Imagining a Landscape Without Prisons

By Anna Maria Camardo

Eyes closed, legs crossed, I sit in Tim Young’s garden listening to the sounds of birds, feeling the watery rays of a winter sun on my cheeks. I can hear bamboo rustling beside me and smell the mulch beneath me. If I opened my eyes, I would see rolling pastures fading into a liquid horizon, tree branches shivering in the dry air, tiny specks that I would recognize as buildings far away in downtown Santa Cruz.

Eighty-nine miles away, Young sits in solitude in his 4.5 foot by 10 foot cell at San Quentin State Prison. 2020 marks Young’s 14th year on death row….