‘It’s torture’: Solitary confinement tests limits of California prison reform

‘It’s torture’: Solitary confinement tests limits of California prison reform

For the second time in two years, the state Legislature supported a bill to limit solitary confinement. But it won’t yet reach the desk of a past skeptic — Gov. Gavin Newsom.

By Annie SciaccaSep 26, 2023

Hakim Owen describes his two stints in solitary confinement as “the darkest moments” in his life.

First imprisoned in California at age 18 for a probation violation after being arrested for marijuana possession in the late 1990s, Owen would go on to experience solitary confinement for months at a time at the Salinas Valley and Corcoran state prisons.

“Solitary looks like people self-mutilating, people screaming all night, people kicking and banging on doors all night — it’s torture,” Owen said, adding that during his time there, two people died by suicide while in solitary confinement. Others injured themselves to have a chance to get medical help and human interaction, he said.

Now 47 and studying social welfare and public policy at UC Berkeley’s “prison-to-school pipeline” Underground Scholars program, Owen is one of many survivors of solitary confinement advocating for an end to the practice.

Two years after New York legislators passed a law to limit solitary confinement in that state, California has once again fallen short of doing something similar.

A bill introduced by Assembly Member Chris Holden, D-Pasadena, to restrict the number of days people could be held in solitary passed both houses of the state Legislature this past session. It was the second time a bill to limit solitary confinement has done that. But Holden pulled the bill before it reached a so-called concurrence vote that might have sent it to the governor’s desk, instead holding it over as a two-year bill that can be taken up in the 2024 legislative session.

Reached Sept. 15, the governor’s office referred the Chronicle to his veto message for last year’s bill.

“Segregated confinement is ripe for reform in the United States — and the same holds true in California,” Newsom wrote, while noting that the bill “establishes standards that are overly broad and exclusions that could risk the safety of both the staff and incarcerated population within these facilities.”

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation maintains that there is no “solitary confinement” in state prisons, but rather various forms of “restricted” housing, to which people are assigned based on their behavior or safety concerns.

In his veto, Newsom ordered the department to write new regulations for its use of those forms of confinement. Those regulations are expected to be made public this year.

The status of the Holden bill and other prison-related legislative proposals paint a picture of a state at odds: Advocates, formerly incarcerated people, their families and many lawmakers have demonstrated their support for reform of the state’s carceral systems. But they face pushback from more moderate or conservative corners and California’s still powerful law enforcement unions. And, sometimes, from Newsom himself.

California’s rate of incarceration is below the national average — 259 people per 100,000 residents, compared with the national rate of 350 per 100,000 residents — according to data from the Sentencing Project, a prison reform advocacy organization. But the state has a much higher rate of disparity between incarcerated Black and Latino people and white people. 

The most recent bill attempting to limit solitary confinement, the California Mandela Act (Assembly Bill 280), would prohibit detention facilities — including jails, prisons and private or public immigration detention facilities — from holding people in solitary or “segregated” confinement for more than 15 consecutive days and no more than 45 days total in a 180-day period.

The bill would ban solitary confinement altogether for people who are pregnant or postpartum, have a physical or mental disability, are younger than 26 or older than 59. The bill defines “segregated confinement” as confining a person in a cell or holding space — alone or with other people — with “severely restricted activity, movement, or minimal or no contact with persons other than custodial staff for more than 17 hours per day.”

New York’s law limits the use of solitary confinement of more than 17 hours per day that can exceed three days, and it altogether bans segregated confinement for more than 15 days.

Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux, president of the California State Sheriffs’ Association, which opposes the California bill, spoke about fears that the proposed changes could interfere with a detention facility’s ability to isolate people who cause problems.

Boudreaux said solitary confinement can be necessary to keep conflict to a minimum.

“I have to put it in the simplest way possible: If you put crayons in a box, the green crayons maybe won’t get along with red crayons,” Boudreaux said. “If you put inmates together, they won’t always get along.”

He insisted that most detention facilities follow or surpass state-mandated rules about recreation and time spent outside cells, but acknowledged that the current three hours per week of required recreation time could probably be increased.

But ultimately, he said, “jail is not supposed to be a luxury suite.”

Jails and prisons across the state have faced scrutiny and legal action for not meeting constitutional standards for treatment of inmates, however.

In 2020, a federal judge approved a settlement agreement for a class-action lawsuit against Sacramento County that accused the county jails of regularly locking people alone in dark, cramped cells for more than 23 hours a day.

And both Contra Costa and Alameda counties were put under court decrees in 2020 and 2021 following lawsuits over their allegedly poor mental health services and lack of outside time for incarcerated people.

Boudreaux and his department also were hit with a class-action lawsuit, launched by the American Civil Liberties Union, alleging the overuse of “solitary-like” confinement during COVID outbreaks in late 2020.

Those who have been in solitary confinement describe being denied regular exercise or recreation, or even time for laundry or other necessary tasks.

Owen said that during one of his stints in solitary, he could not get out of his cell for 10 days to call his family when his grandmother died.

The process for putting incarcerated people in segregated confinement is often simply at the discretion of correctional officers, Owens and others said.

He said he was confined multiple times for infractions such as verbally “disrespecting” an officer or refusing a work assignment. While there is a process to appeal a solitary lockup, people are often placed in segregated confinement while that process moves forward.

Kelly Turner, 55, said she was locked in solitary confinement for as long as 24 months during her 13 years in the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla. She was sentenced in 1997 to 25 years to life for forging a $146.16 check to a department store. Normally that crime carries a three-year sentence, but her sentence was harsher because it was her third nonviolent offense under California’s Three Strikes Law, which has since been reformed.

Turner said she and others were sent to segregated confinement for infractions such as making alcohol in prison and fighting.

She said they were locked in an isolated cell, often next to people struggling with their mental health. Turner said she heard constant banging and screaming, and sometimes had feces thrown into her cell.

“We are sentenced to prison to serve out our time — we’re supposed to be protected, not further abused or oppressed,” said Turner, who has — since her 2009 release on an appeal — founded a nonprofit and operates a program for young women facing homelessness in Merced County. “When we are sent to solitary confinement for whatever misbehaviors we are found or thought to have created while incarcerated, the confinement is torturous.”

Studies have found that solitary confinement has been associated with increased anxiety, depression, paranoia and aggression.

Eduardo Dumbrique, who served 24 years for a first-degree murder charge in Los Angeles County for which he was later exonerated and declared innocent, spent 13 years total in solitary lockup.

Released in 2021, Dumbrique is working as an apprentice at the Peace and Justice Law Center, an Orange County nonprofit that provides legal services and policy advocacy related to criminal legal system reform. But he’s still trying to overcome the mental trauma of the experience, he said — a challenge when issues like claustrophobia or other struggles present themselves each day.

“It weighs on me strongly,” Dumbrique said, noting that incarceration even in the general population portion of a facility is still very much a punishment. “But solitary confinement, in contrast, is torture.”

Annie Sciacca is a freelance reporter based in Oakland.

Student Danny Thongsy: We can look within ourselves to find strength and persevere

Student Danny Thongsy: We can look within ourselves to find strength and persevere

By Ivan Natividad, Anne Brice

Danny Thongsy, a formerly incarcerated Laotian American student at UC Berkeley, shares his journey to America as a political refugee and the governor’s pardon that gave him hope for his future. (Illustration by Neil Freese)

January 20, 2023 Share link

This I’m a Berkeleyan was written as a first-person narrative from an interview with undergraduate student and Underground Scholar Danny Thongsy.

I’ve made mistakes in my life that I’ve tried my best to learn and grow from. Some are small, some are big, and some have a lasting impact. These life lessons have shaped me to be who I am today.

But as a formerly incarcerated Southeast Asian immigrant, I feel like there needs to be an awareness, and a more inclusive perspective, of my community and our experiences.

The only reason I am a UC Berkeley student today is because of the support I’ve gotten from my community. Here at Berkeley, I have been empowered to continue to reach out for help and support from the many diverse communities I belong to.

Anti-communist troops in Laos in 1961. (Wikimedia Commons photo)

I was born in a refugee camp in Thailand in 1979.

Originally from Laos, my family fled there in the late 1970s because of the secret war between the United States and Laos. It was a civil conflict that spilled over from the Vietnam War and was backed by the U.S. government as a way to fight against communism in Laos and other parts of Southeast Asia.

But when the war was lost to the communists, many Laotian families were killed by the new regime, and others, like my family, fled to nearby camps. The refugee camp itself was really difficult to live in. Soldiers were always running around with weapons. It was crowded, people were sick and dying, and there was a lack of food and medical resources.

Due to the death of my older sister, and the trauma of the war, my father became mentally unstable and suffered from schizophrenia. My mother told me he would run into the forest at night and roam the fields alone, just talking to himself.

When my mother, older brother and myself resettled in Stockton, California, in the early 1980s, my father was left behind in Thailand. I was two years old and would never get to see him alive again.

My mother remarried my stepfather in 1984. He was also a war refugee from Laos who had a son from another marriage.

Berkeley Sounds · How Danny’s family survived as Laotian refugees

Read the transcript.

Being a refugee living in America was really challenging. We were not accustomed to American culture and traditions. My parents didn’t speak English and didn’t know how to ask for help or where to get support for the trauma they were experiencing due to the war.

During the day, I would often see my mother space out for no apparent reason at all. And my stepfather would use alcohol to cope. Seeing this affected me, too.

As a kid, I didn’t talk much, and I would hold my emotions inside. I was often in trouble, getting into fights with other kids, skipping classes and not prioritizing school.

As a teenager, my group of friends were all refugee kids, too. We bonded because we were going through a similar experience. The neighborhood we lived in, historically, was impoverished with gang culture and overpoliced. There was also a history of redlining that segregated the area by race and class. These were systemic issues we had to learn how to navigate.

Berkeley Sounds · For Danny, his older brother was his father figure

Read the transcript.

The gang culture that surrounded us also influenced how we took up space as a group. We were bullied and picked on by other American kids that were part of neighborhood gangs. They didn’t really understand who we were as Laotian refugees and would make fun of us. That brought us closer together to build our own community, our own gang, to protect ourselves.

Negative influences became normalized.

I started consuming drugs and alcohol to fit in and to find a sense of belonging. But I also started doing troublesome things and would get arrested.

When I was 16, my mother sent me to live with my older brother. She felt he could help straighten me out. Staying with my brother gave me a structure of values that I needed. He helped me enroll back into school, and he pushed me to be a better version of myself. He held me accountable whenever I’d get in trouble and spent time with me.

But when I was 17, he was murdered, and I felt like the very fabric and foundation of my life was just taken away.

Berkeley Sounds · The day Danny’s older brother was killed

Read the transcript.

I ended up falling into a deep depression. And of course, being that kid that I was at that time, I didn’t know how to ask for help. That depression continued to spiral and turned into anger that led me to end up retaliating for his death.

I was incarcerated at the age of 17 and sentenced to life in prison for taking another person’s life. I thought my life was over.

Sitting in prison gave me a lot of time to reflect on what I had done. I felt a heavy sense of guilt, and I was also still grieving my brother’s death and worried about my mother, who was experiencing medical ailments.

I would break down and cry, wishing none of it had ever happened. The fact that I had hurt another person, and that a life was taken from their family, is still devastating to this day. No matter what I do, it will never make up for the harm I have caused.

I knew I needed to make a change.

Thongsy, middle, during a graduation ceremony for the associate’s degree he earned while incarcerated. (Photo courtesy of Danny Thongsy)

Church in prison was a community where people were able to escape the politics and distress of the prison yard. It also provided a community of people that had similar life experiences as me and had already transformed their lives. That gave me the comfort and hope that I needed.

My spirituality really helped me develop a sense of balance within. It also motivated me and gave me confidence to strive for a better life. I studied to get my GED, and I also earned an associate’s degree while incarcerated. I got involved with Bible study groups, mentored other prisoners and helped them with life skills and mental health issues.

After I transferred to Folsom State Prison to be closer to Stockton, where my mother lived, I received a letter in the mail saying that she had passed away. Devastated, I couldn’t believe this was happening.

But it was a wake-up call for me that we don’t have as much time as we think.

Thongsy posed with friends and activists at his parole hearing in the state capitol. (Photo courtesy of Danny Thongsy)

I requested to be transferred to San Quentin State Prison and really started to focus on getting paroled. In 2015, the California Senate passed a law that expanded the youth offender parole process. Since I was a youth when I committed the crime, I was allowed to appear before the parole board early, instead of having to wait to serve my maximum sentence, 27 years to life.

When the parole commissioners interviewed me and understood my transformation, I was able to earn my parole. But my immigration status was impacted because I had a felony. My green card was stripped away, and I could be deported to Laos, even though I had never even stepped foot in that country in my life.

Flawed militarized foreign policy caused us to flee our country to America and into a neighborhood where people of color are surrounded by an environment that funnels us into the school-to-prison pipeline.

And now, after serving my time, I was being funneled into a flawed immigration system that wanted to discard me without even considering the changes I had made in my life. I continue to see this trend happening to people I know and how it negatively impacts their families.

It’s the way the system is structured, and it is sad.

I would break down and cry… The fact that I had hurt another person, and that a life was taken from their family, is still devastating to this day.”

Being paroled and transferred over to ICE was like being punished again for what I had already paid my debt to society for. I was interrogated, then put into a federal detention facility for 30 days before meeting with an immigration judge who ordered me to be deported.

I knew people from places like Mexico, Cambodia and the Philippines in these situations that were immediately banished and deported to their family’s country of origin.

So, in my mind, I was just thinking about my family and my community and being separated from them. I was afraid of having to adapt to a new government, culture and language.

I also feared being killed when I got to Laos.

But I was one of the fortunate ones, and I was not deported because there was no repatriation program or arbitration agreement between the U.S. and Laos. So, they released me, but I was still under federal supervision.

For three years, I had to check in with ICE periodically. First, it was every three to six months, and then once a year they would give me a date I needed to report to them. If there was any change in the policy, they could handcuff me and deport me.

Thongsy visiting relatives in Stockton, Calif. (Photo courtesy of Danny Thongsy)

Going to the ICE building was always frightening. The night before, I would spend time with my family and friends and say goodbye, just in case.

I could be here with them one day and gone the next.

So, I began working in the community with organizations like Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Asian Law Caucus and the Asian Prisoner Support Committee to advocate for criminal justice reform for formerly incarcerated immigrants facing deportation.

All of these communities also had a sense of urgency to get my status changed, as well. Our research found that a pardon by the governor would release me from the threat of deportation.

A pardon campaign was started for me, and when Governor Gavin Newsom heard about my story and the support I had from my community, in fall 2020 he wanted to meet with me on a Zoom call.

I was nervous.

But when Newsom appeared on the screen, the first thing he said was, “What the hell happened?” That broke the ice and made me feel comfortable. We had a casual conversation about my life experiences, the community work I had done, my future plans and how I had changed from a young lost kid to who I am today.

I felt like he saw the humanity in me, that I was an actual person and not just a number on a piece of paper. A month later, I received a call that my pardon had been granted, and I broke down in tears.

Community activists advocated for Thongsy and organized a campaign to get him pardoned. (Photo courtesy of Danny Thongsy)

I thought about my mother and my brother. I thought about all the people that had fought alongside and advocated for me. I thought about the victim’s family that I had harmed and the community that had held me up through tough times. I was and am forever grateful.

With the fear of deportation gone, I was able to focus on my dream of going to UC Berkeley. I was taking community college classes at Laney College through the Restoring Our Communities program, and connected with Berkeley’s Underground Scholars Initiative . A few months later, I got accepted to Berkeley for the fall 2021 semester: I was on cloud nine.

My first day on campus, I looked at my student ID and compared it to my old ID, and all I could think was, “This is amazing.” It was like I was a different person, and everything I had been through led to this moment.

Berkeley’s NavCal and Underground Scholars programs have since supported me in navigating campus resources and to connect with different communities in the area. As a sociology major, I want to understand the deeper spectrum of inequitable criminal justice policies that have impacted my immigrant community since I was a child.

Thongsy advocated to stop deportations in California to a state capitol committee. (Photo courtesy of Danny Thongsy)

I want to find creative solutions that can change these policies and bring down the school-to- prison pipeline. And Berkeley has given me the opportunity to do that.

My research currently focuses on how deportation policies impact formerly incarcerated immigrants’ reentry into society after being in prison. A lot of times, what falls through the cracks in research is how families of those being deported and/or incarcerated are affected by these policies, by the lack of resources they get to stay connected and the trauma that occurs.

This research is informed by the work I continue to do in my community as a grassroots advocate. But no matter what good I do, when I think of the family that I harmed with my actions and the crime I committed, I do not feel deserving of this life I now have.

But I hope that people will take away from my story a sense of perseverance.

That no matter what mistakes we make in life, we learn through perseverance. And we can look within ourselves, our struggles and experiences, and know that we can use them to overcome challenges and to bring about change from within.

“I want to find creative solutions that can change these policies and bring down the school-to- prison pipeline,” said Thongsy. “And Berkeley has given me the opportunity to do that.” (Photo by Joyce Xi)

Pushing to remove legal barriers for formerly incarcerated students

Pushing to remove legal barriers for formerly incarcerated students

January 5, 2023
Ivan Natividad, UC Berkeley

Credit: Azadeh Zohrabi/UC Berkeley

Michelle Maxwell, left, a student and policy fellow at UC Berkeley’s Underground Scholars Initiative (USI) stands with other advocates for formerly incarcerated students in Sacramento’s capitol building. The USI fellowship has continued the student group’s tradition of successful California legislative work.

Michelle Maxwell got her acceptance letter to UC Berkeley while on parole and living in a San Leandro halfway house.

Maxwell had served over eight years for robbery, but took advantage of that time by taking community college courses and earning three associate’s degrees. She applied to Berkeley while still incarcerated in a Stockton jail cell, hoping to get in and prove she was more than her past convictions.

It would give her a fresh start.

“When I found out, I cried and called my mom right away,” said Maxwell, who is now a second-year legal studies major. “I was so happy. All that hard work and discipline really paid off. I felt like it was an opportunity to start over again.”

But when Maxwell was released, just months before she was slated to begin at UC Berkeley, state law dictated that she stay 500 miles away, in San Diego County, where she had committed her last crime.

To attend UC Berkeley, she agreed to live in a rule-bound halfway house in San Leandro that supported parolees with a history of substance abuse. The problem? Maxwell didn’t have a substance abuse problem, and she would have to do things most of her fellow students didn’t.

A strict curfew made late-night study sessions impossible. Travel to and from San Leandro — sometimes an hour-long drive — could otherwise be spent meeting with friends or professors. And Maxwell was required to attend group addiction counseling, even though she didn’t need it.

“I was restricted all over again,” she said. “It didn’t feel like I was truly free to take in Berkeley the way I wanted to.”

Maxwell’s experience was not much different from many formerly incarcerated students attending UC Berkeley. But that changed last fall, when the state passed California Senate Bill 990, legislation that streamlines transfer and travel requests for California parolees to go to school, work and build new lives in areas outside of the county they were paroled to.

The bill became law in large part because of advocacy from formerly incarcerated students and policy fellows at Berkeley’s Underground Scholars Initiative (USI). Working with California State Sen. Ben Hueso, Maxwell and other Berkeley USI students sat through legislative sessions and wrote to and spoke with state representatives about the educational barriers they faced when trying to transfer their supervision to Alameda County after being accepted to UC Berkeley.

Courtesy Michelle Maxwell

Michelle Maxwell

Barriers, Maxwell said, she is proud to have helped eliminate for future students.

“It is really empowering,” said Maxwell, who now lives just three blocks from campus. “Knowing how indifferent our lives and accomplishments as formerly incarcerated students can be perceived within this system, and to see our hard work come to fruition makes me excited for what more is to come.”

That legislative win is one of many that USI has won over the years through the group’s year-long policy fellowship, created in 2019 by USI Executive Director Azadeh Zohrabi, and in partnership with the Legal Services for Prisoners with Children.

Through the fellowship, formerly incarcerated students receive training in policy advocacy and statewide campaigns. Traveling to the state capitol, the students are given an opportunity to learn the ins and outs of how legislation is passed, while also building connections and sharing their stories with state legislators.

Those relationships have also garnered $4 million in ongoing funding from the state to expand staffing and resources for Underground Scholars student groups across the UC system.

“This gives us more capacity to focus on and engage in policy work even more than before,” said Zohrabi. “Work that can contribute to the implementation of prison-to-college pipeline programs that will make higher education more accessible and inclusive for our student community.”

Roots in advocacy

Ruben Lizardo, UC Berkeley’s local government and community relations director, has advised USI on policy throughout the years and said that policy advocacy has been in the group’s DNA since its inception. In 2013, when there were just a handful of students in the group, USI leaders campaigned to make Berkeley and other UC campuses more accessible and safer for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated students. In response, in 2014 Berkeley students voted for a fee referendum that provided funding to create a space for the USI program on campus.

UC Berkeley’s Stiles Hall is a space for Underground Scholars to meet, study, socialize and build community. The building is funded in part because of the advocacy efforts of USI students. Courtesy of Cal Alumni Association

In 2016, USI partnered with then-State Sen. Loni Hancock to include an allocation in the state budget to fund and develop Berkeley Underground Scholars, an academic support group on campus within USI for formerly incarcerated students and those affected by mass incarceration.

A year later, the student group also helped to “Ban the Box” on UC employment applications to make sure applicants were not discriminated against due to past criminal history.

“USI’s roots have always been in advocacy and taking action to make the lives of students on campus better,” said Lizardo. “They have pushed for resources and funding that had been necessary for years. And they continually strive to make Berkeley a more inclusive campus.”

Courtesy Erin McCall

UC Berkeley USI fellows and students, from left to right: Michael Garcia, Michelle Maxwell, Erin McCall and Kevin McCarthy.

While these campaigns were huge wins for USI, Lizardo said, it wasn’t until Zohrabi came to campus in 2018 that the legislative efforts were taken to another level.

Through the USI policy fellowship, Zohrabi has transformed the way the group approaches policy advocacy by providing weekly in-depth workshops and training on how the state legislative process works. Topics include: How many votes are needed to pass a bill? How do you work with opposition and address their concerns? How do you connect and communicate with representatives from the state? And what do you do when a state senator is not in agreement with the legislation you are backing?

That detailed approach to policy work has since led to a series of successful policy campaigns that include early parole release for students who complete college and other educational programs, a Ban the Box on all California college applications, and the campaign to pass Proposition 17 to restore voting rights to people on parole.

The USI also helped in the successful campaign to oppose Proposition 20, which would have rolled back key criminal justice reforms and returned to a ‘tough on crime’ approach to public safety.

Berkeley Underground Scholars have shared their stories at the state capitol. In 2019, USI alumna Aminah Elster called on the State Assembly to pass a constitutional amendment restoring the right to vote for Californians on parole. Courtesy of Aminah Elster

“Azadeh brings the knowledge, experience and political savvy that is needed to run successful policy campaigns,” said Lizardo. “And she imparts to USI’s leaders tangible tools they need to empower other students to advocate for themselves and the communities they come from.”

Pulling strength from struggle

For Zohrabi, her role and work with UC Berkeley’s USI program also comes from a very personal place.

As an immigrant from Iran, Zohrabi said she has been impacted by incarceration her entire life. She first experienced issues with the criminal justice system when her parents were arrested in 1982 for speaking out against the Islamic regime just a few years after the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

Credit: UC Berkeley

Azadeh Zohrabi is the executive director of the Berkeley Underground Scholars.

“They continued fighting against the regime for a secular democratic Iran and were incarcerated a few months after I was born,” said Zohrabi. “As a child, seeing the injustice in that really had an impact on what I wanted to do with my life. I understood early on how families are negatively affected by a system that unjustly incarcerates people. And how that struggle can impact an entire community.”

After immigrating to the United States as an adolescent, Zohrabi soon found parallels between what happened to her parents in Iran and the unjust incarceration that her friends, and her partner, experienced in America.

Finding purpose in wanting to change that system, Zohrabi earned a law degree from UC Hastings and threw herself into human rights work and advocacy, specifically for communities impacted by mass incarceration. She has served as a leader and director for notable Bay Area nonprofits such as the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and Legal Services for Prisoners with Children (LSPC).

The USI’s policy fellowship began as a collaboration with LSPC to connect Berkeley students to the nonprofit’s resources and coalitions fighting to change policy that impacts formerly incarcerated students, in particular. Zohrabi said USI has expanded the fellowship opportunity to students outside of Berkeley and the 2023 cohort will include members of other UC campuses.

Courtesy Azadeh Zohrabi

Zohrabi as a toddler, after her mother was released in Tehran from Evin Prison, and before they escaped from Iran.

“I am passionate about working with these communities because I believe that the work that we are doing is creating the condition of possibility for a radically different world to exist,” she said. “And being a part of [USI] has really transformed my life and given me the opportunity to have a huge impact on issues — that have also impacted me — and that I care about.”

That impact is evident for USI retention chair and policy fellow Erin McCall, who, this year authored a policy brief — along with four other Underground Scholars — released in UC Berkeley’s Institute for Research on Labor Employment that promotes career opportunities for formerly incarcerated firefighters. Her work with the policy fellowship “enabled me to see the direct connection between original research and the implementation of policy change,” said McCall.

“Azadeh is an inspiring mentor, and I couldn’t be more grateful for her leadership,” she said. “Traveling to Sacramento with the policy fellows this spring was empowering. Working together as a team to advocate for recurring funding made me feel like I was contributing to something bigger and far more important than myself.”

Erin McCall, center, with Michelle Maxwell, giving testimony in support of California Senate Bill 990. The two have been friends for years, first meeting while still incarcerated. Courtesy Azadeh Zohrabi

Seeing the bigger picture

Danny Muñoz, a former gang member, came to UC Berkeley after being in and out of the criminal justice system for over three decades. Now, as a youth mentor in the East Bay, he uses his life experiences to uplift the communities he came from.

Muñoz said USI’s policy fellowship has given him a greater perspective on the systemic inequities that cause under-resourced communities and schools to become pipelines to prison.

Danny Muñoz, a USI policy fellow, hopes to continue his graduate studies in public policy after graduating this spring. Here he stands in front of Anthony Hall, a space on Berkeley’s campus he often frequents. Credit: Sofia Liascheva/UC Berkeley

A sociology major, Muñoz is currently working on research based around the experience of middle school students and whether wealth plays a part on the interactions they have with adults at their schools. Working with Zohrabi, Muñoz said, has given him the confidence to tackle prejudiced policy and speak to high-level legislators about challenging issues.

“Being a part of this fellowship really opened my eyes to what is possible,” said Muñoz, who is also minoring in public policy and will graduate this spring. “I always felt like I could only make an impact with individuals, only working in my community where I come from. But having a hand in shifting policy, you see the bigger picture.”

For Zohrabi, that bigger picture starts with providing USI students with the resources to realize that they can be the decision-makers and leaders in policy, and that their voices “bring great value to a system that often ignores them,” she said.

“[Azadeh] is just a powerful female force,” said Maxwell. “She really knows her stuff. And that inspires all of us to treat these campaigns with urgency, because we know how important these policies are — not just to us, but to campuses around the entire state.”

Both Things Are True: My Journey from Jail to Justice Leader

Both Things Are True: My Journey from Jail to Justice Leader

May 17, 2022

Shani Shay

This is the first in a series of essays highlighting graduates of our California Justice Leaders program, the first AmeriCorps program specifically for formerly incarcerated people. We’re excited to be co-publishing this series with the Prison Journalism Project to reach even more readers.

Leadership: The ability to inspire, motivate, guide,
and nurture others in service of a common goal;
having a vision and a pathway to achieve that vision.

If I tell people I’m a student at University of California, Berkeley, recipient of merit scholarships and awards, and an advocate for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated youth who is headed to graduate school at Harvard University, they’re likely to make certain assumptions about my life up to this point.

If I tell them I was working as a stripper in San Francisco before I was 18 years old, inducted into a fraud ring, spent more nights in jail than I can count, and managed a bottomless well of emotional pain by cutting myself, they’re almost certain to make assumptions about how the rest of my life will play out.

The thing is, both stories of my life are true.

My name is Shani Shay. I am a 33-year-old Black woman whose very existence challenges assumptions about who can go to Harvard and what someone with early life trauma and incarceration can accomplish.

Today I comfortably identify as a leader, but that wasn’t always the case.

I am originally from Hawaii, where I had a mostly sweet childhood playing in waterfalls and building sandcastles. We moved to Berkeley, Calif. when I was 15 years old and, like many young girls, came under the influence of older, abusive men. For roughly 12 years — years that I should have been safe, happy and excelling in high school and college — I experienced extreme domestic violence and was entrenched in a negative lifestyle. The only ray of light was a daughter I loved.

By the time I turned 28, I knew I had to change my life and my daughter’s life. I started by attending classes at Laney College, the largest community college in Oakland, and slowly began to see myself differently. I remember getting my first set of straight As and thinking, “Wow, Shani, you are smart.” A year later I completely quit crime and left my abuser. I packed up my belongings and moved with my daughter to my mom’s house.

It was hard to make a clean break and walk toward a future I barely knew how to believe in. Sleeping on a pull-out couch every day with a growing child in tow was not easy either, but with every passing week I had more faith in the future and more confidence in myself.

Within two years, I was enrolled at Cal Berkeley. It felt like a dream come true, especially considering the times in my life when freedom seemed out of reach. I was thrilled but also intimidated by Cal — the institution, the big campus — and I worried about fitting in. Luckily, I had the support of Berkeley Underground Scholars, an organization started nearly 20 years ago by formerly incarcerated and system-impacted Cal students that now serves nine other schools in the University of California system.

The Underground Scholars helped me find my place at Cal, in large part because the head of the program, Azadeh Zorabi, believed in me. She saw the person I was beyond the labels and traumas, and through her eyes I came to believe in myself too.

The Underground Scholars and other resources of the university also paved the way for me to work with young people confronting some of the same challenges I did. My encounters with incarcerated youth motivated me to create Incarceration to College for youth in custody, and then Pathways to College for formerly incarcerated youth.

Through weekly workshops, these programs give young people permission to imagine themselves in college and help them take the steps necessary to get there. Over the past few years, I’ve encouraged hundreds of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated youth in Contra Costa, Alameda and now San Francisco counties to set their sights on college. I have also connected many of them with Underground Scholars programs in other UC schools.

California Justice Leaders…arrived in my life at the right time, helping me grow professionally so that I’m better able to open doors for formerly incarcerated youth.

Much like the Scholars program, California Justice Leaders (CJL), a first-of-its-kind AmeriCorps initiative by Impact Justice, arrived in my life at the right time, helping me grow professionally so that I’m better able to open doors for formerly incarcerated youth.

In my year as a CJL re-entry navigator, I mastered the complex systems and rules a young person has to navigate to avoid ending up back in jail and learned how to explain it all in ways that empower young people. I learned how to use tangible incentives as a catalyst for personal growth. And I learned how to identify and connect people with resources and organizations that meet them where they are and provide support and opportunities for them to succeed, one step at a time. What a difference a re-entry navigator would have made in my own life as an 18 or 19 year old!

California Justice Leaders also taught me the importance of rigorous case management, which is essential to running an organization that actually helps people and has systems in place to do no harm. The program and people leading it modeled healthy, safe, respectful and effective ways to work with formerly incarcerated people, both as clients and as employees. I certainly felt I could bring my full self to the job.

I’ll always remember how kind and patient Azadeh was with me, especially in my first year at Berkeley. She managed to have great expectations for me without demanding anything of me, certainly nothing I wasn’t ready to do.

I try to take the same approach with the young people I mentor. Through kindness and in other ways, I’m constantly communicating that I know they are human beings capable of greatness, not defined and limited by their status in the carceral system. I’m also keenly aware of what I convey simply because of who I am — and I’m always honest about the hardships I’ve experienced, my mistakes and all that I’ve overcome.

By supporting people like me to be effective leaders, Underground Scholars and CJL are changing the narrative about formerly incarcerated and system impacted people and what we’re capable of. That’s huge — for all the young people trying to change their own lives and for all the people, institutions and systems in a position to either help them or hold them back. That’s a lesson I’ll be taking with me to Harvard.

I’m a different person today than I was just a few years ago, thanks in part to these programs. Harvard doesn’t intimidate me, and the future seems full of possibilities.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about what I would change if I were secretary of education.

California Justice Leaders alumnus Shani Shay graduated this spring with a bachelor’s degree in African American Studies and a minor in education from the University of California at Berkeley and will attend Harvard’s Graduate School of Education in the fall. Shani is also the recipient of the 2019 California Women in Leadership Scholarship from the Minerva Institute, the 2019 Cal Alumni Leadership Award, and is a 2019 Firebaugh Scholar.

Note: This essay contains discussion of self-harm and domestic violence. If you would like to learn more about dealing with self-harm, you can visit the Crisis Text Line website or text HOME to 741741. For resources on domestic violence, you can visit the National Domestic Violence Hotline website or call 1-800-799-SAFE.

January 2022 Newsletter

Check out our January 2022 Newsletter (Click to download pdf)

Announcing the Underground Scholars Pre-Law Association

October 22, 2021

Announcing the Underground Scholars Pre-Law Association

Contact: azadehzohrabi@berkeley.edu

Berkeley Underground Scholars is proud to launch a Pre-Law Association in partnership with Defenders at Berkeley Law and Blueprint Test Prep for formerly incarcerated and system impacted UC students who are pursuing law school. This program is designed to build a pathway for formerly incarcerated UC students into law school and the legal profession through mentorship, training, networking, and LSAT prep support. 

Underground Scholars creates pathways to higher education for incarcerated, formerly incarcerated, and system impacted students. Through a three-pronged approach focused on recruitment, retention, and advocacy we are building a prison-to-school pipeline for the 7,000+ students in California state prisons who are enrolled in UC transferable community college courses. 

Kevin McCarthy transferred to UC Berkeley from prison after a 15 year sentence. He began doing legal work as a jailhouse lawyer and experienced several legal victories while incarcerated. He is a co-founder of the Pre-Law Association and is currently pursuing a degree in legal studies with plans to apply to Berkeley Law. “As an Underground Scholar and pre-law student, I’m grateful for the support from the Defenders and Blueprint to help me get to law school. The workshops and classes have already been incredibly helpful.” McCarthy stated.  

Berkeley Defenders is Berkeley Law's hub for students interested in public defense. The Defenders help foster Berkeley's public defender community through community-wide events, networking opportunities, and peer-to-peer support. The Defenders support the Pre-Law Association by providing mentorship, law school application advising and preparation, and collaboration on events. 

Azadeh Zohrabi, the director of the Berkeley Underground Scholars shared, “Many of our students are the first in their family to go to college, testing for and applying to graduate school can be mentally and financially overwhelming without support. The peer-to-peer support provided by the Defenders and the scholarships offered by Blueprint go a long way toward filling the equity gaps that exist for our students.”

Blueprint Test Prep provides students a fun learning experience, the absolute best instructors and teaching methods, and the highest score increases for the LSAT and MCAT. Blueprint is committed to improving diversity in the legal and medical fields by making MCAT and LSAT prep more accessible to underrepresented groups. Through a partnership with Underground Scholars, they will provide scholarships to LSAT prep courses for the Underground Scholars PreLaw Association members. 

I’m a Berkeleyan: Student Shani Shay translates trauma into triumph

Campus & community, People, Profiles, Campus news

I’m a Berkeleyan: Student Shani Shay translates trauma into triumph

By Ivan Natividad

UC Berkeley transfer student Shani Shay took her lived experiences of abuse and crime to create a prison to college program for arrested youth. (Photo by Sergio Gomez/Camerawerkz)

September 16, 2021. Share link

This I’m A Berkeleyan feature was written as a first-person narrative from an interview with Shani Shay. Have someone you think we should write about? Contact news@berkeley.edu .

Many of us throughout the pandemic are going through trauma. And we are all dealing with it in different ways.

As the founder and coordinator of UC Berkeley’s Incarceration to College program, throughout the pandemic I have focused on teaching life skills classes that expose opportunities and resources to students arrested in Contra Costa and Alameda county jails and juvenile halls.

These are often students that come from broken homes, lived on the streets and, from a young age, have been abused on so many levels.

I realize, though, that I have spent so much time working with incarcerated students and people that I rarely get to honor the severe trauma and domestic violence I experienced throughout my life.

And the negative decisions I made because of that trauma.

It is something that is hard to talk about, but I’ve come to realize that sometimes people need inspiration through stories they can relate to. And currently, as a student here, I also understand that my lived experiences are also part of my educational journey. So, if sharing them can give future students hope they can change their lives — it’s worth it.

I was born and raised in Puna, Hawaii. It is a beautiful island. I remember spending a lot of time playing in waterfalls and building sandcastles on the beach as a child.

Located on the eastside of Hawaii’s Big Island, Puna was where Shay grew up. She experienced racial violence that made her want to move away. (Photo courtesy of dolanh/flickr)

But as I got older, my brothers and I experienced a high level of racial violence in our neighborhood. I developed a lot of anger because of the way we were treated.

And if someone ran up on me and called me “the N-word,” I would transform that anger into violent retaliation. I was taught that it was OK to be mad, that, in fact, you should be mad when people treat you that way.

When I was 15, my dad and I moved to Emeryville in the Bay Area where we lived with relatives. I started going to Berkeley High School, and I did really well my first semester getting straight A’s.

The next semester I met my boyfriend at the time. I only went to school maybe 30 days that entire semester.

I was young and thought I was in love, even though he was physically abusing me. Looking back, I realize I was too afraid to leave him, and ironically, despite getting beaten, that fear made me want to stay with him even more.

Despite those issues, I actually graduated with my high school diploma a year early. But at that point, school was no longer a priority for me.

I realize I was too afraid to leave him, and ironically, despite getting beaten, that fear made me want to stay with him even more.”

I didn’t want to go to college, but my mom, who was a high school teacher, pushed me into applying. I got accepted to UC Davis, but I wanted to be closer to where my boyfriend was, so I went to Cal State East Bay.

At the time, I still had a lot of unresolved anger issues. I was 17, living in the dorms and given all of these privileges I wasn’t used to. During my second quarter, I got suspended for getting into a fight at a party with another student. It was over something frivolous.

No one was badly hurt, and no criminal charges were made. But the dean’s office required me to take anger management classes.

I ended up going back to Hawaii to be with my family to kind of recoup. I worked a few jobs to save up money because I eventually wanted to move back to live with my boyfriend — even though he continued to physically abuse me.

The whole situation became habitual.

I remember he knocked my teeth out and broke my ribs in front of my child. He would do this time and time again on a weekly basis.”

Through him, I began getting connected to a life that I really didn’t want for myself. I started stripping in San Francisco by using a fake ID he got for me. I didn’t really like it, so I eventually quit. But I was exposed to these environments and people who were doing a lot of negative things.

I started stealing people’s credit cards when I was 18 years old, and I would do that for 10 years to survive financially. All through this time, I’m still being abused, but I’m also going in and out of jail because of the fraud I committed.

When I was 24, I had my daughter, so I needed even more money to support her. But my abuser was using me, and it came to a point where our relationship became based only on finances.

He would viciously beat me and take the money I would get from the hustle.

I remember he knocked my teeth out and broke my ribs in front of my child. He would do this time and time again on a weekly basis. I was literally in this perpetual state of survival: How do I support myself? How do I get out of this kind of situation?

One of the last times I went to jail, my daughter was 7 months old, and I missed her first birthday. It was the hardest thing I have ever experienced being away from her.

Once I was released after my last 10-month stint in county, I began to really ask myself some pragmatic questions: Is the way that I’m living really supporting the dreams and desires I have for myself and my family? Is this the type of person I see myself as, forever?

The answers, obviously, were — no.

I cried a few times while writing my personal statement, just thinking about everything I had been through. It was so cathartic.”

I decided to leave that type of life behind. I quit grinding on the streets, and my prison sentence was lessened because I was enrolled in school at Laney College.

I started working at a diner in Berkeley while taking classes at Laney and moved away from my abuser. I changed all the little things that were holding me back, and that built my confidence up. I began volunteering for a local housing rights community group and was once again a straight A student.

When I applied to Berkeley, I remember that I cried a few times while writing my personal statement, just thinking about everything I had been through.

It was so cathartic.

I realized that I was so young, and living through a traumatic experience skewed my mental and emotional development. It was hard to escape the situation because I couldn’t see beyond it. There was no hope, and at the end of the day, all I really needed was someone to help me.

That is now the impetus in my life that moves me forward. Just trying to be a person of integrity and finding a way to help the type of people that I used to be.

As an African American studies major and education minor, I began attending Berkeley a few months before the pandemic began. In that short time, campus resources like NavCal and the Underground Scholars Initiative really set me up for success.

Underground Scholars actually helped me during my application process, giving me advice and inviting me to their gatherings where I got to know students, staff and faculty before I even became a student. It’s a community where I don’t have to worry about talking about my life experiences because everybody knows what’s up.

Shay, center, in white, laughs during a photoshoot with fellow UC Berkeley Underground Scholars leaders. “They make me comfortable to bring my whole self to campus,” she said. (Photo by Sergio Gomez/Camerawerkz)

I got more involved with the group by going to different prisons and juvenile halls around the area to talk to arrested youth stuck in the criminal justice system.

A lot of them reminded me of myself at that age.

These young kids tend to have to do things all by themselves. There’s nothing wrong with that. But somebody experiencing abuse and trauma at a young age is already starting at a deficit in a system of meritocracy.

It’s a system that doesn’t leave a lot of space for them to succeed. To be honest, it makes it very difficult for you to even breathe.

I think the real catalyst to change their lives is for them to see themselves through the eyes of other people. I remember being in their shoes and listening to people give speeches saying, “I could do it, so you can do it, too,” type of thing. But these people got to go home after saying all this and never come back.

They gave us the lecture, but they didn’t give us the tools to move forward.

Somebody experiencing abuse and trauma at a young age is already starting at a deficit in a system of meritocracy… it makes it very difficult for you to even breathe.”

In spring 2020, I met with around 20 young Black and brown youth that were incarcerated at Martinez Juvenile Hall, and it inspired me to create the Incarceration to College program with Underground Scholars.

Through the program , I meet with students — over Zoom or at the facility —  that get arrested in Contra Costa County within 48 hours of being incarcerated. I give them a presentation on how our program can help them get on the track to higher education.

Once we’ve connected with the students, along with help from other Underground Scholars, I teach classes over Zoom where we help them work on life skills, college applications, financial aid assistance and writing personal statements.

We also try to open their eyes to new opportunities, like traveling through nonprofit organizations and work-study programs and internships.

The reality is, since the second grade, people have told them that they’re not going to do nothing but go to jail, die or work in some field that’s not going to require them to have any knowledge.

So, our program is about letting them know early on that, “Hey, there is actually opportunity for you, and we have been through the same things you are going through … and we want to support you.”

Through her own YouTube channel, Shay produces shows to open the dialogue around the experiences of incarcerated students and people. Here she highlights her formerly incarcerated “Scholar of the Week.”

There’s a level of humanity I try to bring to this work. These kids are not statistics, they are human beings that just need help to overcome the deficit society has dealt them.

We are currently serving close to 100 students in Contra Costa and Alameda counties. Our curriculum has also been certified for students to use as transfer credits to college. The goal is to replicate the classes with other previously incarcerated instructors to create a chain reaction.

It may take some time, but we’re raising funds to help expand the program . We’ve had some support from the campus community, including ASUC members Chaka Tellem and Jason Dones. Faculty members like African American studies professor Nikki Jones and Dr. Travis Bristol have also been encouraging.

Shay said she is hopeful that more resources will be given to incarcerated students. “Their lives are too important to waste.” (Photo courtesy of Underground Scholars)

Eventually, I want to be able to pay the students like an internship that leads to admission into a college. I see it as a crucial investment in the future.

Their lives are too important to waste.

As a Berkeley student going to school, raising my kids and doing this type of work, I feel like there should be people that are way more educated than me doing this, and Berkeley should be creating space for more institutional support for programs like ours.

But at the end of the day, my lived experiences and my story help me to relate to the students I want to help.

Berkeley has helped me to find that purpose within myself. And I hope more people understand how important these students are.

He Once Faced the Possibility of Life in Prison. Now he’s a UC Berkeley Graduate

He once faced the possibility of life in prison. Now he’s a UC Berkeley graduate

UC Berkeley graduate Aaron Harvey, 33, proudly stands on a corner in Lincoln Park, the southeastern San Diego neighborhood he grew up in, last week.

(Eduardo Contreras/The San Diego Union-Tribune)

BY TERI FIGUEROA

SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE

JUNE 21, 2021 10:16 AM PT

SAN DIEGO — 

Aaron Harvey first heard of UC Berkeley when he saw a TV promotion for the school as he sat in jail, facing conspiracy charges stemming from nine San Diego gang-related shootings.

He didn’t even know that UC Berkeley and “Cal,” a title he knew through sports, were the same school when he saw the TV spot seven years ago. But the promo seduced the young man, whose freedom and future were in jeopardy.

He maintained he was innocent of the charges, but he was still facing 56 years to life in prison.

“From day one, I was like, ‘I am going to Berkeley,’” Harvey said. “I think I was just telling myself that to give myself something to look forward to when you are sitting in such a dark place.”

First, he had to fight the sweeping gang murder conspiracy case targeting 33 people in two southeastern San Diego neighborhoods, including his native Lincoln Park. The fight would rally the community, make headlines and clap back at prosecutors who used an untested law that critics blasted as nothing more than guilt by association.

After several months of courtroom battles, a judge dropped the charges. Harvey was freed. Now, the 33-year-old has earned a political science degree from UC Berkeley. He graduated in May.

And along the way, he said last week, he became “an accidental activist.”

In July 2014, a swarm of police arrested him near his apartment in Las Vegas, where he’d moved two years earlier and had been attending real estate school. Suddenly, he was charged in connection with a yearlong series of gang shootings that had happened through much of 2013 and into 2014 in San Diego.

He and the other defendants were charged under a gang conspiracy law: Penal Code 182.5. It was the first time the law was being used in San Diego and possibly in California. Prosecutors argued that under the law, any documented member of a gang could be held liable for its criminal actions.

There were two cases: one charging 15 alleged members of a Lincoln Park gang in nine shootings, the other charging 18 alleged members of a Southcrest-area gang with 16 shootings, four of them fatal.

Some of the defendants were accused of firing the shots or playing a role during or afterward. Some, like Harvey, were accused because they’d been documented as gang members. The evidence purportedly tying them to the gang’s activities included posts on social media or photos and rap lyrics they’d written, which prosecutors argued promoted violence and bolstered gang status during the wave of shootings.

‘Thank God we fought it’

The arrest and the charges floored Harvey. He was 26 years old. It was the first time he learned that he’d been documented as a member of a gang in his Lincoln Park neighborhood when he was 17. It had happened during stop-and-frisks by San Diego police. He doesn’t know which stops. They were common.

Harvey was not accused of shooting anyone. He was not accused of being present at any of the shootings, or of helping to make them happen.

Eventually, most of the accused pleaded guilty to lesser charges, deals that came with shorter prison sentences. Harvey and a second man, rapper Brandon “Tiny Doo” Duncan, held out.

“Everybody signed [a plea deal] — and rightfully so,” Harvey said. “We were the not-so-smart ones for not signing. ... When you are looking at life in prison, the smart thing to do would be to sign a deal, or you are gonna do life. But thank God we fought it.”

After hearings to review the evidence, Superior Court judges disagreed with how prosecutors had applied the law. In 2015, Judge Louis Hanoian found no evidence to support the charges against Duncan and Harvey, and dismissed their cases.

News of local prosecutors’ use of the controversial law brought national attention and staunch local pushback. Then-Dist. Atty. Bonnie Dumanis said later she would not bring charges under Penal Code 182.5 again.

In a 2017 interview with the San Diego Union-Tribune, as Dumanis stepped down from her 14-year stint in office, she said she’d been surprised at and frustrated by the criticism until she took a hard look at Black history.

“The history of African Americans has an impact on everything,” Dumanis said at the time. “No matter how supportive white America is, unless you have walked in those shoes, you don’t understand it. And the only way to change that is to check yourself and your implicit biases or ask for people to check you when you’re doing it.

“Because when we think we are doing something positive, like filing this case to get the people who are murdering innocent people, people within the African American community, I have done something inadvertently that [some people] view as wrong,” she said.

In 2017, Harvey and Duncan sued the city of San Diego in federal court, citing civil rights violations. Last year, the city agreed to pay nearly $1.5 million for the two men to split.

‘I went out in the car and cried’

After his release from jail in 2015, Harvey enrolled in San Diego City College.

He started working with Pillars of the Community, a nonprofit rooted in Islam and focused on social justice and lifting the southeastern San Diego community. There, he built a program to help people expunge criminal records, a program that continues. Laila Aziz, Pillars’ director of operations, calls it his “legacy.”

Three years later, he applied to several universities.

In his application essays, he wrote about being one of the “San Diego 33.” He wrote that after the criminal case against him was dropped, his transition to activism was one of the most significant challenges of his life. He said he was fighting “for the release of my friends and to change the policies that had incarcerated us.”

“I never imagined a life in social justice,” he told the universities.

He mentioned in those essays his testimony at state Assembly and Senate hearings to influence legislation targeting mass incarceration, his work leading a City College campus club focused on assisting Black community college students, and hosting panels focused on mass incarceration, police brutality and voting.

Months later, Harvey was in a meeting with fellow activists, including Aziz, when notifications started hitting his phone. Each was an acceptance email: UCLA, UC San Diego, UC Davis — and UC Berkeley.

“I went out in the car and cried,” he said. “It was just an overwhelming feeling.”

At Berkeley, Harvey found community in the Underground Scholars Initiative, which supports formerly incarcerated students in the UC system. Its website speaks of building a “prison-to university-pipeline.” He called it “an amazing group.”

For the last two years, as a part of Underground Scholars, Harvey led a program to recruit formerly incarcerated students from community colleges to apply for UC schools.

He also helped create the Black Men’s Collective to build fellowship and community on the Berkeley campus.

Aziz called Harvey “a critical thinker, a doer and a planner” who has “a whole community behind him.”

“Whatever his work is, I know it is going to be crucial and critical to our community being helped, built and empowered,” she said.

Harvey said he wanted to go to college for an education that would help him advocate for others trapped in the criminal justice system — a desire he said was born of survivor’s guilt and moral outrage against “a criminalization of culture.”

“The way you dress, the way you talk, the music you listen to — that’s all criminalized and they can use it against us in court,” he said.

He disputes the law enforcement definition of a gang member: “They get to define us and criminalize us.” Being a gang member, he said, “is not illegal.”

“If you did a crime, you do the time,” Harvey said. “That’s what the judge said. If they didn’t do the crime, you can’t take them to jail.”

New degree in hand, Harvey says his future is in activism. But it’s no longer an accident.

Passing the torch: Graduate Daniela Medina continues legacy of her slain mentor

Passing the torch: Graduate Daniela Medina continues legacy of her slain mentor

By Ivan Natividad

Berkeley graduate Daniela Medina helped to create the Sylvia Bracamonte Memorial Scholarship to honor the memory of her friend, and fellow alumna, who was murdered last year. (Photo courtesy of Daniela Medina)

May 18, 2021Share link

Daniela Medina still cherishes a 2019 graduation video that captures her walking across UC Berkeley’s Haviland Hall stage, receiving a bachelor’s degree in social welfare. The 26-second clip has taken on new meaning for Medina because of the person behind the camera: Sylvia Bracamonte — her friend, mentor and fellow Berkeley alumna.

“You can hear her cheering for me in the background and yelling, ‘That’s my girl! … Let’s go, Daniela! We love you, Daniela!’” recalls Medina, who graduated from Berkeley’s Master of Social Welfare program on Monday. “In that moment, she said she passed the (MSW) torch to me. And she really did. If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t have a master’s degree right now.”

Sylvia Bracamonte at her 2019 graduation from Berkeley’s Masters of Social Welfare program .  (Photo courtesy of UC Berkeley Underground Scholars)

Bracamonte, a social worker, was killed last year in a Santa Rosa group home by a client she was trying to help, and on a day she was not scheduled to work. That commitment to public service is something Medina hopes, as a graduate, to emulate: Her own way of preserving her friend’s legacy.

“I feel like anything I accomplish from now on is because of Sylvia,” Medina said.
“My dreams are her dreams.”

As a formerly incarcerated student-parent and first-generation scholar, Medina transferred to Berkeley in fall 2017. She would find a community with Berkeley’s Underground Scholars program , a campus initiative that supports students transitioning from prison to college, that gave her support as a nontraditional student.

But a year later, and on the verge of completing her bachelor’s degree, Medina said she still suffered from “imposter syndrome.” With her sites on graduate school, she doubted whether or not she should pursue a higher degree.

That attitude changed when Medina met Bracamonte at a graduate school information session.

“Sylvia stood up in front of everyone to share personal things about her life: the good and the bad. … She was so confident, it was like she shook the whole room,” said Medina. “She wasn’t afraid to talk about being a student-parent, dropping out of high school, or being homeless and going through substance abuse at a young age. … She was proud to come from a nontraditional background. That made me feel like I also belonged.”

Bracamonte, left, and Medina, right, took a photo the first time they met at a graduate school info session hosted by Berkeley’s Latinx Center of Excellence in Behavioral Health . (Photo courtesy of Daniela Medina)

Bracamonte was a graduate student in Berkeley’s Master of Social Welfare program at the time, and from that day forward, she would be Medina’s mentor — a kindred spirit with similar lived experiences.

The two would bond as Latinx students and mothers, and they often talked about books they’d read and their mutual “die-hard” fandom of the Oakland Raiders. They also shared a passion for social justice, and as members of Underground Scholars, they would advocate at the state capitol for policies that benefit formerly incarcerated and nontraditional college students.

One year after meeting, Medina (BASW ’19) and Bracamonte (MASW ’19) graduated from Berkeley’s School of Social Welfare . “Sylvia was always there for me when I needed her. She was always someone I knew who would keep it real with me.” (Photo courtesy of Daniela Medina)

Medina said Bracamonte, a mother of two, had an undying love for her community and family and was always there to “keep it real,” giving her advice about scholarships, her career and future plans. She also normalized being a student-parent at Berkeley, often bringing her children to office hours and other campus events.

“The way that Sylvia carried out her work and lived her life, she was an inspiration and a mentor to a lot of people,” said Azadeh Zohrabi, director of Underground Scholars. “I don’t know if she really knew how much she blazed the trail for other people, but that’s definitely something that we saw in her. She expected the best from people and never set limitations on herself or those around her.”

A fierce advocate

Sylvia Bracamonte never shied away from talking about the obstacles she had to overcome at a young age. Here, she speaks at UC Berkeley’s Chicana Latina Foundation Annual Scholarships and Awards Dinner in September 2013.

A social worker and McNair scholar , Bracamonte was known by faculty members as “ a fierce advocate ” for her Latinx community in Santa Rosa. After earning her master’s degree in 2019, she moved back to her hometown to serve as a case manager at a group home where, on March 20, 2020, she was murdered by a teenaged client .

Bracamonte was mourned by the campus community she was deeply involved in. Her Berkeley professors remember her as being full of “light, life and love” and “a kind and reflective learner, a loving mother and a generous friend to her classmates.”

“(She was) a phenomenal scholar of life, of truth and of justice,” social welfare faculty member Eveline Chang said in a statement . “Bracamonte was an organizer and bridge-builder who has truly embodied love at the core of everything she fought for across all communities.”

Bracamonte, bottom right, was active in Berkeley’s campus life, and was considered a “bridge-builder” between different communities. “She had a smile that could light up any room,” her mother Stormie Jimenez said. (Photo courtesy of Berkeley Underground Scholars)

In the months following Bracamonte’s death, Medina said she felt a responsibility to honor her friend. She partnered with Underground Scholars, Berkeley’s Graduate Assembly and the Centers for Educational Equity and Excellence to start the Sylvia Bracamonte Memorial Scholarship .

The scholarship aims to provide two recipients with $1,500 a year. The memorial is funded with $60,000 for 10 years and will support women of color who are graduate students and are committed to community-engaged scholarship. Kerby Lynch, external affairs vice president for Berkeley’s Graduate Assembly, helped create the scholarship as a response and immediately worked with the Bracamonte family to advocate for seed funds from the Graduate Assembly.

Lynch hopes other campus partners come forward to help contribute to the scholarship.

“Sylvia, in her life, and what she represented at Berkeley, was institutional resilience,” Lynch said. “As a survivor of the war on drugs, Sylvia’s commitment to healing the community from the harms of the prison industrial complex is why we need to elevate the experiences of marginalized students on campus and support their academic growth.”

Making her life matter

Following her death, Bracamonte has been celebrated and honored across Berkeley’s campus community, which has reached out to her family and friends during their time of grief. “Everybody loved Sylvia because she inspired everyone around her,” said Medina. “There will never be another person like her.”

On April 30, Bracamonte’s birthday, her family selected the first two scholarship recipients. Bracamonte’s mother, Stormie Jimenez, said that, beyond her daughter’s community and academic accolades, she was always “the life of the party” and lit up every room she walked into.

The day before Bracamonte died, Jimenez said, she went to the beach with her children —“together, as a family.”

“There are so many beautiful things to say about Sylvia, but the best thing she was — was a mother,” said Jimenez. “I don’t know where she got the energy from, but she took her kids hiking, swimming and on trips everywhere. She always found a way to spend special time with them, and she’s very much missed by her children.”

Bracamonte with her son celebrating her 2017 graduation from Berkeley’s Bachelor’s in Social Welfare program. “The best thing she was — was a mother,” said Jimenez.” (Photo courtesy of Berkeley Underground Scholars)

Frankie Free Ramos, a former high school teacher and college counselor pursuing a Ph.D. in Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education, is one of the first Bracamonte scholarship recipients. Ramos said that although she didn’t personally know Bracamonte, she is inspired and committed to always spreading her story and keeping her memory alive.

“ Her research really attempted to lift up the truth : that when people in dire situations get the support that they need, the opportunities, the mentorship, the financial aid, that they can overcome so many things,” said Ramos. “I think she’s an example of that, and a constant reminder that people will thrive, if given the opportunity.”

For Medina, Bracamonte’s death is still very raw. When talking about her friend, she often has to fight back tears and is still very confused about why she died. It has also made her question the work they both love: helping others.

“When someone works so hard and ends up dying like that. It makes you wonder, ‘Does this all even matter?’” said Medina. “I don’t know why bad things happen to good people, but I know that I have to try my best to make Sylvia’s life and work matter. We all do.”

Medina, bottom right, at a memorial service for Bracamonte last year. Attendees wore shirts with Sylvia’s likeness to honor her. (Photo courtesy of Berkeley Underground Scholars)

Despite the heartache, Medina said she hopes to advocate for better policies in the nonprofit sector that can help protect social workers like Bracamonte — to keep them safe. Medina is also serving as a mentor, like Bracamonte, to undergraduates at Berkeley.

It is another way for Medina to pass on the advice and guidance she was given.

“Sometimes, when Daniela shares something about Sylvia, it just really inspires me,” said Natalie Verducci, Medina’s undergraduate mentee. “I recently lost one of my best friends, also, so, I feel like I connect with Daniela in that way, too. We’re really trying to keep their legacies alive. And by doing so, it motivates us in our own work to keep going.”