Un padre di famiglia con un raggiante futuro davanti a sé perde tutto quando uccide accidentalmente un ladro che ha fatto irruzione in casa sua. Nonostante emerga l'involontarieta' del fatto, viene condannato a passare tre anni in un carcere di massima sicurezza dove lvengono applicati codici e regole valevoli solo all'interno di quelle mura.
Adattamento del noto dramma teatrale di Luis Valdez su Sleepy Lagoon, un vero caso di omicidio dell'epoca: Henry Reyna è il leader di un gruppo di messicani-americani mandati a San Quintino senza prove concrete per la morte di un uomo avvenuta allo Sleepy Lagoon. Alice Bloomfield e George Shearer fanno parte del comitato di difesa e si battono contro questa ingiustizia per liberare Henry e i suoi amici.
La pellicola è una biografia dell'autore teatrale Lee Umstetter, il quale scoprì il suo talento artistico mentre era in carcere per rapina. Subito dopo essere entrato in carcere, Lee cerca il suicidio per evitare lo strazio della prigione, ma fallisce nel suo tentativo e durante la convalescenza scopre una grande passione per la lettura. Dopo essere diventato il bibliotecario della prigione di San Quintino, si cimenta nella stesura di un copione teatrale che cercherà di fare allestire da una compagnia di carcerati, anche grazie all'appoggio ed all'aiuto di Claude, una giornalista.
Ex-Army officer Jameson takes a job a prison guard at San Quentin. Joe, the brother of his new girlfriend May, is sentenced to the prison for robbery. When Jameson tries to separate lawbreakers from hardened criminals, badguy Hansen tries to stir up trouble by telling Joe about Jameson's interest in his sister.
An ex-con sets up a program to straighten out hard-core prisoners. Things don't go as planned.
On June 3, 1973, a man was murdered in a busy intersection of San Francisco’s Chinatown as part of an ongoing gang war. Chol Soo Lee, a 20-year-old Korean immigrant who had previous run-ins with the law, was arrested and convicted based on flimsy evidence and the eyewitness accounts of white tourists who couldn’t distinguish between Asian features. Sentenced to life in prison, Chol Soo Lee would spend years fighting to survive behind bars before journalist K.W. Lee took an interest in his case. The intrepid reporter’s investigation would galvanize a first-of-its-kind pan-Asian American grassroots movement to fight for Chol Soo Lee’s freedom, ultimately inspiring a new generation of social justice activists.
A young female prison guard finds out that her first assignment is to San Quentin, one of the toughest prisons in the country.
San Quentin's new warden crusades for reform and for a framed inmate who loves a nurse.
Drama set in San Quentin prison.
Johnny Cash at San Quentin was recorded live at San Quentin State Prison on February 24, 1969 and released as an album onJune 16 of that same year. The concert was filmed by Granada Television. Songs performed include Wreck of the Old 97 , I Walk the Line, San Quentin and A Boy Named Sue.
The grim news made international headlines: On August 21, 1971, prison authorities discovered a gun on famed Soledad Brother author, activist and San Quentin inmate George Jackson. A shootout ensued, killing Jackson, two other inmates and three guards, and wounding three more officers. Authorities asserted that only lawyer Stephen Bingham could have smuggled the weapon into the prison. Fearing that a conviction for abetting the guards’ deaths would lead to his own murder, the attorney fled, beginning a long, strange odyssey of pseudonymous exile. Strange indeed for the Yale-graduate scion of politically prominent New England elites.
A corrupt official at San Quentin tries to frame an innocent guard for several murders within the prison.