November 21, 2025
AFTER BEING WAREHOUSED in a California prison for decades before their release, formerly incarcerated men and women visited San Quentin Rehabilitation Center for a symposium on emotional awareness and healing.The event was held Oct. 16 and was sponsored by the Emotional Awareness Therapy (EAT) program, a 52-week, 12-step guided diversion program that uses incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals to help teach the importance of self-awareness and emotional intelligence. It’s a group founded by incarcerated person Harry C. Goodall Jr.
Members of the group gathered in a circle sitting eye-to-eye with their former peers for a dialogue rooted in vulnerability and accountability.
Sol Mercado is a formerly incarcerated woman who helped facilitate the event. She spent 16 years in the Central California Women’s Facility for shooting and killing a man as a teenager.
“I told myself nobody is going to hurt me anymore, that’s what led me to committing my crime,” she said. “A lot of us were victims before we were perpetrators.”
Mercado went on to share how she was repeatedly raped by a family member as a young child and as a teen. She said that most of the violence she endured came from her own family. She was kicked out of her home at 13 years old and eventually joined a gang and committed murder.
While incarcerated, she found a way to make amends to her victim and transform her life through gardening at CCWF, where incarcerated people hang up tribute ribbons for their crimes to pay respect to their victims. Now out of prison for five years, she works at Planting Justice, an organization that empowers incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people to cultivate community healing and food sovereignty through gardening.
Caroline Robles also attended the symposium. She was sentenced to 15 years-to-life for second-degree murder. Robles talked about growing up in a very dysfunctional household in East Los Angeles. After serving several years in prison, she found her strength through religion. After her release, she still devotes her life to Jesus Christ and working to help incarcerated women.
Michele Scott was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. She spent 30 years in prison before getting a rare commutation from then-Gov. Jerry Brown in 2018. Released in 2021, she continues to share her story and strength to help advocate for more than 5,200 people serving life sentences without the possibility of parole, or LWOP, in California.
Read the full story from Local News Matters – Bay Area here!
