With Emiliano‘s permission I have lifted these images straight from his website. We are working together on an interview for a second post on his work (scheduled for next week). It will include previously unpublished and untouched images from his contact sheets. Please stay tuned for that. Meanwhile enjoy my personal selection of six preferred prints.
ALL IMAGES © 2009 EMILIANO GRANADO
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The San Quentin Giants are well known in the San Francisco Bay Area. I have met a couple of guys in the past who’ve played inside the walls during regular season – it is not unusual.
In an ideal world, the to and fro of public in and out of prison would be without restriction, threat or security protocol. This way, society could fear inmates less and inmates would not be institutionalised to the extent they are today.
I realise this is pie-in-the-sky thinking as the minority of seriously dangerous prisoners necessarily dictate the need for stringent controls. Still it doesn’t mean that increasingly trusted and regular contact between inmate and no-inmate populations cannot be our ideal to shoot for. Smaller and purposefully designed institutions would certainly be the first step in this sea change.
The scheduled games for the San Quentin Giants baseball team are the closest approximation to genuine & normalised interaction between inmate and non-inmate populations. When will San Quentin get a basketball team? Or any other teams for that matter?
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Check out these sources for further information on the San Quentin Giants. Press Enterprise – Long Article and Audio, Mother Jones article – Featuring Granado’s photography, California Connected – Video, Christian Science Monitor – Long article and video, NPR Feature – Audio.
And, if you are really engrossed you can always purchase Bad Boys of Summer, a recent documentary from Loren Mendell and Tiller Russell.
Prison Photography 
4 comments
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March 10, 2009 at 11:36 am
Sven
or how about a soccer team? With the prison demographics I would think there’s enough of the inmates who might be into soccer.
As another side note: When my step-brother was in federal prison for his room mates pot plants, what kept him going was his ability to run on a track every day. Working out, letting off steam, and engaging in this meditative type of practice helped him make it through the tough climate of being locked up and idle the rest of the day. He now runs marathons regularly out in the Rocky Mountains and loves his job as a carpenter.
March 10, 2009 at 11:43 am
petebrook
sven. funny you should say. last night by chance i came across these photos of melchester united.
http://www.melchester.com/gallery/sanquentin/
my old team, ostrakizien f.c., used to play melchester in the san francisco soccer league division 2. when these pics were taken melchester were in division 3. they actually beat us into the automatic promotion spots for division 1 by a single point two years back.
so, if you want to organise a game, you could and should do it!
March 10, 2009 at 12:25 pm
Sven
that would be cool. Maybe we can get Man Chest Hair to do it, we’d just need a few extra guys to get to 11.
December 26, 2014 at 2:38 pm
Hargesheimer
If the idea is to pacify prisoners, well, soccer would at least bore them silly.