San Quentin State Prison - History

History

Though numerous towns and localities in the area are named after Roman Catholic saints, and "San Quintín" is Spanish for "Saint Quentin", the prison was not named after the saint. The land on which it is situated, Point Quentin, is named after a Coast Miwok warrior named Quentín, fighting under Chief Marin, who was taken prisoner at that place.

In 1851, California's first prison opened; it was a 268-ton wooden ship named The Waban, anchored in San Francisco Bay and outfitted to hold 30 inmates. After a series of speculative land transactions and a legislative scandal, inmates who were housed on the Waban constructed San Quentin which "opened in 1852 with 68 inmates." A dungeon built at San Quentin in 1854 is thought to be California's oldest surviving public work.

The prison held both male and female inmates until 1932 when the original California Institution for Women prison at Tehachapi was built. In 1941 the first prison meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous took place at San Quentin; in commemoration of this, the 25-millionth copy of the AA Big Book was presented to Jill Brown, of San Quentin, at the International Convention of Alcoholics Anonymous in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

The use of torture as an approved method of interrogation at San Quentin was banned in 1944.

Alfredo Santos, one-time convicted heroin dealer and successful artist, painted six 20 ft (6.1 m) sepia toned murals during his 1953-1955 incarceration that have hung in the dining hall of the prison.

Lawrence Singleton, who raped a teenaged girl and cut off her forearms, spent a year on parole in a trailer on the grounds of San Quentin between 1987 and 1988 because towns in California would not accept him as a parolee. Between 1992 and 1997, a "boot camp" was held at the prison that was intended to "rehabilitat first-time, nonviolent offenders"; the program was discontinued because it did not reduce recidivism or save money.

A 2005 court-ordered report found that the prison was "old, antiquated, dirty, poorly staffed, poorly maintained with inadequate medical space and equipment and overcrowded." Later that year, the warden was fired for "threaten disciplinary action against a doctor who spoke with attorneys about problems with health care delivery at the prison." By 2007, a new trauma center had opened at the prison and a new $175 million medical complex was planned.