Incarcerated women learn to braid hair at Santa Rita Jail

DUBLIN, Calif. - Nikki Tims was busy learning to braid an intricate dollar sign design on the back of a mannequin's head at Santa Rita Jail in a pioneering program that she hopes will not only land her a job when she's released but teach her to control her anger and manage the trauma she's experienced in her life. 

"I learned it's OK for me to be vulnerable," she said earlier this week of the inaugural Freedom Braiders program, where stylists teach hair techniques, business skills and emotional strategies to incarcerated women. 

Freedom Braiders is part job skills and part therapy, where women learn to work with hair while also chronicling feelings in their journals and participating in activities like writing letters to their 15-year-old selves.

For Tims, it was hard, but good, to "talk about stuff you don't want to talk about." 

Freedom Braiders debuted at the San Francisco County Jail last year, and this is the first year it's running at Santa Rita Jail. 

Tims and the other 14 women in the class – who hold a mixture of minimum- to maximum-security classifications – were set to graduate on Friday with braiding certificates in a ceremony that showcased their work.

A few hours beforehand, a group of 15 men were set to graduate with construction certificates from a separate but complementary program at Santa Rita Jail – a collaboration with the Laborers' International Union of North America, or LiUNA.

Since 2023, 95 incarcerated men at Santa Rita Jail have participated in a 12-week pre-apprenticeship program that allows them to earn industry-recognized certifications in the trades. 

The Alameda County Sheriff's Office said of the 47 men who have been released back into their communities, 17 have passed their union assessment and become union members. 

Juan Rodriguez was out in a hard hat the other day, learning to build a new structure on the jail campus.

"My parents, my wife, my kids are happy with everything I'm doing," he said. "I've been doing much better. I can do better with my life, you know? That's what I'm hoping for." 

Other jails have job skills programs, too

Santa Rita Jail isn't the only facility that offers job skills training and, in many ways, is playing catchup with other jails and prisons.

Santa Clara County jails, for example, have offered vocational training and certificate programs for decades. There are financial literacy classes, art therapy, writing workshops and vocational programs at Elmwood Correctional Facility, from welding to veterinary assistance and working in a Goodwill store.  Those incarcerated in Santa Clara County can also get certifications in food service, retail, Google IT, ecological land management and janitorial services.

San Francisco jails debuted the same Freedom Braiders program last year, and has been offering a culinary certificate program since 2017. 

The idea of giving incarcerated people real life skills to help when they are released from custody got a renewed focus in March 2023 when California Gov. Gavin Newsom changed the name of San Quentin Prison to the San Quentin Rehabilitation Center, along with physical and cultural changes to the notorious prison. 

San Quentin has long offered many educational and job skills programs, including an accredited university, where prisoners have been learning from professors and graduate students since 1996.  San Quentin offers certificates in a variety of fields, including electronics, plumbing, IT, business and finance, fashion and cosmetology, to name some. 

How Santa Rita got the Freedom Braiders

Alameda County Sheriff Sgt. Priscilla Silva, program director at Santa Rita Jail, was introduced to the Freedom Braiders in San Francisco last year at the request of Undersheriff April Luckett-Fahimi. 

Silva quickly realized how a program like this could help incarcerated women, and she started to put a plan in motion. 

A full eight-week course program costs approximately $25,000 to run, according to Freedom Braiders' founder Joanna Hernandez. 

So Silva brainstormed on how to pay for the program and was able to get Five Keys School to pick up the majority of the cost.

Alameda County paid about $2,000 for the supplies, including the mannequin heads, gel, and combs.

Silva noted it's a pretty big deal that Santa Rita Jail is now offering vocational skills.

For years, Santa Rita Jail has carried a reputation for its high in-custody death rate and poor treatment of women, one of whom ended up having a baby in her cell when deputies didn't heed her cries. 

But with a new sheriff elected in 2022 and with a legal consent decree signed the same year forcing court-mandated changes related to mental illness, as well as COVID ending, the culture and practices at Santa Rita Jail have been changing. 

"A lot of pressure has been coming in about what re-entry services we can offer while people are still in custody," Silva said. "I heard from the board of supervisors and the community that they had a lot of questions about what we were trying to offer for the female population in particular."

Earlier this year, incarcerated women learned to compose music when The Julliard School came to teach a lesson. 

Silva also said that logistically, it was very challenging to offer this hairstyling class because of mixing the minimum-security women in with the maximum. 

But, all the women individually agreed to attend the braiding classes together, and Silva said "they did phenomenal. They all got along." 

‘Keep it going’ 

Kara Janssen, an attorney at Rosen, Bien, Galvan & Grunfield in San Francisco, who sued Alameda County prompting the consent decree, said she thought the hair-braiding program was a good one.

And she implored both Sheriff Yesenia Sanchez and the Alameda County Board of Supervisors to keep it going, and expand the offerings, as well. 

"It's one of a very few programs for women," Janssen said, "and it would be terrible for it to end, and the jail to say ‘never mind.’"

She said that independent jail consultants have pointed out that the female population of Santa Rita, which stands at about 100, hasn't gotten as much programming as men in the past. 

"And it's going to take resources to keep it going," Janssen said. 

Braiding hair

On a recent day this week, the Freedom Braiders class spent the first part of their lesson discussing their emotions and reviewing a prior lesson where they wrote letters to their 15-year-old selves.

Then, they took out their mannequins and started twisting hair, learning from master braiders Roqel Connors of Hayward and Tracie Williams of Oakland.

Tims, who was working on her dollar-sign braid, said she really liked writing a letter to her younger self – something she would never have thought of doing on her own.

"It taught me better coping mechanisms," she said. "Like, instead of immediately getting angry, kind of take a step back and breathe before I immediately react. I don't immediately start yelling and cussing at people. I try to talk it out first, think about how the other person might be feeling." 

Another student, D. Alexander, said she had never worked with hair before, as she began to part her mannequin head with a comb. 

"I've always wanted to learn how to braid," she said. "But it's more than just learning how to braid. It's learning to heal from trauma." 

While she said she didn't like living at Santa Rita Jail, the classes are "life-changing" and she gave the program high marks.

She said that aside from learning hairstyles, the act of journaling and dealing with her emotions were important aspects of the program to her. 

"I got a lot out of this class," Alexander said. "I'm a survivor." 

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