Leadership Foundry

This groundbreaking program brings personal and professional development to our Impact Team through an experiential curriculum of leadership, innovation, skill building, and rehabilitation.

Our Leadership Foundry is transforming the experience of incarceration into a journey of new horizons and positive impact. At SkunkWorks, we believe in the untapped potential of incarcerated people to be leaders, change-makers, and pioneers in criminal justice reform.

Through our unique approach, our Impact Team members don’t just participate; they lead. They identify challenges, devise solutions, and spearhead impactful projects within and beyond prison walls. This hands-on involvement ensures our initiatives resonate deeply and are grounded in real-world experiences.

Our mission extends beyond individual transformation. As our Impact Team members evolve into role models and leaders, they inspire a culture of rehabilitation, empathy, and positive agency. This ripple effect serves to redefine rehabilitation and justice, proving the power of trust and empowerment.

Join us in supporting this program as we forge a future where justice and rehabilitation are seamlessly intertwined, led by those who understand it best.

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Chiaroscuro: Light in the Shadows

Chiaroscuro is a flagship art-focused initiative by San Quentin SkunkWorks that we hope will become a scalable model for bringing art, beauty, hope, and inspiration into otherwise bland and colorless space of prisons. The initiative is supported by CDCR leadership, San Quentin SkunkWorks, world renowned artists, and a growing network of allies.

With oversight from CDCR, these artists will work in collaboration with incarcerated people and staff to develop visual stories of redemption, hope, learning, peace and an inspired vision of human potential. Our goal is to have a permanent gallery of murals and art installations throughout San Quentin. If done well, this project will be more than art installations and murals — it will be one of the most visible cultural interventions inside a U.S. prison.

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Transformative Gaming

We are changing the racially segregated culture of prison by harnessing the pro-social power of games. Whether tabletop games, role-playing games, select-video games, or through our Pawns to Progress Chess Club, increasing access to games for the incarcerated population does more to promote integration across social barriers than a thousand lectures ever could.

Prisons in California, and in many other places, are mostly racially segregated. However, there is a rare exception — a place where people of different races, gender identities, and affiliations congregate freely — the gamer table. It is unremarkable because its just games, but it is also revolutionary because games bring people together in a system that keeps people divided.

We all experience the beauty in a brilliant move, the elation of a hard-won victory, and the sting of defeat equally. Games allows us to do that together in community.

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