For decades, San Quentin stood as a symbol of America's harshest era of incarceration, housing California's death row and many of the state's most dangerous offenders.

The big picture: But now, in a transformation that would have sounded implausible even a decade ago, the state's oldest prison is trying to reinvent itself as something closer to a Scandinavian-style rehabilitation facility.

• Axios recently toured the facility, which opened in February.

Driving the news: On the edge of San Quentin's prison yard sits a $239 million, 81,000-square-foot learning complex, where incarcerated men study coding, journalism, service dog training, filmmaking, digital media and skilled trades.

• It's made possible through The Last Mile — a nonprofit that helps incarcerated people prepare for life after prison.

What was once one of California's most notoriously violent prisons now resembles, in some ways, a college campus more than a correctional facility.

• Former death row cells are being converted into more humane housing, incarcerated students move between bright classrooms and correctional officers talk openly about mentorship instead of punishment.

Zoom in: During my recent visit, inmates wearing blue t-shirts and Levi's jeans sat at computer stations learning coding and AI skills.

• Others edited films, produced audio projects and wrote news articles for the prison's paper, the San Quentin News. Outside, a small orchestra of performers rehearsed as service dogs in training walked across the yard.

• "This place has given me the opportunity to just be my authentic self," Marque Thompson, who studies coding after spending roughly 20 years incarcerated, told Axios. "We are more than our worst mistake."

Catch up quick: California — which has the second-largest state prison population in the country — launched an ambitious overhaul of San Quentin in 2023 after Gov. Gavin Newsom announced plans to redesign it into a rehabilitation center, inspired by Norway's correctional model.

• Norway's recidivism rate is 20% — among the lowest in the world — compared to roughly 60% of formerly incarcerated people in the U.S. who are rearrested within three years of release.
• The effort included shutting down death row and building the new learning center.

Between the lines: The San Quentin Rehabilitation Center is one of the country's most ambitious prison reform experiments and a direct challenge to decades of punitive incarceration policy.

• Incarcerated people who participate in education programs have a 43% lower chance of returning to prison than those who do not, per the nonpartisan research organization RAND.
• The Last Mile — with more than 1,600 incarcerated students and roughly 1,000 formerly incarcerated participants across nine states — notes its graduates have a recidivism rate below 8%, and a 75% employment rate after release, made possible through prison-to-workforce programs.

San Quentin's transformation comes amid a broader debate in California over punishment versus rehabilitation in the criminal justice system.

• Critics of rehabilitation-focused reforms argue education and therapy can't fully address repeat violent offending and question whether victims' families see enough accountability in programs centered on opportunity and self-development.
• Supporters argue the old model failed both incarcerated people and public safety.
• "We used to send people out with no education, with really nothing," Warden Chance Andes said. "Now we're giving them degrees, trades, but most of all just some humanity."

For Louis Sale, film classes gave him a renewed sense of hope.

• "Before I came here I didn't see my life as a filmmaker," Sale told Axios. "Now, I can't see my life without being a filmmaker. I really feel like I have a purpose."

Share this story

Stay off the road this afternoon if you want to avoid the worst Memorial Day weekend traffic.

• AAA predicts this will be the busiest Memorial Day ever for travel, meaning your departure time could make or break your trip.

Zoom in: Peak traffic congestion is expected to hit the Bay Area today at 6:15 p.m. from San Francisco to Napa via I-80 E.

• 45 million Americans will travel 50 miles or more this weekend, about 200,000 more than last year.
• Roughly 39 million of them will be driving.

🏃‍♂️ BTS member Suga secretly ran in this year's Bay to Breakers race the morning before performing a sold-out concert at Stanford Stadium. (ABC7)

💵 Mayor Lurie will tap $34 million from the city's rainy-day reserve to help residents keep their Medi-Cal benefits as new Trump-era work requirements threaten to strip coverage from low-income recipients. (SF Standard)

🍽️ The Michelin Guide added four new SF restaurants: Kitchen Istanbul, Maria Isabel, Minnie Bell's Soul Movement and Via Aurelia. (SF Eater)

🎼 The San Francisco Symphony named 39-year-old Hong Kong-born conductor Elim Chan as its next music director. She is the first woman in the orchestra's 115-year history to hold the role. (SF Chronicle)

A long weekend awaits, but before that, we are back for another edition of your favorite thing on the internet.

• That's right, it's time to test your smarts with our weekly news quiz.

Nearly 44% of y'all achieved 3/3 status last week.

💅 Shoutout Andrea C. for being the first to submit her perfect score.

• Additional shoutouts go to Tamara G., Tom L., Chris M., Kyle K., Virginia S., Elena G., Larry H., Sandy J., Claire V., Brian H. and Julie T.!

👉 Go here to take the quiz.

🧛🏻 In honor of World Goth Day, let's rewind to the city's prime darkwave haunts of the late 1990s.

Before TikTok made goth cool again, San Francisco already had Necropolis.

• Goth night at Transmission Theatre (where the club Halcyon lives today) was one of many locales known for drawing crowds clad in velvet, vinyl and heavy eyeliner dancing to classics from The Cure, Siouxsie and The Banshees, Joy Division and more.

For many, Necropolis and clubs like Roderick's Chamber were fond gathering spaces for the city's nightlife misfits.

• It gave such partygoers a place to gather during the early dot-com years — a goth revival that was both rebellious, communal and a darkly dressed counterpoint to the era's Silicon Valley optimism.

🥀 Today, places like DNA Lounge and Cat Club are keeping the subculture alive for longtime goths and curious newcomers alike.