p0diabl0

They acknowledge and make fun of many of the characters that have come and gone now. The show jumped the shark so hard it managed to trainwreck in ways I didn't know were possible.

So as a writer - when do you think you'll be able to retire?

I'm not with the IP but I am a Criminal Justice major who was able to take a California Prison Tour. We visited 9 prisons including San Quentin over the course of a week.

Inmates are assigned a score based on the severity of their crime and a few other factors. This score can go up based on bad behavior but otherwise goes down a few points every year. There are four levels of prisons in CA with a psuedo fifth level being Pelican Bay although it's technically a level four.

San Quentin was a level two prison (formerly three or four IIRC). Inmates sentenced to life in prison ("lifers") have a cap - they can never make it down to level one, so you'll see a lot of well behaved lifers here. As far as the prisons we saw you're right, it did have a lot more opportunities than others. One of the biggest benefits is being right near the city of SF rather than out in the middle of nowhere. It makes it easier for both volunteers and family to come visit. Quite a few tour groups go through SQ as well so inmates there are used to it.

All that said, they'll put you where they want to put you. Having your score go down to the next bracket won't immediately have you shipped off to a lower level prison. The other level two prisons we toured were Folsom and Soledad Central Training Facility. Both had some work opportunities, especially CTF. Folsom is where they make the license plates.