Sam Brown
Guest Facilitator
Samual Nathaniel Brown is an artist, an educator, a philosopher, a spoken word poet, and an organizer.
His story and work inside prison has been published in numerous books, anthologies, and newsletters. He paroled from Lancaster in December of 2021, after serving 24 years in California State Prisons. While inside, after thousands of hours of self-help programs, he learned to lead and then develop similar programs, including the 10P Program in New Folsom Prison, geared toward emotional literacy and inner transformation. The program expanded two additional prisons, including Lancaster State Prison, which now has a 10-year waitlist to participate. He also co-founded the Anti-violence Safety and Accountability Project (ASAP), which works to break the cycle of harm by dismantling systemic racism, providing healing to the impacted, and generally sharing the tools of justice that communities need to transcend violence.
He is also passionate about the reform of the criminal legal system. While incarcerated, he took the time to become a carceral scholar and rediscover the transformative nature of education. He graduated with honors with two Associates Degrees in Social Science and Sociology, and a Bachelors in Communications Studies. After graduation, he developed partnerships with the California State University in Sacramento, the McGeorge School of Law, and multiple non-profit organizations working in the criminal legal space. He is also the original author of ACA8, a bill he originally drafted while incarcerated, which will amend the California Constitution to end Involuntary Servitude, modern-day slavery, in California State Prisons.
In the creative sector, he was the co-executive producer of a documentary, “Step Inside The Circle: Childhood Trauma Behind Bars”, where he brought 250 men together to talk about childhood trauma on film. He is also a musical artist, a two time “Louder than a Bomb's” statewide spoken word poetry champion, co-author of the children's book "Do You See Me", and 2021 co-recipient of the Davis Vanguard Justice Award.
