A model for prison reform

San Quentin's approach to inmates anticipates their eventual return to society. For Newsom, it is a legacy that contrasts with Trump's harsher vision for public safety.

- ANITA CHABRIA

THOSE HELD at San Quentin Rehabilitation Center can do their own laundry, make their own meals and treat guards as mentors.

ROBERT GAUTHIER Los Angeles Times

A strange quirk at San Quentin state prison is that most of those incarcerated behind its towering walls are unable to see the San Francisco Bay that literally laps at the shore a few yards away.

That changed recently with the completion of new buildings-holding among other accouterments a self-serve kitchen, a library, a cafe and a film studio and third-floor classrooms that look out over that beautiful blue expanse, long a symbol of freedom and possibility.

In the new San Quentin Rehabilitation Center, along with learning job skills and earning degrees, incarcerated men can do their own laundry, make their own meals, and interact with guards as mentors and colleagues of sorts, once a taboo kind of relationship in the us-and-them world of incarceration.

"You want to clothes wash? You wash them," said Gov. Gavin Newsom, debuting the new facilities, including laundry machines, for reporters last week. "You want to get something to eat. You can do it, whenever."

"All of a sudden, it's like you're starting to make decisions for yourself," he said. "It's called life."

Listen closely, and one can almost hear President Trump's brain exploding with glee and outrage as his favorite Democratic foil seemingly coddles criminals. A cafe? C'mon. Bring on the midterms!