Douglas, 58

Douglas, 58

Meet Douglas…

I am a survivor and my hope and my prayer is that in telling my story, someone will hear it and know that they are not alone. This is something that we deal with as child survivors. We feel that we are alone and have no one to turn to – especially behind these walls.

Incarcerated: 30 years

It wasn’t until I reached a point in my healing where I could talk to my father again. It took me 36 years. I lived in absolute terror of my father. He was abusive on all possible levels. He molested me when I was seven. It’s something that I’ve learned to handle with a lot of work. I just couldn’t live locked away anymore. In my father’s household, boys don’t cry and don’t show emotion, so I shut down. The only emotion acceptable to my father was anger. I enlisted in the Navy at 17. I stayed angry. I learned the way my father raised me was set in stone. At home my job in life was to protect my younger brothers and sisters. By the time I got out of the service, between my training and the way that I was raised, I didn’t see Scott as a person, when I took his life, he was a target. I emasculated him because of my childhood trauma of being harmed and my anger towards all sex offenders and child molesters. I didn’t have the tools I have now to deal with someone hurting the girls. If someone hurt them they answered to me. It was like flipping a switch, especially after I found out he raped my friend’s wife. I am a survivor and my hope and my prayer is that in telling my story, someone will hear it and know that they are not alone. This is something that we deal with as child survivors. We feel that we are alone and have no one to turn to – especially behind these walls. I’m working on accepting how empty I was of empathy, compassion, and feelings. The Victim Offender Education Group and the Veteran’s Healing Veterans Program laid the groundwork for the trauma and healing. They helped me deal with my criminal thinking, how I wrongly took the law into my own hands. I had to learn that contrary to how I was raised, taking an action like that is not my responsibility. I am not the law. It’s helped to tell my story and to be able to walk side by side with my sister on our path of healing. She’s the one that got me to understand that forgiving my father was not for him, but for myself.

📸 Dougles’ 🎤Interviewed by Edwin and Miguel, our inside West Block Correspondents

Douglas was featured in a San Quentin News article, “Looking back on a legacy of woodworking”

Michael John, 33

Meet Michael John…

I was going in Target and Walmart stores to steal electronics. To support my addiction. 

Incarcerated: 8 years
Housed: Augusta Correctional Center; Craigsville, Virginia

I was going in Target and Walmart stores to steal electronics. To support my addiction. At 14, I broke my arm in a dirt bike accident. Little did I know, I would become dependent on the painkillers. It led to me stealing and robbing, doing whatever to get high. I did jail time off and on since I was 16. After my first release, It wasn’t two hours after I walked out of prison that I found myself buying heroin. The pills were too expensive. Within a month my habit was up to four to five grams a day. Once, I was shot in the back of the head and it came out in front of my ear. By the grace of God, I’m still here. When I first started this prison sentence I was 24 years old. Still young and hard-headed. It took me until I was 30, to wake up and realize I’m getting too old for this lifestyle, plus I lost my little brother to an overdose. It’s a shame. It took this sentence and losing my brother to wake up and grow up. I’m going on four years this August without touching a pill or heroin. And that’s a miracle. I’d like to thank the Humans of San Quentin and my family for supporting me. Thank you and God bless you.

Richard, 66

Meet Richard…

At 12, my Ma had me incarcerated as a hopeless incorrigible, but really she was just mad because I wrecked her car joy-riding. I didn’t even know how to spell incorrigible, much less tell you what it meant.

Incarcerated: 16 yrs

I tried to commit suicide by injecting all the thorazine tablets they sent me home with. All it did was make me deathly ill. I began to self-medicate on grass and heroin, my two favorite things in the whole world. Especially heroin, it’s warm fuzziness wraps around you like a warm blanket and keeps all the bad memories, worries and fears out. I would drift on heroin’s cloud and luxuriate in the false sense of well being. Withdrawals are another story though and to avoid those I needed a ready supply of the $25 balloons I begged, stole and borrowed for.

This inevitably led to one incarceration after another, starting in ‘76 as a civil addict commitment to California Rehabilitation Center at Norco. To my surprise, there were more balloons there than on the street!

Today at San Quentin, I’m on my second life sentence for a nickel dime robbery in Corona. I began my roller coaster ride in 1968, three years after my Pa died. At 12, my Ma had me incarcerated as a hopeless incorrigible, but really she was just mad because I wrecked her car joy-riding. I didn’t even know how to spell incorrigible, much less tell you what it meant. Juvie was rough back then. Boys as old as 20 were locked up with children my age. We went to school for half the day and the other half was recreation, cutting up and stealing the counselor’s smokes. Ma came to see me, but not much. When I came home she constantly threatened to send me back, so I ran away. At 18, I was placed in the psychiatric ward for a nervous breakdown. I flipped out. And while I was Thorazined back, taking in 2800 mg a day! One of the navy orderlies raped me in the showers. I never told or talked about it until I received my military service records. Then, I saw how badly the military messed me over, they ripped me off with a general discharge instead of a medical one. This way, I couldn’t receive follow-up care in the veterans’ hospital. Instead, they sent me home a lost and broken soul.

Kelsey, 63

Kelsey, 63

Meet Kelsey…

I don’t think that the public realizes that there are non-violent 3 strikers such as I in prison still for petty crimes like stealing a 12 pack of beer.

Incarcerated: 20 years

In junior high, I was sitting in my electronics class and the intercom came on “Kelsey, report to the vice principal’s office ASAP.” The VPs office means trouble 99.9 percent of the time, so the class went “Oooh!” I was worried to death. “I heard you placed 2nd place at the California State BMX championships last weekend” I was so relieved, I couldn’t believe what he said, wow. “Yes sir, Mr. Frankino.” “I want to ask you if you want to start a BMX team here at school, make a track on the grounds and have BMX races on the weekends, you could even have practices at lunchtime. I want you to pick a five man team of the best riders.” I said “Yes Sir.” We became the Valley View Vikings BMX team. We got a tractor from one of my friend’s dad, who was a farmer and literally dug up the school grounds and made a BMX track. I was our team captain, all in ninth grade. I was “Joe Moto.” A couple of weeks later one of my BMX friends came up to me at the VV track with a dirt bike magazine. In it there were photos and an article of me taking second overall at the state championship. It was the greatest time! If it wasn’t for my dearest mom taking me to all the races I would not have known my potential and that pretty much says it all. I never got the opportunity to race the World Championships, sorry to say. Thanks, Mom, for everything. I love you so much. You were 1st overall mom. 📸: Ms. Smith’s and Kelsey

Thomas, 40

Meet Thomas…

I am coming up on 16 years of incarceration. I do not know if any of my family is alive or not. I have not seen or talked to them. I don’t even know where they are living now.

Incarcerated: 18 years
Housed: North Central Unit; Calico Rock, Arkansas

My story starts in March of 2006. I am 24 years old and I am staying with my sister and brother-in-law in Fayetteville, AR. I am working with my brother-in-law doing electrical work for a small company in Fayetteville.

I come home from work for lunch, to find 12 Fayetteville police officers at the house waiting for me. As they arrested me they told me I was being detained for possession of, viewing or distributing material of sexually explicit nature of children (child porn). I had rented five computers and was paying for the internet at the house. The internet company informed the police that someone at our address had downloaded the material. While being interviewed I told them that it was not me, it couldn’t be. They said the computers and internet is in your name, it’s your charge. While I was in court my brother-in-law’s daughters stood up in court and said “Be a man and own up to what you did, Dad!” The judge asked me “Do you know what they are talking about?” They are saying the charges I’m facing should be his. The judge asked them “Is that correct, can you prove it was your dad?” they said no. The judge then said, the charges will remain against you. At 24, I was sentenced to 30 years with 12 years suspended imposition of sentence. After I was sentenced my brother-in-law’s daughters stood up again in court and told him “Stay away from us as we fear for our safety. We are going to live with our brother.” After being sentenced I saw my sisters and mother, once in county jail. I am coming up on 16 years of incarceration. I do not know if any of my family is alive or not. I have not seen or talked to them. I don’t even know where they are living now. As for friends, no I have not heard from any of them since I was charged as a “Child sex offender.” I’m going to ask the same question that one of my friends asked my mother. “Who wants to be friends with a known child sex offender?” Everyone looks down on a sex offender and even more so when it involves a child. Do I blame them? Not at all. Even though I carry the title, I am not a person who has or ever would do that. In fact, up until recently I really wanted to get out and kill my brother-in-law; but my higher power has started to show me a better way in life. Through education and religion, I have learned to work my very hardest and forgive people of their past wrongs and forget. Through a great university such as Ashland University out of Ohio. I was given a second chance to receive a college education. I have received my associate of arts in business administration and I am working on an associates of arts in sociology and my bachelor’s of arts in applied communication. With these degrees, I will be able to start my life over when I get out of prison. The sad part is I made parole in October 2014 and have been stuck in prison as I have nowhere to parole out to. I am stuck in prison until February 2024 my discharge date. The state of Arkansas does not have halfway houses that will take people in my position. The prison system in Arkansas requires its inmates to work but does not pay them “Slavery.” If they did I would have been able to rent a place to parole out to. Bot having any family or friends, I am worried about getting out and what I’m going to do. I don’t know if I’ll be able to handle making new friends. I am currently in a program called Principle Application of Life Skills. I have also done a re-entry program called Think Legacy. I’m working to be ready to be released, yet I am still worried because making new friends has never been easy for me.

Orienthal, 48

Orienthal, 48

Meet Orienthal…

…I am human and I want to use my voice and story to bring about change. If you truly want to fight crime, then invest in your communities, especially the prison community.
Incarcerated: 18 years – a Buck Rogers date of 87 years to life.

I was named after OJ Simpson. We have all had our trials and tribulations here in prison. Currently, mine has taken me to a crisis bed. I can say my ‘actual innocence’ was taken from me as a black man being a victim to the system.

Monsters are not born, they are created. I want to earn my certification as a domestic violence counselor. How can a man heal without wise counsel? My logic – if men are a major part of the problem, then we must be part of the solution.

I want to provide mental health services and programs for men who are former domestic abusers. Most men are looking for a way out or asking for help. As a feminist, I believe it takes both partners to help stop domestic violence. A lot of men have been broken and are afraid or ashamed to talk about it. Men need support and services.

I want to earn my bachelor’s degree before I leave prison. I want to create a nonprofit organization to showcase talented men and women across the California prison system, in order for them to earn college degrees. The recidivism rate is lower for inmates with higher education. I want to change the narrative of child abuse, domestic abuse and murder.

I am human and I want to use my voice and story to bring about change. If you truly want to fight crime, then invest in your communities, especially the prison community. 📸

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