Good morning. It's Thursday, Dec. 14. I'm Thomas Curwen, a reporter specializing in long-form narratives. Here's what you need to know to start your day.
A death row inmate finds purpose in providing mental health support
I first met Craigen Armstrong last year during a tour of his floor in the Twin Towers Correctional Facility. I had never been inside the jail, which looms on the outskirts of downtown Los Angeles like a modern medieval fortress.
Sheriff deputies took me through a labyrinth of stairs, corridors and elevators to Module 141, where Armstrong was waiting.
We chatted a bit about a program that he and a fellow inmate, Adrian Berumen, helped develop for mentally ill inmates. Berumen had left for prison a few months earlier, and Armstrong was eager to talk about what they had accomplished.
Much is said about the mental health crisis in America's streets and jails. Politicians promise action, but action seems elusive.
Armstrong and Berumen's work, however, suggests that the crisis is not entirely unsolvable. Their program succeeds on the merits of its simplicity and the radical thought that if people with mental illness are treated with kindness and encouragement, they can get better.
After the tour, Armstrong agreed to share the story of not just this program but also his journey as an incarcerated man, trying to bring meaning and purpose — if not redemption — to his life.
Sgt. Julian Flores with the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department has worked closely with Craigen Armstrong to help implement programs and protocols for treating inmates with severe mental illness. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)
Convicted of the murder of three brothers in Inglewood in 2001, he spent 12 years on death row in San Quentin before the state Supreme Court reversed the judgment after his appeal and returned the case to the Superior Court. Still charged, he waits in jail.
I first heard about the mental health assistants program — as it is called — while working on a story last year about a young man with schizophrenia who was held at Twin Towers.
Armstrong and the young man never crossed paths, but I wish they had. The mental health assistants program brings inmates from the general population into Twin Towers, where they live with inmates with mental illness and help them manage their medications, hygiene and social skills.
The work is demanding. Each assistant is responsible for up to two dozen inmates and must practice patience and empathy in the presence of paranoia, hallucinations, depression and other symptoms of mental illness. I wondered where that capability came from among those whose time in jail probably required the exact opposite skills.
Having spent more than half of his life incarcerated, Armstrong understood the question.
"This is a system that disincentivizes empathy," he told me. "In jail, we're thinking about ourselves in order to survive. So it is hard to think about others."
He acknowledged initially being overwhelmed by the irrationality, randomness and volatility of many of the inmates, but then he realized how much they have in common.
"All of us are a life event away from mental illness," he said. "That is how fragile the mind is — how delicate it is — and if you don't have protective barriers — spiritual things to help you cope — you will become mentally ill, have nervous breakdowns, depression to the point that you are never the same again."
Over the course of reporting this story — four visits to Twin Towers and a series of phone interviews with Armstrong — I was struck by the scale of his achievement. Inmates were living in an environment that reflected their humanity. They were engaged with one another and committed to a routine that kept them safe and healthy.
In October 2023, Craigen Armstrong helped MC a graduation ceremony, held at Twin Towers Correctional Facility, for inmates who had taken classes designed to provide them with a better understanding of mental illness. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)
I also came to appreciate what Armstrong had overcome. His life will forever be caught up in a terrible cycle of events that played out over two nights in Inglewood 23 years ago — events that tragically will not surprise anyone familiar with neighborhoods in Los Angeles caught up in gang violence.
(At his trial, an expert from the Inglewood Police Department testified that 50 gangs operated in Inglewood, most affiliated with the Bloods. In 2001, the year he was arrested, there were 25 gang-related homicides in Inglewood, according to The Times.)
Incarcerated at age 20, Armstrong was a young man driven by impulse and fear, trying to figure out how to survive. When anger failed, he turned to education and the hope that he might be able to prove his value to a society that wanted to cast him aside.
After his appeal in 2016, he returned Los Angeles and was lucky to meet Berumen, whose life had followed a similar course and who was just as eager to prove to the world that one moment in his life didn't define who he was.
Jail in Los Angeles County is a bleak place. Inmates live in abject conditions with the constant threat of violence. Opportunity is limited, but against all odds, these two men found it and are now trying to share it with others.
Read the full story here.
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Have a great day, from the Essential California team
Thomas Curwen, long-form narratives reporter
Elvia Limón, multiplatform editor
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Laura Blasey, assistant editor
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