A Case for Second Chances
Prison Renaissance
Every day, Adnan Khan leaves his prison cell and models rehabilitation.
He works five days a week as a clerk in his prison's education department where he takes the added duty of encouraging young men to perserver. On Tuesdays, he colunteers with GRIP (Guiding Rage into Power), where he teaches emotional intelligence, victim impact, mindfulness, and non-violent conflict resolution to incarcerated men. On Thursdays, after he completes his college coursework at the Prison University Project, he teaches financial literacy. On Saturdays, he teaches youth who visit San Quentin under the SQUIRES program, a model of masculinity that includes the courage to be vulnerable and emotionally expressive.
This is but a short list of the services Khan performs for his community, and he performs them without external incentives designed to encourage 'good beahvior' in prison.
Many incarcerated people are elgible for what's called 'good time credits.' This means they if they avoid getting into trouble, they can earn a reduction of their sentences, sometimes by as much as half. Despite the fact that Khan stays out of trouble and contributes to his community every day, he is not eligible to earn these 'good time credits' because of the particular legalities in his sentence.
California Governor Jerry Brown introduced Proposition 57 to California's November ballot because he recognized that when people like Khan show they are ready to re-join society as productive citizens, a second-chance nation like America should stand by its values of
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