San Quentin Radio

From San Quentin Radio, here’s the story of a pair of cellmates who made the choice to live together, despite a mountain of obstacles.

David Jassy is a Grammy-nominated artist and songwriter from Stockholm, Sweden. With a passion for music and a promising career ahead of him, he flew to Hollywood to work with fellow artists.

Chanthon Bun is one of the incarcerated men at San Quentin who escaped the regime of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia as a child.

At San Quentin State Prison, there are a variety of spaces for incarcerated people to practice their faith or spirituality. The sweat lodge serves as a space for the Native American population.

Eldridge Leigh Yazzie is Navajo, and has been incarcerated for 27 years. Native Americans like Yazzie have the right to practice their spirituality in prison. But sometimes the rules of prison conflict with their spiritual practices.

Eric "Maserati E" Abercrombie is a 25-year-old guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He's been in prison for eight years.

A lockdown happens when correctional officers decide there is a threat to the safety and security of a prison. That might be a fight, an assault, or a race riot. So what's it like in a lockdown?

Some inmates say food in a prison's chow hall is tasteless and bland. But that's not the case when John Parratt — also known as Yah-Yah — is in the kitchen.

Cleo Cloman has spent over two decades behind bars for murder. He grew up in a two parent household and had dreams of playing professional baseball. After a rocky relationship with his father, he lost his passion for the sport and found a new pursuit: the streets.

Back in the 90s, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, or CDCR was trying to manage escalating violence behind prison walls. One way they decided to address that issue was by establishing something called Sensitive Needs Yards, or SNY, in order to separate out people who might need protective custody from the general prison population.