this is the bay area news station, kron 4 news starts now. >> steve: a youth program inside san quentin state prisons changing lives. it's giving some inmates a new lease on life. >> vicki:kron 4's alecia reid went behind the prison walls for a closer look at their rehabilitation. return to >>natsot - when i got here i thought man i really messed up >> reporter:but now david silva is nervous about his graduation speech tomorrow. he's the valedictorian of his g-e-d class, and getting ready to go to college. >> reporter:rocking all blue like the rest of the men in this prison program everyone in this room committed their crimes when they were minors. >>david silva >>--you are hard on me. but you stay on me to continue to do good. >> reporter:more than half of them will never leave prison walls. but like him, they're working on self improvement. charged with voluntary manslaughter, david has served 2 of his 11 year sentence, and is looking towarsd a brighter future. because of his potential, he was the first non-lifer to be accepted into the kids creating awaerness together group. he's also part of the

." >> built in 1852 and home to california's death row, san quentin state prison is bursting at the seams due to overcrowding. when we shot our extended stay series there. but san quentin had one program designed to discourage troubled teens from ever joining its ranks in the future. through the squires program, selected inmates shared their experiences with teenagers who had already had run-ins with the law. >> what we need you to understand, you are in san quentin this morning. you are in a place that no kid should ever want to be in. you should be out playing somewhere in the park. you are here because of something you did. >> what's your first name? >> angel. >> angel? >> yeah. >> how old are you? >> 13. >> i'm 16. >> jonathan, i'm 16, too. >> what you want to know, that this is your life, man. you have an opportunity to leave out of this place and never come back. >> let me introduce myself to you guys. my name's david. i'm about to be 25 years old in a few more months, but i have been in prison since i was 15-years-old for murder. >> david monroe is serving a 15-year-to-life sentenc

joseph de la cruz is a gang dropout, serving nine years for attempted murder at california's san quentin state prison. and when we first met him, authorities had just discovered that he had been assaulted inside his protective custody cell. >> this morning you did come out of your cell. we did a sweep to find out how many people stayed behind, and you were discovered with injuries. and here's the medical report. >> despite obvious injuries, de la cruz refused to give correctional staff any information about the attack. >> they're trying to find out what happened. i won't tell them what happened. >> any specific individuals you know are your enemies? >> no, sir. >> how about any prison weapons offenses? >> no, sir. >> do you belong to a gang? >> no, i don't. >> i mean outside of what you're being accused of, being a victim, are you involved in any other batteries in your history? >> no. >> due to this evidence, you're deemed a threat to the safety and security of the institution, to staff, and inmates. >> escort! >> without good information about what prompted the attack and whether this attack could

few, though, made as lasting an impression on us as solon league of california's san quentin state prison. >> i'm a third termer. he's a first termer, he got 12 years. i only got 13 days now. so i'm really preparing him to what's ahead of him. we keep our house clean. >> league gave both his cellmate and our producer a lesson on the finer points of laundry behind bars. >> i get my t-shirt, grab my bar of soap, dip it in the toilet. i keep my toilet fresh and clean. scrub it out. like so. and once the toilet fills up, it's fresh water now. i can just rinse it. i fold my towels. put it here. right up under here is my clothesline. >> league went on to give us a cooking demonstration, using toilet paper like a stovetop burner. >> take this, set it on the edge of the toilet. because it's got to breathe. might set it here, might light it at the bottom. as you see, it's like a fire. you hold your can over it, and you cook. therefore your water gets hot. flush it down. grab a damp towel because you don't want it to be on your toilet. don't want to burn your toilet up. i get my bowl, crack my soup

. >> darryl "big d" wright is serving hard time at california's aging san quentin state prison. no frills shop. >> we have three barbers in here. we're pretty steady. you know, they come in. one of us try to be here at all times. so we all have to know how to cut all kind of hair. >> as with any barber, it's important to keep the customers satisfied. that's especially true when your clients are inmates. >> you know, occasionally guys, they drop by and want to give you a little something if you give a good haircut, you know? want to give you a soup or something like that or a canned good or something like that. it's not a mandatory thing but they won't let you refuse them. you know what i'm saying? they won't let you refuse them. >> barber shops have been a favorite stop for "lockup" crews at prisons nationwide. >> any man that walks through the door can get a haircut and he'll get a good haircut. he might not get a whole lot of layers and feathers and all that, but he'll get a good haircut. >> we met willard lucas at indiana state prison. he had been working the same chair for 2

. >> at san quentin state prison, we learned that not only do gangs force most of the prison population into racial segregation, they even draw boundaries on the rec yard. >> this is the lower yard. and the inmates segregate themselves out here, the reason being that the gangs want it that way. the blacks are over here. the northern hispanics is our main gang here at san quentin. and it's because they're better organized. the white guys are over here on the parallel bars and on the picnic table. over in the corner you see where the asians are sitting. you can't just walk and sit on a table. i had to explain that. i almost got into a confrontation with that two or three times because, you know, i saw a table and i sat down, you know, it's not like that. you got to ask for permission to sit down there. >> even such a minor misstep can be taken as a sign of disrespect, and that can lead to widespread violence. though correctional staff is constantly on the lookout for weapons, it's well known that many on this yard are armed for battle. and none more so than the northern hispanics. >> they

more than 600 condemned men await their execution dates here on death row at california's san quentin state prisoned death row is a quiet place where inmates are much more concerned with filing appeals than causing trouble. that's not the case here. >> i feel like i consider everybody in here, every inmate in here a potential threat. >> we met two officers assigned to keep watch in the adjustment center where san quentin's most violent death row inmates are housed. the daily grind here is bleak for both inmates and staff. >> the mentality is i'm on death row and there's nothing you can do to me. if i assault you today there is nothing they will do to me tomorrow. you can only kill me once. >> assaults are so common here that any contact with inmates, even serving meals, requires officers to suit up in full riot gear. >> but that doesn't stop them from gassing, which is where they throw a variety of substances, can be anything, urine, feces. >> from the time you open the food port, there's an opening for the inmate to assault you. >> death row at san quentin is a really very scary place. the adjust

>> our cameras were at california's san quentin state prison when officers received word that a 20-year-old inmate was suffering severe chest pains. >> be advised, medical emergency. >> the thing you have to realize about san quentin is that this is -- this prison was built prior to the civil war and the cells are stacked five stories high. no elevators. so of course the emergency that we were covering, it was on the fifth floor. so not only did we have to haul our stuff up there but so did the responding correctional officers. >> up on the fifth tier, officers tend to the inmate inside his cell. >> you're going to have to take some deep breaths, man. i know you might be in pain, but you're going to have to help me. >> moments later the paramedics arrive on the tier. >> the paramedics had to make the five-story climb as well and it's difficult to respond right away because of that. but the bigger challenge though was getting the inmate out of his cell and back down all of those stairs. >> hospital door carson 2 be advised, we have inmate in stretcher, en route to the urgent care clinic. >>

." >> built in 1852 and home to california's death row, san quentin state prison is bursting at the seams.

san quentin." get an inside look at a rehabilitation program where prisoners write and perform their own life stories. for all of kqed's news coverage, go to kqednews.org. hello from the campus of san jose state university in this edition of equal time. i'm your host journalism school director bob rucker. flashing lights, large crowds, live music [hard electronic music] music festivals and raves are becoming more and more popular. but what happens when drugs are mixed into the situation find out in this edition of equal time [music] music concerts have been around for decades