People

 

Gloria Quiroz

Advisory Board Member

mspersonality55@live.com

 

 

Debbie Reyes

Central Valley Coordinator

pmpvalle@yahoo.com

559- 367-6020

 

Debbie Reyes is the Director of The California Prison Moratorium Project, which seeks to stop all public and private prison construction in California. The California Prison Moratorium Project believes that expanding jails and prisons, is taking money away from real investments in our future such as: education, health care, social services. Reyes has been a grassroots community activist and organizer for many years and is influential in numerous justice organizations, In 2006, she was awarded a Soros Justice Fellowship for her campaign “Uncaging the Valley”. She is also an active steering committee member for Californian United for Responsible Budget, Central California Environmental Justice Network and San Joaquin Valley Cumulative Impact Project.    Reyes grew up in the Central Valley and has been a grassroots community activist / organizer for over 15 years.

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Ernesto Saavedra

Advisory Board Member

ernesto@caljustice.org

 

 

Laura Talkington-Brady

559-288-8982

 

Laura will be sending her bio shortly. But I would like to share what I know of Laura's work. Shes from New York and when you speak to her, you hear it in her heart, but thats not all you hear. When I asked Laura if she would be interested in CPMP she supportingly said absolutely. I've know Laura for quite a few years now and I know Laura's work, mostly it can be seen all over the Ella Baker Centers work. In my opinion her activism to free her son from the notoriuos Chad youth facility in Stockton propelled the Ella Baker Center into action and put them on the map.Period. And any mother who stood right by her side can testify to the same. Her relentless activism and presence at hearings, meetings and rallies with then Senator Gloria Romero, and any other legislator that would listen, helped shut the doors of the California Youth Facilities in Stockton. This is Laura's story, not EBC nor CPMP, but hers and we are excited to welcome her to CPMP's advisory board. She has recently been asked to sit on the local youth prison facility commission, right here in Fresno, where it is home to the valley's largest youth detention center in the central valley (1,400 beds) and to be completed by 2040, meaning, they are building prison beds for kids who's parent's aren't even born yet! More to come on the status of this youth prison from Laura.

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Maria Telesco

CPMP Advisory Board Member

maria.telesco@sbcglobal.net

559-264-2934

 

MARIA TELESCO - Prison Experience Bio

As a teen-ager I lived in a suburb or New York City, near Sing Sing Prison.  Throughout my youth, I heard about the executions by electric chair conducted there, and I was appalled at that, and even more appalled at how the adults - family, friends and neighbors - laughed and ridiculed the person being electrocuted.  Then in 1953, the news was all about Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, members of the Communist Party (it was legal) who would be executed at Sing Sing for allegedly "stealing the secret of the atomic bomb."  The story of their two small sons being brought to the prison for a final visit made me physically ill.  That was when, at age 19, I vowed to dedicate my adult life to abolition of the death penalty.  Since then I have worked with and for many organizations doing that work.

During my careers as both a Registered Nurse (RN), Certified Forensic Nurse, and Paralegal, I had occasion to work in a jail ward at a public hospital.  At other times I had occasion to visit people in jail or prison who were defendants or witnesses in cases I was assigned by the attorneys by whom I was employed.  In those situations, I felt compassion for the imprisoned, and never felt afraid of them.  While I did not and do not condone the crimes for which they were convicted and incarcerated (yes, some of them were actually guilty - others were erroneously convicted) I was touched by their humanity.  Regardless of the nature of the crime, these were human beings I was working with, and I was dismayed at the conditions they had to endure in the prisons.  In some cases, the prison staff, incredibly, were more abusive to the prisoners than the prisoners had been to their crime victims.

Working with Amnesty International, I had the opportunity to visit the UK on several occasions, to speak to AI groups regarding US prisons and death penalty.  During those visits I met with judges and political leaders, and learned how prison conditions in the UK were far superior  to those here in the USA.  Their sentences are much shorter than ours, their prison system is dedicated 100 percent to rehabilitation, and each prisoner is treated as an individual - no "one size fits all" sentencing or treatment.  I visited many prisons in the UK, spoke with many prisoners, and was favorably impressed by their rehabilitation programs and how prisoners are treated with dignity and respect.

Until ill health and old age caught up with me, I also had the opportunity, volunteering with several organizations, to visit prisons in several areas of the USA.  I found the conditions were pretty much the same all over the country, with a few regional differences.  I had the privilege of getting to know, and in some cases counsel, men on death row in several states, as well as in California.  I was not surprised to find that they, too, are human beings just like all of us - some of whom made bad choices, some of whom got caught, and others who didn't get caught.  Again, without condoling the crime, I feel great empathy for the prisoners.  They made bad choices but they are not "evil."

I worked for several years with medical-legal teams that visited California prisoners who reported poor or no medical care and requested our intervention.  Again I saw human beings who were suffering and had no power or control over their lives and survival.  When a crime is committed, loss of liberty is the punishment.  That alone should be the punishment.  The food should be edible, the blankets should be warm, and medical care should be adequate - this is NOT "coddling."

For over 35 years I have worked with and for prisoners in various (volunteer) capacities.  I have visited and at times counseled men on death row in California and other states.  Most recently I have been working as a volunteer Chaplain-Assistant at a men's prison.  I have visited several women at both Chowchilla prisons, though right now I visit only one.  I am a member of the Inmate Family Council (IFC) at CCWF, and work on the IFC Christmas "Goodie Bag" project for CCWF women.  I have also volunteered with the "Get on the Bus" program that brings children to visit incarcerated parents on Mother's/Father's Day.  I co-authored a book (now out of print) aimed at helping families/friends of prisoners cope, co-founded a support group for families/friends of prisoners, and counsel ex-convicts and battered women

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