The revolutionary prison program where men help each other put down their guns: ‘Don’t end up like me’

In the Arms Down program at San Quentin in California, incarcerated men analyze the violence, heartbreak and poor choices that have shaped their lives

On a recent Friday morning, the chapel of San Quentin prison was abuzz as more than 100 incarcerated men and their friends and families took their seats at tables filling the room. A banner with large orange lettering hanging at the front read Arms Down: Teaching there are options between the first and second amendment", and the mood was festive, with the men hugging their spouses, parents and siblings.

Now sheltered from the foggy, misty Marin county morning, participants and leaders of this first-of-its-kind program stepped onto the stage and started to talk, about mistaking being feared for being respected, about living with unaddressed trauma, about leaning into misconceptions of manhood and how that led them to rely on firearms as a source of safety and power.