By Kyung Jin Lee, KALW Crosscurrents
On a breezy summer day at San Quentin State Prison, inmate Paul Stauffer reads his writing to a live audience.
“My shoulders brush the sides of the wall and bunk as I pace the nine feet of my cell, between the sink and door. A scream echoed silently from my tortured soul, as hopeless dreams of a once meaningful life, floated endlessly across my mind …” he reads.
Creative self-expression is a proven force for change in prisons. Inmates in this creative writing class, and classes like it, are less likely to commit crimes when they are released.
California’s Arts-in-Corrections program offered prisoners everything from art classes to music and drama in the 1980s and 1990s. But the state drastically cut the program, then stopped funding it entirely in 2010.
Read the complete story at KALW Crosscurrents.
