Penology: Duplex

"When I was in San Quentin," Benito Arzaga remembers, "we were allowed to visit with our families—if they stayed on one side of the table and we stayed on the other. My kids would reach out their hands to me to try to touch me. I'd look up at the guard, and he'd shake his head. The kids would start crying and yelling 'Daddy.' I couldn't do nothing. Just sit there and watch my kids crying."

Arzaga, 29, still has five months to serve of a four-year sentence for narcotics possession, yet last...

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