Dortell Williams' Radio Broadcasts
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Dortell Williams is an inmate at the Los Angeles County California State Prison in Lancaster, California. Dortell has been published in a number of community newspapers, including the San Francisco Bay View, The Final Call and The Los Angeles Sentinel. He mentors at-risk kids through San Francisco's The Beat Within and is an inside correspondent for Families to Amend Three Strikes. You can email Dortell at: dortellwilliams@yahoo.com. For more information about the Honor Yard Program, visit: www.prisonhonorprogram.org
Saving the Honor Yard
Commentary by Dortell Williams, recorded 3/16/07
Scroll down for a written transcript
1) 3:09 MP3 Radio Essay
Update:
Senate Bill 299 sailed unscathed through the Senate Public Safety Committee, the Senate Public Safety Commission, Senate Appropriations and the full Senate. The bill is scheduled to go before the Assembly Public Safety Committee, August 31st, where it is expected to hit turbulence. Old fashioned, traditional letters are requested of the public for legislative supporters of the bill to offset expected opposition.
Saving the Honor Yard
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Copyright 2007/ Dortell Williams
Riots, melees, stabbings and death have increasingly been the central theme among California’s lackluster prison system.
Our prisons are infested with internal inmate politics, tainted with fostered racism and a thriving gang rivalry that all too often bubbles over into society.
According to recent media reports, society is now suffering from acute and unprecedented levels of these communicable ills. Yet, there’s one shinny little prison facility right in the back yard of Los Angeles County that works–it’s called: The Honor Program.
Here resides a conglomerate of self–reformed men who have agreed to get along. No gang bangin’, no drugs, and no racial politics; though we make up a rainbow of ethnicities.
It is by no means a perfect place–no camp here, no hotel livin’. The state’s overcrowding curse still wafts its foul stench here, like at any other facility. But we’ve resolved out minds to strive for personal growth and collective cultivation.
Though this is a high–security maximum–level facility, we’ve had no riots here since 2000, when we were granted permission to pilot the program.
Our harvest overflows. With permission to buy paint and brushes, our group, Artists Serving Humanity, has donated 50,000 to local charities. Prisoners in the eyewear department refurbish eyeglasses for the indigent, among others.
C.R.O.P (or Convicts Reaching Out to People) mentors at–risk youth here on the grounds. We share, in no uncertain terms, the dark path that got us here, and point them towards a more illuminated way.
In the Honor Program, the skills of the prison population are utilized for higher learning: Spanish, Anger Management, Creative Writing, Life Skills and Critical Thinking are just some of the subjects we study; themes you’d think would be a given in the Department of “Corrections”.
The rewards for prisoners, staff and society have been golden. The following quote is by Richard Faucett of the Los Angeles Times: “A study by Lancaster prison officials in 2003 compared illegal activity in the yard before and after the (Honor Program) was established…weapons infractions decreased 88 percent, violence and threatening behavior dropped 85 percent and drug–related offenses and trafficking was down 43 percent.”
Now prison staff are inexplicably working to disband the program. Why would anyone want to cancel such a money–saving, life–preserving success? That’s what we’d like you to ask the governor while supporting Senator Gloria Romero’s bill, S.B. 299–to be heard March 26th–for the expansion of such rehabilitation programs.
Please email him at governor@governor.ca.gov or call his office at (916) 445–2811. Senator Romero can be reached at www.romero.sen.ca.gov or call her office at (916) 445–1418. For more information about The Honor Program go to www.prisonhonorprogram.org.
There’s no question that safer prisons mean a safer society.
Dortell Williams is an inmate at the Los Angeles County California State Prison in Lancaster, California. Dortell has been published in a number of community newspapers, including the San Francisco Bay View, The Final Call and The Los Angeles Sentinel. He mentors at-risk kids through San Francisco's The Beat Within and is an inside correspondent for Families to Amend Three Strikes. You can email Dortell at: dortellwilliams@yahoo.com. For more information about the Honor Yard Program, visit: www.prisonhonorprogram.org
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