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June 9, 2009
Lodgers at San Quentin Recreation Center Don't Want to Leave
Posted by Dave Blount at June 9, 2009 6:59 AM
If Comrade Obama is ever forced by his own sanctimonious rhetoric to really close Club Gitmo, the terrorists vacationing there are unlikely to be happier with their new accommodations — unless they're simply let go. The same goes for San Quentin State Prison, which sits on such valuable waterfront land a few minutes away from the Golden Gate Bridge that officials could turn a $1 billion profit by selling it and building a new prison elsewhere. Prisoners — the worst of the worst, just like at Gitmo — are aghast at the idea:
"Some places you go for punishment," said inmate John Taylor, a catcher for the prison baseball team, the San Quentin Giants [and a convicted murderer]. "Here, it's more rehabilitation. I just don't know why the governor would want to shut us down."
The killers and maniacs at San Quentin benefit from nearby San Francisco, with its legions of sympathetic do-gooders.
Prison volunteers come from around the Bay Area and include professional artists, graduate students and professors at nearby universities, including the University of California at Berkeley and San Francisco State University. Others are retirees. Most are experienced teachers in their field.
The programs that make life richly fulfilling for the convicts too dangerous to keep at other prisons rely heavily on these volunteers and proximity to the universities that spawn them.
The programs include a Shakespearean drama program, football, baseball, basketball, soccer and tennis teams, and the Prison University Project, which offers inmates classroom instruction that leads to associate's degrees.
All that's at risk if prison moves. Besides, the guards don't want to move either, and they've got a powerful union. So California will probably be left to raise money the new-fangled way: a strings-attached bailout from Chairman Zero, courtesy of federal taxpayers.
On tips from Gregory of Yardale and nancz.
