Thank You, San Quentin Students!

Elsa Chen, Assistant Professor of American Politics and Public Policy
at Santa Clara University

Before my visit to San Quentin, I mentioned to a few people that I had
accepted an invitation to the prison to lecture on my research, and
that I’d been told to expect a full classroom of inmate students who
were eagerly looking forward to the talk on Three Strikes. My favorite
response came from a colleague who was feeling weary from dealing
with distracted, exhausted, and frequently absent college students
during the last week of a long academic year: “A classroom of students‘eagerly looking forward’ to it? Enjoy it while you can!”

The classroom was packed. My talk covered three main topics: how
the Three Strikes law was passed; how the law is implemented, including the discretion permitted in its application, and disparities that have emerged; and finally, the law’s very limited success at crime reduction.

I was struck by several contrasts between the San Quentin students
and the college kids I usually teach. Of course, all of these students
were men. Perhaps half of them looked older than me. Instead of
T-shirts, shorts, and flip-flops, they all wore blue uniforms. They
grouped themselves by race, which appeared to happen out of habit
more than animosity. Beyond those superficial observations, however,
I noticed more. The students impressed me with their understanding
of sentencing policy. Several students shared their personal experiences as third- or second-strikers. They earnestly asked whether and how we could bring about policy changes. They challenged me with insightful questions and made me think hard about the meaning and impacts of my research. I was humbled by the respect with which the students spoke and listened to me and to each other, and invigorated by the positive energy that filled the classroom. I hope they learned some things from me that afternoon; they certainly taught me a lot!