California’s parole system has a difficult task: to honor the immeasurable impact of serious crimes on victims and communities while fulfilling the state’s legal commitment to granting parole for rehabilitated inmates. Writer Kate McQueen and incarcerated journalist Joe Garcia teamed up to examine this issue, specifically through the case of Manson family cult member Bruce Davis, in Alta Journal’s “The Never-Ending Story.” McQueen will join formerly incarcerated journalist Jesse Vasquez and Alta Live to expand on this issue. Is there any possibility in California’s promise of parole for high-profile inmates like Davis, who’s 81 years old and has been up for parole 33 times since 1977? What’s the right balance between crime committed and time served, and who should have the responsibility of deciding?
About the guests:
Kate McQueen is a writer on the faculty at UC Santa Cruz. She serves as an editorial adviser to Wall City, San Quentin’s prisoner-run quarterly magazine, and as the managing editor of Prison Journalism Project’s newspaper, PJP Inside.
Jesse Vasquez serves as executive director for the Friends of San Quentin News and Pollen Initiative, nonprofit organizations advancing transformational, incarcerated-run multimedia programs such as San Quentin News and ForwardThis Productions.
At the height of COVID, he worked at the Alameda County Community Food Bank distributing resources to thousands of families. Before that, he worked with Arsola’s Distribution Center to coordinate housing for formerly incarcerated individuals. He also helped organize one of the first reentry resource centers with the Department of Adult Parole Office in East Oakland.
Vasquez was incarcerated as a juvenile and spent almost 19 years in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation until former governor Jerry Brown commuted his sentence. Since his release in 2019, he has volunteered in various high schools to help teens understand their options and opportunities in spite of their environmental surroundings.
