darrel steinberg interview

The speaker was asked about the origin of the rehabilitation idea for San Quentin. They mentioned that Governor Newsom wanted to transform the prison into a rehabilitation center and asked the speaker to be their lead advisor. The speaker's main role was to bring together different experts and create public recommendations. The goal of rehabilitation at San Quentin is to reduce recidivism rates and prepare inmates for life outside of prison. They focused on three pillars: changing the physical space, increasing programming, and modeling reentry. They also mentioned the importance of older offenders mentoring younger ones. There is no information yet about the recidivism rates since the transition to rehabilitation. So the first question, was the idea of rehabilitation something that you and your team came up with or was it thought of by someone else and your team took on the role of actually executing that plan and making it become a reality at San Quentin? This idea came, I don't know where it originally, originally came, but my involvement started when Governor Newsom announced that he wanted to transform San Quentin Prison to San Quentin Rehabilitation Center and he asked me if I would consider being his lead advisor and co-chairing essentially the effort along with a number of experts in corrections and rehabilitation and so this was, I remember the time frames, time goes, time of course goes so fast, we completed our report in January of 24, so it was sometime in January, sometime in 2023 that the governor made this announcement and I took this on as a kind of a side project because I'm the mayor of Sacramento, mayor of a big city, but I decided that this was important and interesting and so we spent six or so months as a 20-member task force and my job, not an expert, was to sort of help bring together disparate points of view and different people with expertise to put forward a set of public recommendations that were strong and easily understandable to the general public and to the legislature and that's what we did. Awesome, thank you. So what is the main goal of rehabilitation at San Quentin and kind of what new programs or resources are in place that focus on re-entry back into society? Sure, so you know we have a very unfortunate reality in California, especially compared to some of the European countries that prioritize rehabilitation. About 90% of people who serve time in California's correctional system end up leaving because their sentences end or they are paroled. About 50%, a little less than 50%, return to prison within three years because they commit another crime. In many European countries, including Norway, the so-called recidivism rate is about 25% and what I said then and continue to say is that rehabilitation of people who have committed offenses should be a non-partisan issue because whether or not you approach it from a humanitarian perspective that everybody deserves a second chance, it's kind of my way, or whether or not you approach it from a more conservative, what is going to enhance public safety perspective, either way you come to the same conclusion. We're not doing well enough by the people who are serving time and preparing them for life on the outside. Their whatever trauma or mental health or substance abuse issues may have led to their offense. Many lack vocational skills to be able to succeed in employment on the outside. There are so many issues and so focusing on rehabilitation of people when they're in the institutions is public safety, pure and simple, because it reduces the chance that people will recommit once they leave. So we had three pillars of our work and I saw this at the beginning and it proved out to be true over the long haul. There are three categories. Number one, what do we do to change the physical space at San Quentin to make it more humane and more conducive to rehabilitation? Maybe the most challenging piece of it because it's an old prison, you know, over a century old and frankly the state does not have the money to be able to tear it down and start over. So in some ways we're stuck with a lot of the old prison life structure, but we did make a series of recommendations around ending double selling and reducing the population at San Quentin to accommodate single cells, tear down the existing death row and to replace it with an honor unit of some kind that instead of bars and cells would be modular housing, much more dormitory style, dignified housing to reutilize some of the existing space for vocational rehabilitation or modernize it. This is what the governor initially proposed, the so-called prison industry building and the legislature agreed to put $360 million towards that project. We recommended no more than $200 million and that the remainder be spent on other physical changes at the prison including improving housing, the creation of some form of a town square, a place where both residents and correctional officers could interact together in a more humane way. So that was one problem. Number two was how do we increase the programming at San Quentin so that there aren't long waiting lists for people to get into the career pathway of their choice and to get the mental health, substance abuse and trauma related therapies that they need to deal with some very challenging life situations and what brought them there. And so we made a series of recommendations about how to improve the living conditions, or excuse me, how to reduce the waiting list and dramatically increase programming. Related to that, so I call it 2B, is how to pretty dramatically change the definition and the role of correctional officers and what training and certification that they need to not only be security officers but to actually be part of the healing and rehabilitation for the residents and for themselves because the statistics show that correctional officers live shorter lives, they have significantly worse health conditions in part because while they can leave at the end of the day, in some ways they're in prison too. And then third is how to model reentry in a way that gives people who leave much more than $200 in a bus ticket, which is really the way it works today in most instances. And there's a renowned program called MCRP, Men's Correctional Reentry Program, that essentially in selected places for residents who are deemed to be eligible, they spend the last two years of their actual sentence while under the jurisdictions of the Department of Corrections, outside the prison walls with angle monitors and get the wraparound help and service that they need that includes family reunification in, again, an appropriate way and working in the community. It's sort of like a, the term halfway house is sort of unfortunate because it implies like some rundown place, but this is the much better version of halfway house. Anyways, we recommended that as part of the San Quentin Rehabilitation Project that there be at least two 240 bed facilities outside the San Quentin facility, but on state land so that there can be a natural sort of pathway for people to go from prison before they reenter the so-called real world. So that sums it up. Thank you. We actually went on a field trip to San Quentin about like a month ago, was it? So we were able to talk to some of the incarcerated individuals and see parts of the prison like we went on a tour, and they talked about like the therapies that you mentioned. So it was really interesting. That's great. That's really great if you want to exercise yourself. Is there human beings who, you know, have sometimes committed terrible crimes, but they're human beings and the idea of coming home is really powerful, especially if they do their part and we do our part to give people a chance at a better life. Absolutely, yeah. Thank you. All right, last one. I think I do. Sure. Yeah. So are there any resources specifically for youth that you have or like in San Quentin, or like in the justice system, like resources, like primarily for youth? How do you define youth? I think maybe that's the question because there are a lot of young offenders, young adult offenders, and but for under 18, you know, that's the, whatever they call it now, the DJJ, Department of Juvenile Justice. Yeah. And we didn't really touch that part. Obviously, the earlier people get the rehabilitation, now that they need to most likely, much less likely, they're going to commit. Right. So as adults, but I will say that one of the things I learned that I didn't really know or understand was how important the relationship is between the older offenders, often the lifers. They're some of the most powerful mentors in the entire institution because they're men who, you know, in their late teens or early 20s committed horrific crimes. And, you know, again, no excuses, but a lot of male, a lot of testosterone, and not in a good way. And by the time they're 50 and 60, it's not a lot of them, right? And they're different people, and they have great remorse for what they did. And then you've got the younger offenders who maybe have not committed a heinous crime, but are in for, you know, five to ten, or, you know, committed a string of robberies, maybe often related to drugs. And they're much more likely to be recidivists, right? Because they're younger, they haven't dealt with their underlying issues. And, I mean, I'm generalizing a little bit, but, and so the the older offenders, the lifers, are really powerful because they can say, you know, you want to spend the rest of your life here, or you can choose a different path. So that was really important for me to learn the value of the longer-term residence lifers, who, by the way, if they're not Elwha lifers without parole, they have an opportunity to come home themselves. And some of them do. In fact, some of the people on the Task Force for Life had life sentences, who have been paroled and now are, you know, the greatest activists. I mean, they're the ones leading the charge. Right, right. You mentioned, like, recidivism rates. Is there any information yet about, like, rates on recidivism since the transition toward rehabilitation, or is it too early? Yeah, it's way too early. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now the fight really starts, which is the implementation, which you guys, you guys made me in my position by the time it's fully finished, but hopefully not that long. Yeah. But it takes a while. Yeah, right. All right. Do you have any other questions? Okay. I think that's it.