQTJGS”]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Woods has since been hired as a full-time producer for the often funny and at times heart-wrenching podcast, which has been a smashing success since its launch in 2017. The show’s roughly 30 episodes have been downloaded 20 million times by fans all over the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Listeners have praised \u003cem>Ear Hustle\u003c/em> online as “eye-opening” and “incredibly humanizing.” But for Woods, one of the most meaningful reviews came from the governor’s office when they called with the good news.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The one thing that the lady said, you know, she told me, ‘We love the podcast in this office,’” Woods told The Associated Press of the commutation call from Brown’s office. “I don’t know if the governor listens, but people in his office listen. People really like what we do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”eUXsgMZtpOGqnp4LPaFvoKeHnvtd6z91″]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During their podcast, Woods and fellow creator and outside co-host, prison volunteer Nigel Poor, give listeners a peek into the hardships and small joys of men incarcerated at the medium-security facility.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In interviews with the hosts, inmates discuss struggles such as finding a compatible cellmate to share a 5-by-10-foot cell, share why they take care of frogs or black widow spiders as if they were pets, or describe the impact of solitary confinement or being on death row.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Woods, an affable man with a quick smile and a sharp sense of humor, helps listeners understand prison life, while Poor brings an outsider’s perspective, asking insightful questions that at times push inmates to reflect on what put them behind bars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The podcast offers listeners an intimate look into lives society doesn’t spend much time thinking about, said Woods, who spent 21 years behind bars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People get to see the car chases. They get to see the trial. But they don’t know what happens after you get to prison,” Woods said. “We’ve been able to really humanize people, and people realize that those in prison are just people who made dumb decisions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brown agreed, and in his commutation letter, issued the day before Thanksgiving, the governor said Woods “has clearly shown that he is no longer the man he was when he committed this crime.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”kJNIbIEfNzWOH1nrVMIVBjmMk0eZYJCu”]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He has set a positive example for his peers and, through his podcast, has shared meaningful stories from those inside prison,” Brown wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The podcast project started after Poor, a San Francisco Bay Area artist who has volunteered at San Quentin since 2011, approached Woods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2016, Poor saw Public Radio Exchange’s Radiotopia network was sponsoring a podcast talent contest, and she asked Lt. Sam Robinson, San Quentin’s spokesman, for permission to enter. Another co-creator, Antwan Williams, who is serving 15 years for armed robbery, came on board to do its sound design.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their pitch beat more than 1,500 contestants from 53 countries, and they received the backing of a group of radio professionals, Poor said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everyone was shocked when we won, especially the prison. Lt. Robinson told me he let us enter because he never thought we would win,” she said, laughing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Ear Hustle\u003c/em>—eavesdropping, in prison slang—has found international success, with fans sending cards and letters from as far as New Zealand, Qatar in the Middle East, and Mauritius in East Africa. The free show also can be accessed in prisons throughout California and the United Kingdom. New episodes are posted every couple of weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Julie Shapiro, Radiotopia executive producer, describes the podcast as a “roller coaster of emotions” that challenges what people understand about life in prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People don’t expect to have something in common with those telling their stories from prison, but the details of their lives resonate with listeners because they hear these men encounter daily life in some of the same ways that we do,” Shapiro said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The outpouring of love and appreciation for the show has grown since Woods announced on a Nov. 24 episode that Brown commuted his sentence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The first thing Woods did after walking through the prison gates on Nov. 30 was take in the view of the San Francisco Bay and of the ocean “as far as the eye can see.” An episode featured his first moments as a free man.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”QrmYxhZUEedCDFsDc5SDp83z4KHAZu7a”]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since then, he’s been noticing new styles, like women everywhere in yoga pants, and people walking through the streets with their heads bowed. He quickly realized they were looking at their smartphones, which didn’t exist when he started his sentence in 1997.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Woods has also spent time people-watching at a high-end department store, visited Disneyland and recently made eggs for the first time in two decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fourth season of \u003cem>Ear Hustle\u003c/em>, which will be released this summer, will feature stories of his re-entry to society and interviews with other inmates released after long sentences. He and Poor also plan to visit maximum-security prisons and tell the stories of prisoners there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s a lot of people that’s in there that should be out,” Woods said. “I created a podcast, but I’m not the exception.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>In California, inmates typically are granted parole by doing good deeds or showing they have been rehabilitated by becoming pastors, drug counselors or youth advocates. For Walter “Earlonne” Woods, the path to freedom was podcasting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Woods, 47, was recently released from San Quentin State Prison after California Gov. Jerry Brown commuted his 31-years-to-life sentence for attempted armed robbery. Brown cited Woods’ leadership in helping other inmates and his work at \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.earhustlesq.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ear Hustle\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, a podcast he co-hosts and co-produces that documents everyday life inside the prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Woods has since been hired as a full-time producer for the often funny and at times heart-wrenching podcast, which has been a smashing success since its launch in 2017. The show’s roughly 30 episodes have been downloaded 20 million times by fans all over the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Listeners have praised \u003cem>Ear Hustle\u003c/em> online as “eye-opening” and “incredibly humanizing.” But for Woods, one of the most meaningful reviews came from the governor’s office when they called with the good news.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The one thing that the lady said, you know, she told me, ‘We love the podcast in this office,’” Woods told The Associated Press of the commutation call from Brown’s office. “I don’t know if the governor listens, but people in his office listen. People really like what we do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During their podcast, Woods and fellow creator and outside co-host, prison volunteer Nigel Poor, give listeners a peek into the hardships and small joys of men incarcerated at the medium-security facility.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In interviews with the hosts, inmates discuss struggles such as finding a compatible cellmate to share a 5-by-10-foot cell, share why they take care of frogs or black widow spiders as if they were pets, or describe the impact of solitary confinement or being on death row.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Woods, an affable man with a quick smile and a sharp sense of humor, helps listeners understand prison life, while Poor brings an outsider’s perspective, asking insightful questions that at times push inmates to reflect on what put them behind bars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The podcast offers listeners an intimate look into lives society doesn’t spend much time thinking about, said Woods, who spent 21 years behind bars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People get to see the car chases. They get to see the trial. But they don’t know what happens after you get to prison,” Woods said. “We’ve been able to really humanize people, and people realize that those in prison are just people who made dumb decisions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brown agreed, and in his commutation letter, issued the day before Thanksgiving, the governor said Woods “has clearly shown that he is no longer the man he was when he committed this crime.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He has set a positive example for his peers and, through his podcast, has shared meaningful stories from those inside prison,” Brown wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The podcast project started after Poor, a San Francisco Bay Area artist who has volunteered at San Quentin since 2011, approached Woods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2016, Poor saw Public Radio Exchange’s Radiotopia network was sponsoring a podcast talent contest, and she asked Lt. Sam Robinson, San Quentin’s spokesman, for permission to enter. Another co-creator, Antwan Williams, who is serving 15 years for armed robbery, came on board to do its sound design.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their pitch beat more than 1,500 contestants from 53 countries, and they received the backing of a group of radio professionals, Poor said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everyone was shocked when we won, especially the prison. Lt. Robinson told me he let us enter because he never thought we would win,” she said, laughing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Ear Hustle\u003c/em>—eavesdropping, in prison slang—has found international success, with fans sending cards and letters from as far as New Zealand, Qatar in the Middle East, and Mauritius in East Africa. The free show also can be accessed in prisons throughout California and the United Kingdom. New episodes are posted every couple of weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Julie Shapiro, Radiotopia executive producer, describes the podcast as a “roller coaster of emotions” that challenges what people understand about life in prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People don’t expect to have something in common with those telling their stories from prison, but the details of their lives resonate with listeners because they hear these men encounter daily life in some of the same ways that we do,” Shapiro said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The outpouring of love and appreciation for the show has grown since Woods announced on a Nov. 24 episode that Brown commuted his sentence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The first thing Woods did after walking through the prison gates on Nov. 30 was take in the view of the San Francisco Bay and of the ocean “as far as the eye can see.” An episode featured his first moments as a free man.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since then, he’s been noticing new styles, like women everywhere in yoga pants, and people walking through the streets with their heads bowed. He quickly realized they were looking at their smartphones, which didn’t exist when he started his sentence in 1997.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Woods has also spent time people-watching at a high-end department store, visited Disneyland and recently made eggs for the first time in two decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fourth season of \u003cem>Ear Hustle\u003c/em>, which will be released this summer, will feature stories of his re-entry to society and interviews with other inmates released after long sentences. He and Poor also plan to visit maximum-security prisons and tell the stories of prisoners there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s a lot of people that’s in there that should be out,” Woods said. “I created a podcast, but I’m not the exception.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "In This San Quentin Class, Inmates Write Their Way Into a Better Future",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">I\u003c/span> used to teach in a prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-13833985\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/OGPenn.Cap_-160x184.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"160\" height=\"184\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/OGPenn.Cap_-160x184.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/OGPenn.Cap_.jpg 180w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 160px) 100vw, 160px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For three Saturdays a month for five months, I’d drive to the California Medical Facility, a state prison in Vacaville, California, to teach writing classes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The experience proved to be cathartic for me as well as the fellas in the class. The guys would write haikus, essays and personal statements. And then they’d share them, often showing their back teeth as they laughed hard about common experiences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I walked away from that time period with a billion thoughts about justice, art, religion, relationships, stifled human potential and more. But most of the time, I just wondered how something as simple as teaching a class in prison could impact the American economy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California is the world’s fifth largest economy. And with just over \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdcr.ca.gov/Reports_Research/Offender_Information_Services_Branch/Monthly/TPOP1A/TPOP1Ad1809.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">120 thousand\u003c/a> people behind bars, the state is also home to the second-highest prison population in the nation—a nation that has the highest amount of incarcerated people in the \u003ca href=\"http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/uk/06/prisons/html/nn2page1.stm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">world\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Juxtapose those notes with the \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2011/05/23/136579580/california-is-ordered-to-cut-its-prison-population\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2011 Supreme Court ruling \u003c/a>that California’s overcrowded prisons violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. That was when the state was tasked with decreasing the prison population by 33,000 people in two years to meet federal standards. This led to the process of realignment through \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201120120AB109\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">AB 109\u003c/a>, which transferred some nonviolent offenders from state facilities to county jails. There was also a new prison built in Stockton, the California Health Care Facility, which opened in 2013.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That leaves me wondering about these folks who’ve been locked up, many of them sentenced before cell phones had internet capabilities. What happens when they get out? How will they land on their feet?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s where the classes come in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many Californian prisons offer more than just addiction and anger management classes: there are classes for everything from coding to gardening to dog training.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And that’s important because, beyond classes being a way for people who are incarcerated to earn credits toward their time served, the classes are a way to acquire skills that (\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11692123/criminal-convictions-vex-8-million-californians-advocates-see-hope-for-relief\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">theoretically\u003c/a>) will allow people to enter the workforce and contribute to the economy, both as producers and consumers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not to mention, the rehabilitation and release of folks should (again, \u003ca href=\"https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/california-forum/article211279304.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">theoretically\u003c/a>) work toward freeing up some space in the state’s budget, as it costs millions of dollars to keep people incarcerated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are people who are dependent on the California prison industry. That’ll have to be shifted around, too,” says Zoe Mullery, who has been teaching in California prisons for over two decades. “But that’s a good thing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">I\u003c/span> met Mullery over a year ago, right before I started teaching. As a part of the onboarding process at the William James Association, an organization that has been coordinating arts programs in prisons throughout California for over 40 years, I sat in on one of Mullery’s classes at San Quentin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I had worked with the \u003cem>San Quentin News\u003c/em> before, so I was familiar with the facility. But that experience was a bit different than Mullery’s class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>First of all, the newsroom is nondescript and full of word processing machines. Mullery teaches in a classroom that looks like an industrial warehouse that was converted into an artsy loft, complete with visual art pieces scaling up the 20-foot wall toward the ceiling. If you didn’t know you were in prison, you might think you were in an art gallery in a gentrified part of urban America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The class’ seats are set up in a circle. That’s where about a dozen men, a number of them with extensive sentences connected to heinous crimes, come to write about life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13843599\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13843599\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/10/20081029-9690-800x882.jpeg\" alt=\"Zoe Mullery and some of her students from San Quentin State Prison.\" width=\"800\" height=\"882\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/10/20081029-9690-800x882.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/10/20081029-9690-160x176.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/10/20081029-9690-768x846.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/10/20081029-9690.jpeg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/10/20081029-9690-240x265.jpeg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/10/20081029-9690-375x413.jpeg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/10/20081029-9690-520x573.jpeg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Zoe Mullery and some of her students from San Quentin State Prison. \u003ccite>(Peter Merts)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It’s the ideal setting for a teacher because you’ve got a group of people who really, really want to be there,” says Mullery, who previously taught at a community college, where she says the experience wasn’t nearly the same. “Half of the people were there for credits or because their mom made them take the class. They’re not engaged and they’re on their phones most of the time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite the inmates’ eagerness to learn, the hard realities of incarceration often set in. “It can be a really depressing place,” Mullery says. “In personal ways, you get exposed to incredible injustices and pain, and you have to learn to live with all of that too.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But even in that pain, there’s power.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She says that being active and doing something about it is much better than just reading about it. She compares mass incarceration to another major issue of our time: climate change. She says most people don’t feel like they have the power to do anything about it—and riding a bike to work everyday is just a small drop in the bucket.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But teaching in a prison and providing a platform for people to hone their crafts is Mullery’s way of chucking a stone at the Goliath-sized issue of America’s prison industrial complex.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mullery works in a world that is all men. And Mullery is, as she put it, “not only a woman, I’m like 4’11 and a half.” But she uses that to her advantage. “I have a non-intimidating presence and that works in my favor. It creates trust more easily.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She says she’s never dealt with discrimination or inappropriate behavior on the job. In fact, the guys she works with give her respect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Juan Haines, a writer for the San Quentin News and student of Mullery’s, often jokes with her by saying, “Thanks for coming to prison.” Mullery playfully responds, “Thanks for being in prison.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">A\u003c/span>s of late, the longstanding bond she’s built with guys behind bars like Haines has taken a turn: Mullery says that more and more of her students are getting out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s just so different now then it’s been in past years,” she says. “I can’t even keep up with the amount of people getting out!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She’s seeing people who thought they’d have much longer sentences get drastic amounts of time decreased. “One guy got 30 plus years knocked off his sentence,” she tells me, noting that she started seeing this shift about two years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In recent years, California passed many pieces of legislation that aimed at alleviated overcrowding, cutting the budget and undoing years of malignant policies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201320140SB260\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">SB 260\u003c/a> passed in 2013 and \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201520160SB261\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">SB 261\u003c/a> passed in 2015; both pieces of legislation provided hope for parole to incarcerated folks who were minors when they were sentenced. Another significant piece of legislation was \u003ca href=\"https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_47,_Reduced_Penalties_for_Some_Crimes_Initiative_(2014)\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Proposition 47\u003c/a>, which altered sentences for some nonviolent crimes, changing them to misdemeanors from felonies. Two years later, \u003ca href=\"https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_57,_Parole_for_Non-Violent_Criminals_and_Juvenile_Court_Trial_Requirements_(2016)\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Proposition 57\u003c/a> expanded on that effort.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The laundry list of legislation includes bills signed this year, including changes to the \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180SB10\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">cash bail\u003c/a> system and practices of \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180SB1421\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">police transparency\u003c/a> in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not to mention the high number of sentences Governor Brown has \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/in-commuting-20-murder-convicts-sentences-california-governor-draws-praise-condemnation/2018/09/09/de31525e-b2ed-11e8-aed9-001309990777_story.html?utm_term=.ed543978e659\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">commuted\u003c/a>: 82 during the seven years he’s been in office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mullery says that just about every former student of hers is doing great. “I’m happily surprised by how many get jobs connected to the work they were doing in prison,” she tells me, adding that some guys are doing restorative justice work or found work through reentry programs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13843600\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13843600\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/10/20161112_4980e-800x507.jpg\" alt=\"Zoe Mullery's students recently read their work to an audience of over 70 people. Even some former inmates came back to support their classmates. \" width=\"800\" height=\"507\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/10/20161112_4980e-800x507.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/10/20161112_4980e-160x101.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/10/20161112_4980e-768x487.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/10/20161112_4980e-1020x647.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/10/20161112_4980e.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/10/20161112_4980e-1180x748.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/10/20161112_4980e-960x609.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/10/20161112_4980e-240x152.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/10/20161112_4980e-375x238.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/10/20161112_4980e-520x330.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Zoe Mullery’s students recently read their work to an audience of over 70 people. Even some former inmates came back to support their classmates. \u003ccite>(Peter Merts)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This past weekend, San Quentin hosted the Brothers In Pen 12th Annual Public Reading, an event in which some of her current students read their work in front of a crowd of over 70 people. A handful of Mullery’s former students came back to the prison to attend the performance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A former student of Mullery’s, writer and media producer \u003ca href=\"https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/about/programs/us-programs/grantees/troy-williams\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Troy Williams\u003c/a>, recently received a Soros Fellowship to create media platforms for the formerly incarcerated. “Her classroom was a structure, a safe container, that allowed for me to write and grow,” Williams tells me during a phone call.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Being able to go through the whole creative writing process, where you explore the development of characters, went a long way in exploring my own personal development,” says Williams. “When I wrote about a character, I had to know something about a character. I had to go through my personal Rolodex of experiences. And that allowed me to grow and understand those experiences.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mullery says that the reason guys are successfully transitioning out of her class and into society isn’t just about the skills acquired, but about their support network in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She couldn’t tell me how many people get released from San Quentin and change their parole county to Alameda or San Francisco in order to stay connected to the great support network. That “support” isn’t just about getting a job and housing, but about emotional support too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mullery inspired me to broaden my lens and consider that the guys who’ve served time will get out and contribute to much more than the state’s economic well-being.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If I look at the guys getting out and what they want to do with their time—I don’t think about it economically,” Mullery says. “I think about it as the health of our social world. I see people who want to deeply invest and contribute to making this a better state, a great country and a better world.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">I\u003c/span> used to teach in a prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-13833985\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/OGPenn.Cap_-160x184.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"160\" height=\"184\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/OGPenn.Cap_-160x184.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/OGPenn.Cap_.jpg 180w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 160px) 100vw, 160px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For three Saturdays a month for five months, I’d drive to the California Medical Facility, a state prison in Vacaville, California, to teach writing classes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The experience proved to be cathartic for me as well as the fellas in the class. The guys would write haikus, essays and personal statements. And then they’d share them, often showing their back teeth as they laughed hard about common experiences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I walked away from that time period with a billion thoughts about justice, art, religion, relationships, stifled human potential and more. But most of the time, I just wondered how something as simple as teaching a class in prison could impact the American economy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California is the world’s fifth largest economy. And with just over \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdcr.ca.gov/Reports_Research/Offender_Information_Services_Branch/Monthly/TPOP1A/TPOP1Ad1809.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">120 thousand\u003c/a> people behind bars, the state is also home to the second-highest prison population in the nation—a nation that has the highest amount of incarcerated people in the \u003ca href=\"http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/uk/06/prisons/html/nn2page1.stm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">world\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Juxtapose those notes with the \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2011/05/23/136579580/california-is-ordered-to-cut-its-prison-population\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2011 Supreme Court ruling \u003c/a>that California’s overcrowded prisons violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. That was when the state was tasked with decreasing the prison population by 33,000 people in two years to meet federal standards. This led to the process of realignment through \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201120120AB109\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">AB 109\u003c/a>, which transferred some nonviolent offenders from state facilities to county jails. There was also a new prison built in Stockton, the California Health Care Facility, which opened in 2013.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That leaves me wondering about these folks who’ve been locked up, many of them sentenced before cell phones had internet capabilities. What happens when they get out? How will they land on their feet?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s where the classes come in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many Californian prisons offer more than just addiction and anger management classes: there are classes for everything from coding to gardening to dog training.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And that’s important because, beyond classes being a way for people who are incarcerated to earn credits toward their time served, the classes are a way to acquire skills that (\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11692123/criminal-convictions-vex-8-million-californians-advocates-see-hope-for-relief\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">theoretically\u003c/a>) will allow people to enter the workforce and contribute to the economy, both as producers and consumers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not to mention, the rehabilitation and release of folks should (again, \u003ca href=\"https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/california-forum/article211279304.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">theoretically\u003c/a>) work toward freeing up some space in the state’s budget, as it costs millions of dollars to keep people incarcerated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are people who are dependent on the California prison industry. That’ll have to be shifted around, too,” says Zoe Mullery, who has been teaching in California prisons for over two decades. “But that’s a good thing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">I\u003c/span> met Mullery over a year ago, right before I started teaching. As a part of the onboarding process at the William James Association, an organization that has been coordinating arts programs in prisons throughout California for over 40 years, I sat in on one of Mullery’s classes at San Quentin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I had worked with the \u003cem>San Quentin News\u003c/em> before, so I was familiar with the facility. But that experience was a bit different than Mullery’s class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>First of all, the newsroom is nondescript and full of word processing machines. Mullery teaches in a classroom that looks like an industrial warehouse that was converted into an artsy loft, complete with visual art pieces scaling up the 20-foot wall toward the ceiling. If you didn’t know you were in prison, you might think you were in an art gallery in a gentrified part of urban America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The class’ seats are set up in a circle. That’s where about a dozen men, a number of them with extensive sentences connected to heinous crimes, come to write about life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13843599\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13843599\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/10/20081029-9690-800x882.jpeg\" alt=\"Zoe Mullery and some of her students from San Quentin State Prison.\" width=\"800\" height=\"882\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/10/20081029-9690-800x882.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/10/20081029-9690-160x176.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/10/20081029-9690-768x846.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/10/20081029-9690.jpeg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/10/20081029-9690-240x265.jpeg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/10/20081029-9690-375x413.jpeg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/10/20081029-9690-520x573.jpeg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Zoe Mullery and some of her students from San Quentin State Prison. \u003ccite>(Peter Merts)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It’s the ideal setting for a teacher because you’ve got a group of people who really, really want to be there,” says Mullery, who previously taught at a community college, where she says the experience wasn’t nearly the same. “Half of the people were there for credits or because their mom made them take the class. They’re not engaged and they’re on their phones most of the time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite the inmates’ eagerness to learn, the hard realities of incarceration often set in. “It can be a really depressing place,” Mullery says. “In personal ways, you get exposed to incredible injustices and pain, and you have to learn to live with all of that too.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But even in that pain, there’s power.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She says that being active and doing something about it is much better than just reading about it. She compares mass incarceration to another major issue of our time: climate change. She says most people don’t feel like they have the power to do anything about it—and riding a bike to work everyday is just a small drop in the bucket.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But teaching in a prison and providing a platform for people to hone their crafts is Mullery’s way of chucking a stone at the Goliath-sized issue of America’s prison industrial complex.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mullery works in a world that is all men. And Mullery is, as she put it, “not only a woman, I’m like 4’11 and a half.” But she uses that to her advantage. “I have a non-intimidating presence and that works in my favor. It creates trust more easily.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She says she’s never dealt with discrimination or inappropriate behavior on the job. In fact, the guys she works with give her respect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Juan Haines, a writer for the San Quentin News and student of Mullery’s, often jokes with her by saying, “Thanks for coming to prison.” Mullery playfully responds, “Thanks for being in prison.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">A\u003c/span>s of late, the longstanding bond she’s built with guys behind bars like Haines has taken a turn: Mullery says that more and more of her students are getting out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s just so different now then it’s been in past years,” she says. “I can’t even keep up with the amount of people getting out!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She’s seeing people who thought they’d have much longer sentences get drastic amounts of time decreased. “One guy got 30 plus years knocked off his sentence,” she tells me, noting that she started seeing this shift about two years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In recent years, California passed many pieces of legislation that aimed at alleviated overcrowding, cutting the budget and undoing years of malignant policies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201320140SB260\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">SB 260\u003c/a> passed in 2013 and \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201520160SB261\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">SB 261\u003c/a> passed in 2015; both pieces of legislation provided hope for parole to incarcerated folks who were minors when they were sentenced. Another significant piece of legislation was \u003ca href=\"https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_47,_Reduced_Penalties_for_Some_Crimes_Initiative_(2014)\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Proposition 47\u003c/a>, which altered sentences for some nonviolent crimes, changing them to misdemeanors from felonies. Two years later, \u003ca href=\"https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_57,_Parole_for_Non-Violent_Criminals_and_Juvenile_Court_Trial_Requirements_(2016)\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Proposition 57\u003c/a> expanded on that effort.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The laundry list of legislation includes bills signed this year, including changes to the \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180SB10\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">cash bail\u003c/a> system and practices of \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180SB1421\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">police transparency\u003c/a> in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not to mention the high number of sentences Governor Brown has \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/in-commuting-20-murder-convicts-sentences-california-governor-draws-praise-condemnation/2018/09/09/de31525e-b2ed-11e8-aed9-001309990777_story.html?utm_term=.ed543978e659\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">commuted\u003c/a>: 82 during the seven years he’s been in office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mullery says that just about every former student of hers is doing great. “I’m happily surprised by how many get jobs connected to the work they were doing in prison,” she tells me, adding that some guys are doing restorative justice work or found work through reentry programs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13843600\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13843600\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/10/20161112_4980e-800x507.jpg\" alt=\"Zoe Mullery's students recently read their work to an audience of over 70 people. Even some former inmates came back to support their classmates. \" width=\"800\" height=\"507\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/10/20161112_4980e-800x507.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/10/20161112_4980e-160x101.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/10/20161112_4980e-768x487.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/10/20161112_4980e-1020x647.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/10/20161112_4980e.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/10/20161112_4980e-1180x748.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/10/20161112_4980e-960x609.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/10/20161112_4980e-240x152.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/10/20161112_4980e-375x238.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/10/20161112_4980e-520x330.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Zoe Mullery’s students recently read their work to an audience of over 70 people. Even some former inmates came back to support their classmates. \u003ccite>(Peter Merts)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This past weekend, San Quentin hosted the Brothers In Pen 12th Annual Public Reading, an event in which some of her current students read their work in front of a crowd of over 70 people. A handful of Mullery’s former students came back to the prison to attend the performance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A former student of Mullery’s, writer and media producer \u003ca href=\"https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/about/programs/us-programs/grantees/troy-williams\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Troy Williams\u003c/a>, recently received a Soros Fellowship to create media platforms for the formerly incarcerated. “Her classroom was a structure, a safe container, that allowed for me to write and grow,” Williams tells me during a phone call.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Being able to go through the whole creative writing process, where you explore the development of characters, went a long way in exploring my own personal development,” says Williams. “When I wrote about a character, I had to know something about a character. I had to go through my personal Rolodex of experiences. And that allowed me to grow and understand those experiences.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mullery says that the reason guys are successfully transitioning out of her class and into society isn’t just about the skills acquired, but about their support network in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She couldn’t tell me how many people get released from San Quentin and change their parole county to Alameda or San Francisco in order to stay connected to the great support network. That “support” isn’t just about getting a job and housing, but about emotional support too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mullery inspired me to broaden my lens and consider that the guys who’ve served time will get out and contribute to much more than the state’s economic well-being.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If I look at the guys getting out and what they want to do with their time—I don’t think about it economically,” Mullery says. “I think about it as the health of our social world. I see people who want to deeply invest and contribute to making this a better state, a great country and a better world.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
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"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
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"mindshift": {
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"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
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"order": 12
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"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
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"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
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"possible": {
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"title": "Possible",
"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
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"pri-the-world": {
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"title": "PRI's The World: Latest Edition",
"info": "Each weekday, host Marco Werman and his team of producers bring you the world's most interesting stories in an hour of radio that reminds us just how small our planet really is.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-World-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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},
"radiolab": {
"id": "radiolab",
"title": "Radiolab",
"info": "A two-time Peabody Award-winner, Radiolab is an investigation told through sounds and stories, and centered around one big idea. In the Radiolab world, information sounds like music and science and culture collide. Hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, the show is designed for listeners who demand skepticism, but appreciate wonder. WNYC Studios is the producer of other leading podcasts including Freakonomics Radio, Death, Sex & Money, On the Media and many more.",
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},
"reveal": {
"id": "reveal",
"title": "Reveal",
"info": "Created by The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, Reveal is public radios first one-hour weekly radio show and podcast dedicated to investigative reporting. Credible, fact based and without a partisan agenda, Reveal combines the power and artistry of driveway moment storytelling with data-rich reporting on critically important issues. The result is stories that inform and inspire, arming our listeners with information to right injustices, hold the powerful accountable and improve lives.Reveal is hosted by Al Letson and showcases the award-winning work of CIR and newsrooms large and small across the nation. In a radio and podcast market crowded with choices, Reveal focuses on important and often surprising stories that illuminate the world for our listeners.",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.revealnews.org/episodes/",
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"rss": "http://feeds.revealradio.org/revealpodcast"
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"userAccountReducer": {
"user": {
"email": null,
"emailStatus": "EMAIL_UNVALIDATED",
"loggedStatus": "LOGGED_OUT",
"loggingChecked": false,
"articles": [],
"firstName": null,
"lastName": null,
"phoneNumber": null,
"fetchingMembership": false,
"membershipError": false,
"memberships": [
{
"id": null,
"startDate": null,
"firstName": null,
"lastName": null,
"familyNumber": null,
"memberNumber": null,
"memberSince": null,
"expirationDate": null,
"pfsEligible": false,
"isSustaining": false,
"membershipLevel": "Prospect",
"membershipStatus": "Non Member",
"lastGiftDate": null,
"renewalDate": null,
"lastDonationAmount": null
}
]
},
"authModal": {
"isOpen": false,
"view": "LANDING_VIEW"
},
"error": null
},
"youthMediaReducer": {},
"checkPleaseReducer": {
"filterData": {},
"restaurantData": []
},
"location": {
"pathname": "/arts/tag/san-quentin-state-prison",
"previousPathname": "/"
}
}
