This week we’re looking at Dell’Arte’s theater program at Pelican Bay State Prison, the subject of a new documentary. We’ve also got an update on the Barred Owl culling plan to save the Northern Spotted Owl for extinction, which is now itself under threat. Hit subscribe for weekly updates on Humboldt stories.
Pelican Bay State Prison
Posted inNews
‘I am an Artist’
As the film opens, men trickle into Pelican Bay State Prison’s B-facility gym to take their places in a wide circle of folding chairs, and Samuel Nault’s even voice plays over the footage: “We are all creators, every single one of us. It is the chaos and pain that we created which ultimately brought us […]
Posted inNews
‘First in the Country’: Incarcerated Students in CPH Degree Program Now Eligible for Federal Financial Aid
Incarcerated students enrolled in a groundbreaking program at Pelican Bay State Prison to earn their bachelor’s degrees from Cal Poly Humboldt are now the first in the nation eligible to receive Pell Grants to pay for their education. Access to the aid opened up this summer under federal legislation signed in 2020, reversing a previous […]
Posted inNews
Judge Requires COVID Vaccines for California Prison Workers
California prison workers will join the list of state employees who must be vaccinated against COVID, a federal judge ruled Monday — a loss for the state prison guards’ union and Gov. Gavin Newsom. For months, the politically powerful union and the Newsom administration have resisted a COVID vaccine mandate for prison workers, despite the […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
David’s Out
The first time I walked inside Pelican Bay State Prison I met David Nguyen. He was one of the first two graduates (along with Larry Vickers) to earn their Associate Degrees for Transfer from College of the Redwoods’ Pelican Bay Scholars Program. A monumental achievement. At the time, I was in my second semester at Humboldt […]
Posted inNews
Humboldt Man Found Dead in Pelican Bay Prison Cell
Pelican Bay State Prison authorities are investigating the death of Joshua E. Kirtley, who was in prison for the 1998 murder of Paul Sanders at a marijuana grow in the Southern Humboldt area, as a homicide. Staff found 42-year-old Kirtley dead in his cell on Oct. 17. Jesse A. Rippee, Kirtley’s cellmate, who was in […]
Posted inNews
COVID-19 Case at Pelican Bay as Prison Transfers to Slowly Restart, but not from Humboldt Quite Yet
A staff member at Pelican Bay State Prison has tested positive for COVID-19, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation website. The prison located north of Crescent City is one of the most notorious in the state system, opening in 1989 to house California’s most serious offenders. To date, 18 Pelican Bay inmates […]
Posted inNews
Artists Inside
Tucked in the golden rolling hills of the Tomales Bay watershed, a dozen miles north of Mt. Tamalpais, sits the Marin Museum of the American Indian in Miwok Park. Henry Frank, the museum’s vice president, sits beneath a canopy of redwoods in late October while scrolling through his phone for photographs he took of hawks […]
Posted inNews
The Graduate
As the Northern California sunset sinks beyond razor wire fencing and panopticon-style guard towers, David Nguyen reflects on the past 14 years of his life and contemplates the choices that led him to prison. If it wasn’t for his attire and surroundings — and the subject of the day — you probably wouldn’t suspect he […]
Posted inNews
CDCR: Pelican Bay Inmates Shot After Attacking Staff; Several Injured
Pelican Bay State Prison officers opened fire on a group of inmates who allegedly attacked staff members trying to break up a fistfight this morning, sending five to the hospital with gunshot wounds, according to a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation press release. Eight staff members were also hurt and two remained hospitalized, the […]