Paul V. Willis, pictured above, describes himself as a former Black Panther serving a sentence for something he didn’t do, though, as far as Panther politics were concerned, he was “involved in everything you ever read about.”
He uses his typewriter to draft complaints against correctional officers, and to pursue an appeal based on new information that he claims to have uncovered regarding improprieties on the part of the district attorney involved with his case.
Above: Paul V. Willis has been in prison since 1965, serving an 85-year sentence.
Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
Swintec, a New Jersey-based maker of office machines, sells a line of clear-plastic typewriters designed specifically for correctional institutions, available in 43 states as well as federal prisons and military brigs.
According to Ed Michael, sales manager at Swintec, many prisons ban access to computers even if they are not connected to the net, fearing that technically adequate prisoners will stay a step ahead of their guards by stashing digital documents that help them run businesses or become nefarious operations. Swintec does make word processors with small amounts of memory, but Michaels emphasizes that the storage systems are designed so that they are easy to inspect.
The company offers a variety of models to comply with the different rules at the prisons it serves. Some have memory capacities as low as 4 Kb. That’s enough to run an LCD display that allows users to check their last few lines of type before the keys actually hit the paper, making it possible to backspace and delete.
That’s particularly important, because whiteout is not allowed in San Quentin. The prison’s public information officer, Lt. Samuel Robinson, explains that this surprising rule is a response to the fact that inmates could use liquid paper to alter important paperwork issued by the prison.
Top photo: A corrections officer carries an inmate’s clear-plastic typewriter from San Quentin’s death row.
Bottom photo: A corrections officer holds a Swintec model 2416 DM CC (the CC stands for “clear cabinet”) typewriter outside San Quentin’s death row.
Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
In the midst of all this throwback technology, there is an oasis of modern media in the aging big house. A state-of-the-art computer lab, stocked with late model Macs and other computers, allows inmates to shoot documentaries as well as TV programs shown on the prison’s closed-circuit cable system.
None of the computers have internet access, but the prisoners’ work is a bridge to people outside of the prison, on DVD and San Quentin’s YouTube channel.
Repentance, a documentary by Troy Williams, chronicles how inmates can change themselves for the better during incarceration. His goal is to offer a path away from nihilism and anger, the “negativity” that he sees as the root cause of many people’s crimes. “If I see change,” he says, “I can be changed.”
In addition to working in audio and video, inmates at San Quentin have the option of working on the prison’s newspaper, which boasts well-written articles and a professional layout. Overall, however, the opportunities for California inmates to develop skills and pursue their educations have been hampered, suffering from cutbacks, as legislators attempt to tackle California’s ongoing budget crisis.
Above: Inmates Troy Williams (foreground) and E. “Phil” Phillips work on media projects.
Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
Several inmates involved in San Quentin’s media projects are musicians, including Blue (pictured above), who says that he once played with the San Francisco psychedelic-rock band Blue Cheer. The group is known in part for its cover of the blues song “Parchman Farm,” about a Mississippi state penitentiary where Son House and other blues musicians served time with hard labor. It is not clear whether Blue was the inspiration for the cover.
In addition to being a creative outlet for inmates, the music that inmates like Blue write and record can serve as soundtracks for video projects made by fellow prisoners, without raising copyright issues.
Above: Blue lays down guitar tracks in Garage Band inside San Quentin.
Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com