You have reached the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation at San Quentin State Prison.

This podcast contains language that may not be appropriate for all listeners.

Lissiners, discretion is advised.

The thing that sticks to mind the most still makes me laugh when I think about it.

And this is dark because I mean people who don't work in prison may not find this funny.

But one of the serial killers over there was very notorious and killed a lot of people.

And he goes to my services and one day I was walking away from his cell.

We were talking and he said, uh, we'll see you later, father. Don't do anything I wouldn't do.

And I thought to myself, well, you've really set the bar pretty low for me, didn't you?

You're now tuned in to San Quentin's Ear Hustle from PRX's Radio Topia.

I'm Irlon Woods. I'm incarcerated here at San Quentin State Prison in California.

I'm Nigel Puer, a visual artist who volunteers at the prison.

And together we're going to take you inside.

This time we're taking you into a prison within the prison.

I come here to San Quentin almost every day and I always walk the same path.

Once I get through the inner checkpoint, I step into the garden chapel area and it's weird to say but it's actually kind of lovely.

It was cool, it was cool.

It's nice because you know, I always see the same guys tending the rose bushes and the other kind of cheerful plantings that are in there.

And on the right is the chapel.

Right.

In front of me is the hospital and to the left is this building with really large kind of gothic writing that says adjustment center.

The AC, that's what we call it.

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