A unique addition to the urban novel genre is It Ain't Just The Size, by M.G. Hardie (Aventine Press, 2010). 
Hardie gives readers something different than a repackaged cocaine mafia, gangbanging, get-rich-or-die-trying type of urban fairy tale. Hardie gives us unforgettable characters spouting snappy lines, lifelike people you want to root for, laugh with, be proud of... or sometimes, wring their necks!

The story is set in Long Beach, California. The characters' lives are enmeshed in pop culture: rising college tuition, lesbian relationships, marijuana addiction, video games, confused friends, strong women, underemployed men, and a hero who is trying to buck the odds. They talk about child support, racism, the justice system, the black community, and the n-word. It Ain't Just The Size would make a cool indie film or maybe something Ice Cube and Chris Brown could star in.

There is something dynamic and potentially world-changing coming out of San Jose. It is called Participatory Defense. I am bringing it to your attention because Participatory Defense is being spoken of as a possible way to empower families and communities to challenge something we all know: mass incarceration.

The term "participatory defense" was coined by Raj Jayadev, a creative young community organizer from San Jose, California, who is becoming increasingly more active. After being called on to assist several mothers, Raj noted that a key feature of mass incarceration is the isolating courtroom experience.

Across the nation what normally happens is mothers and wives are made to sit idly in the courtroom as their son or husband are being verbally chewed up in front of them. Family members want to do more. At Participatory Defense meetings, they find emotional and practical support. Together they challenge wrongful charging practices, push for public defenders to get the resources they need to be effective, and advocate for rehabilitation instead of incarceration.

This approach in San Jose is having an impact. Their clients have seen charges reduced and prison terms changed to referrals for rehabilitation programs. Raj has calculated the total amount of "time saved" over the past six years, for all of their community clients, to be more than 1,600 years.

You can follow Raj at raj@siliconvalleydebug.org and at ACJusticeProject.org.

 Today I attended a "Resource & Re-Entry Fair" held in the Solano Prison Gym. It was informative. Never been to a Re-Entry Fair before. I have to thank the higher-ups here at Solano State Prison for organizing one. (Here's kinda what it looked like, except in a prison gym)

It started at 1:00pm. The first speaker was an ex-inmate who now works in San Francisco for a health services agency. He spoke about the discipline, determination, and hope we'll need to maintain to make a successful re-entry into the world. He told us how his first day back in the world was, and exhorted us to exercise patience and gratitude.

He was followed by representatives from two different Re-Entry homes. I always pay close attention to the people who come from re-entry homes and in particular I look to see how they talk to and interact with the inmates they come to describe their services to. I give an A+ to the representative from HealthRight 360 and a C- to the one from Cache Creek.

The final three speakers on the dais were newly-hired prison staff whose job will entail working with inmates six months before their scheduled release, to identify their needs and match them up with state-run resources in the real world. Those resources are now being made more available in the hopes that more inmates will succeed on parole and not come back to jail. The State of California is serious about fixing the revolving prison door.

Another thing the newly-hired staff will do is teach re-entry classes. Those who take advantage of all the available new programs stand a good chance of doing well on parole. I'm not saying that the new programs are perfect or that they will make the transition easy, but success is possible, especially if you have discipline and the right attitude.

Every day I go to work and every time I attend a group, whether self-help or therapy, I work on my humanity.
I continually find new areas of my rehabilitation to work on. 
It doesn't stop. I don't block my feelings or memories away.
I let them come up and I process them.
​Every day.

I thank God for bringing me to CSP-Solano. There are programs here that aren't available anywhere else— the UMCP and Defy's "CEO Of Your Life" program are just two of them. There are psychologists here who also teach psychological educational courses five days a week, and that's big too.
Here I see a larger-than-normal concentration of prisoners working on themselves and people helping prisoners to work on themselves. It's very easy to see God's hand at work in this prison. For that, and for so many other things, I am deeply grateful.

Over the past six weeks there has been a noticeable influx of young prisoners, age 18 to 23, being transferred to the prison where I'm at. They are part of a new program implemented after the passage of SB260 back in 2013, designed to give these youth a chance to avoid the snares which normally entangle youthful prisoners and pull them into chaos before they have a chance to figure out what's going on and who to trust.
This prison, CSP-Solano, was chosen as one of the sites for this Youth Offender Program (YOP) for a variety of reasons. The atmosphere here is relatively mild in comparison to most California prisons. The prison also has a wealth of self-help programs and vocational programs for the youth to get into. Moreover, by bringing youth to this prison, they are brought into direct contact with the OMCP mentors. 
I personally am praying for the success of this new program and believing that it will work. 
On a personal note, I wish that at age 21 when I came to prison I had the chance to start off at a Level II prison like Solano. Instead I started off at the Level IV prison in Lancaster (CSP-LAC), where I wasn't protected from the jackals that greet young prisoners, or introduced to the caliber of programs that exist today. I am glad to see that the Department of Corrections is addressing areas where it fell short in the past, and is starting to get more things right.

I'm in a great mood! On September 1, 2015, I found out that SB261 passed through the State Assembly. Now it's almost a law. It's sitting on the Governor's desk, waiting to be signed. 

Already I'm seeing how much this changes things for me. This law means that I could be able to go before the parole board by 2018 and get a chance to go home. A chance to start over, maybe somewhere new, with all of the skills that I've learned in the past fifteen years. Even just this past year I've undergone another transformational process, through an experience which very few prisoners ever get, and half of it was in a clinical setting. The other half happened in rigorous classwork where I studied and talked about things like the alcoholic family system, childhood trauma, co-occurring disorders, mood disorders, different types of psychotherapies, the characteristics and skills of good counselors, law & ethics, problem-solving, the addiction cycle, criminal behaviors, self-defeating behaviors, triggers for use, high-risk situations, warning signs, CBT skills, managing denial, and relapse prevention.

At the time when I was learning everything I secretly wished I could use all this knowledge in society, helping hard-to-reach at-risk youth. Now that secret wish is looking more like a possibility. It's still not a fact, but it is much closer to the realm of reality than it was before, and that's good enough for now.

On July 11th, Solano Prison held its second symposium of the year. This one was called "A Real Talk Symposium." Once again the force behind it was Dr. Kenya Williams, the principal of Solano's Education Department. She called together a panel of six distinguished women, including herself, to speak or give motivational lectures to Solano's men.

Genea Brice, the founder and CEO of WINGS (Women Inspiring the Next Generation of Sisters), a multi-ethnic mentorship program for girls, was slated to speak first. However, Mrs. Brice was temporarily slowed down by a stricter set of rules enforced at the prison's security checkpoint. Not to be deterred, Mrs. Brice still made it in and delivered the day's most energetic speech. 

[to be continued!]

Have you ever wondered why youth between the ages of 18 and 23 make so many rash decisions? Most people in America have asked themselves that question at some time. Well, neuroscience has finally given us the answer.

Researchers at Stanford University (2009), the University of Alberta (2011), and the National Institute of Mental Health (2011), all confirm that the human prefrontal cortex and cerebellum, two areas of the brain that are responsible for reasoning and decision-making, are still developing well into a person's early to mid 20s.

Both the United States Supreme Court and the California Supreme Court have been presented with this evidence and concluded that young adults whose brains are still developing should not be sentenced the same as full-grown adults. Senator Loni Hancock, the shair of the Public Safety Committee, has authored a bill to bring California's law int line with these court rulings and the neuroscience behind them. This is Senate Bill 261 (SB261), and it is now being considered. If it passes, eligible inmates will be given an opportunity to have parole hearings after serving fifteen, twenty, or twenty five years, depending upon the length of their original prison sentence.

SB261 is not a "get out of jail free" card. Not all inmates will be eligible for consideration under the terms of the bill, only those who are serving time for an offense they committed before they were 23 years old. To qualify for release, eligible inmates will still have to serve a significant number of years in prison, be subjected to a rigorous psychological evaluation, and appear before a parole board. The board will then examine his/her prision record, noting whether the inmate has made sufficient rehabilitative efforts to address the factors in his/her life that led up to their conviction, and whether the person expresses remorse and has accepted responsibility. If all those requirements are met, the parole board may find individual suitable for parole.

To date, California's Board of Parole Hearings (BPH) has proven to be remarkably good at singling out the inmates who pose the least risk to the public. The recidivism rate for inmates released by the BPH is less than 1%, versus the recidivism rate of the rest of the inmate population upon completion of sentences, which is over 70%.

For all these reasons I support SB261 and I am asking you to support it too.

SB261 is well thought out: it does not apply to career criminals.

SB261 offers a possible second chance for inmates who work hard toward rehabilitation.

SB261 happens to apply to me.

If SB261 becomes law and I am found suitable by the BPH, I will be able to do the rest of my public service on parole. From that position I intend to continue writing books with rehabilitative themes and speak to audiences of at-risk youth, relaying my story, so that they won't make the same mistakes and bad decisions that I did. I can't do that without your help now.

Please support SB261. Send letters of support to your State Senators, Assemblymen, and the Governor of California. Urge your friends to do the same. 

You can make a difference. 

Act now!

On Wednesday (June 24th, 2015) an amazing man came by to speak to the men enrolled in LTOP (Long Term Offender Program). His name was Eddy Zheng. Eddy has been free now for ten years; before that, he was a lifer. He served time in San Quentin and here at Solano. At one point in his incarceration he became conscious and turned his life around. 

While still in prison he started participating in San Quentin's SQUIRES Club and organizing a book to throw light on the growing presence of Asian and Pacific-Islanders in California's prisons. Eddy stopped being selfish and put his heart into serving the Asian community, which he'd once harmed before being sent to prison. 

Slowly those efforts started to win over those who once distrusted him, and positive feedback encouraged him to dream bigger. Setbacks came, but when they did, Eddy remained undaunted. It came as no surprise to those in prison with him when Eddy was found suitable for parole and eventually released.

What did surprise many is that upon his release Eddy did not lose his community focus or his will to pursue higher education. Eddy started off in a humble position that allowed him to interact face-to-face with at-risk youth. Through his work, he came to the notice of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and the Mayor. Eddy's commitment to public service, year after year, made him a fixture in the BayView, Hunters' Point, and Chinatown areas of San Francisco, where his good works were and still are routinely recognized in the local newspapers. Those who see him now would never believe that this model citizen was once in prison serving a life sentence. He's come a long way since the BPH found him suitable for release.

Today, Eddy Zheng came back to Solano Prison to address the men in Solano's LTOP who are taking advanced courses (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, at the moment) to better themselves and to equip them to serve society in a positive way someday. Eddy came to encourage us and deliver a message: Dream big, stay disciplined, don't give up, and give back when you get the opportunity. 

His message was received with thunderous applause.