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Uncuffed: Pickleball at San Quentin

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A San Quentin resident just wasn’t fast enough to take on Warden Ron Broomfield (in black) and then-acting warden Oak Smith in the prison’s inaugural pickleball tournament. The event brought together unlikely teammates as incarcerated players and prison staff joined forces in a day of fun and fitness, a harbinger of the future of rehabilitation.
San Quentin News
A San Quentin resident just wasn’t fast enough to take on Warden Ron Broomfield (in black) and then-acting warden Oak Smith in the prison’s inaugural pickleball tournament. The event brought together unlikely teammates as incarcerated players and prison staff joined forces in a day of fun and fitness, a harbinger of the future of rehabilitation.

In early 2023, Governor Gavin Newsom announced an ambitious plan to transform San Quentin State Prison into the San Quentin Rehabilitation Center. It was a multimillion dollar plan to build a new facility, focused on rehabilitation and job training.

And with it came promises of a culture shift - like better relationships between staff and residents. The hope is that this is a first step towards a bigger change throughout the prison system in California.

In this award winning episode of Uncuffed, which originally aired in October 2023, our team of producers there share one unlikely step toward this change - it involves nets, some sweatbands, and paddles.