Prison Press
Jesse Lau ’11 did not anticipate that an interest in journalism would bring her inside California’s largest prison, San Quentin. It’s located in Marin County, across the San Francisco Bay from her home in Berkeley, where she is a student. One day each week she makes the trip there to work in the newsroom of the San Quentin News, an inmate produced newspaper that has a readership of more than 11,000, both within the prison and in 17 other prisons statewide.
An English undergraduate, Lau learned about the graduate level course that places students inside the prison and working with inmates on the paper, which has been published since the 1940s. She signed on, anticipating it would be a valuable experience, but she wasn’t prepared for how it would open her eyes about a world behind walls. The first time I came here, she admits, “I was amazed that it even existed.” Now she looks forward to the visits.
“To me, journalism is all about being able to put your own story aside so you can really listen to someone else. That’s one of things that being at San Quentin has taught me, and it’s also has helped me be more empathetic.”
Her there role is straightforward. She’s a line editor – that means she helps inmates shape their stories and make the clean. Lau herself covered campus news at as reporter for the Daily Cal, but the pieces she edits at San Quentin are topics she never really considered as deeply before: incarceration, recidivism, family/prisoner relationships, inequality and not, she says issues that are covered in the mainstream media. “Basically,” she says, “I learn a lot more from them (the prisoners) than they learn from me. While she doesn’t ask an inmate why he or she is “on the inside” she says it often comes up organically. And their stories can make her sad. “It’s a life wasted.”
The paper is the only inmate-produced publication in California and one of few in the world. Its predecessor was the Wall City News, produced in the 1920s and 30s. In 1940, a particularly progressive warden reinvigorated the paper and began to bring in experienced San Francisco-area journalists as volunteers for editorial oversight. The prison has Quentin has a strong association with volunteerism, and Lau is happy to be one of them.
Despite her imposing surroundings, Lau says she never feels frightened or concerned while she’s there. Once she passes through the heavily guarded gate, she makes her way to the newsroom. “When I’m there, it’s not different from being in any other place, or working with any other people. When it’s time to go I get this reminder about how different my life is because I can leave.”
When she graduates from Berkeley in June, Lau is hoping to stay in the journalism field. Beyond the classroom and her experience on the college newspaper, she says her time at San Quentin has given her valuable tools. “I think to be in this business you’ve got to be curious and have an open mind. I’ve definitely learned that here.”
