Earlier this month, students in Zoe Mullery’s creative writing class for San Quentin inmates held a reading of their work at the prison. The public was invited to the reading, and one of the audience members asked the inmates if they thought going to prison was the only way they could have changed their lives for the better.
“A lot of people -- and I am not one of these people -- believe that it’s great, everybody has degrees, you’re writing, but that if it wasn’t for prison, that this transformation wouldn’t have occurred. And I really hate that thought. I wanted to know if you guys agreed or disagree with that thought and why or why not?,” she asked.
KALW’s Julie Caine and Kyung Jin Lee were there, and recorded responses to this question from Kimya Humphrey, James Metters, Emile Deweaver, and Watani Stiner.
Click the audio player above to hear their answers.
