Every week The Beat Within, a project of the Pacific News Service in San Francisco, turns out a 60+-page magazine packed with the writing and art of young people. The contributors are incarcerated youth, students in the program’s conversation and writing workshops held in juvenile halls, and the magazine is the forum that links them to one another and to the outside world. The staff barely finishes printing the last issue, called The Beat Within, before more stories, poems, and drawings flood into the office.

The magazine had its genesis in the death of the rapster, Tupac Shakur, in 1996. At the time, David Inocencio was the education director of Youth Outlook Magazine (“Yo!”), a publication of the Pacific News Service, and running a writing class in a juvenile hall. The news of Shakur’s murder triggered an outpouring of student anger, grief, and despair, which Inocencio directed into their writing. Moved by what they had written, he typed up their work, and distributed the four-page handout to all the juvenile halls in San Francisco. With that, Inocencio had, unwittingly, published the first edition of The Beat Within.

“I had talked a lot about words and images being more powerful than weapons,” says Inocencio. “This was a chance to show the kids that they had something important to say and that others needed to hear it.”

Inocencio and the Pacific News Service established The Beat Within

Inocencio and the Pacific News Service established The Beat Within as a separate project and Inocencio as its director. Since then, Inocencio has expanded The Beat Within’s reach to juvenile halls in the greater Bay Area and added a paid media internship program for interested students after they are released from detention.

When he started the writing workshops, Inocencio had more far-reaching goals than merely getting troubled kids to write. For him, the class was a chance for the students to reflect on their lives, develop trusting relationships with a reliable adult, find their voices, and open doors to the outside world.

Each week Inocencio and his small staff generate three topic ideas, written in English and Spanish, which a team of 25 facilitators, including Inocencio, take to the 50 workshops offered weekly. Conversation is as integral to the workshops as writing, and the facilitators spend about half of the class engaging the students in dialogues about the topics before they start to write. Sometimes the kids balk at the topics and want to write about something else, which is fine with Inocencio as long as they adhere to The Beat Within’s few rules: no foul language, nothing sexual, and no gang references.

“We remind the kids that the purpose of their writing is to educate others about what they think and feel, “says Inocencio, “but they also have to consider the consequences of what they write. Will it bring people together or will it provoke a fight?”

Inocencio is continuously recruiting new facilitators to run the workshops

Inocencio is continuously recruiting new facilitators to run the workshops and they are a varied lot. “It doesn’t matter their race, age, or background,” says Inocencio. “These kids are hungry to talk, hungry for connections, hungry to be loved. They’re always asking the facilitators when they’re coming back. They desperately want someone in their lives who is reliable and consistent.”

The public schools offer middle and high school classes in the juvenile halls in their districts. As a community program, The Beat Within has the advantage of not being bound by school curriculum. “We stress that we’re a community program and that the workshops are about making connections,” says Inocencio. “We want them to tell their stories so that they can be examples and touch others’ lives.”

Unlike English teachers, the facilitators don’t edit the students’ spelling, grammar or organizational structure unless they ask for help. Inocencio intentionally keeps their writing raw so that the kids can recognize their own voices. “They get furious if we change their words and they don’t sound like themselves,” he says.

The facilitators work individually with the students. Some are so fearful or lacking in confidence that they have to be coached from start to finish; others, who are barely literate, can dictate their stories to the facilitator. “Our approach is all about encouragement,” says Inocencio. “We compliment them on having the courage to write about their thoughts and feelings. We’re constantly telling them, ‘That’s an awesome beginning. You’re doing great. Keep going.’ We try to shine a light on their lives at a time when everything is dark and crumbling.”

Most of the kids write poignant pieces about missing their family and friends. There’s also the inevitable show of bravado but, more commonly, they write about their regrets, what they’ve learned while being locked up, and how their lives will be different when they get out.

The magazine publishes about 80 percent of the writing that’s submitted

The magazine publishes about 80 percent of the writing that’s submitted, but the other 20 percent, says Inocencio, is rejected because it’s too hateful or self-incriminating. For young people who never got recognition in school and who were never told that they had anything worthwhile to say, getting published in The Beat Within is a big deal. “The Beat gives these kids the voice they never knew they had,” says Inocencio. They get really excited when they know that something they’ve written will be printed. They grab the magazine and start flipping through it, shouting, ‘Where’s my piece? Where’s my piece?’ For a lot of these kids, The Beat is the only thing they read.”

Every piece printed in the magazine is accompanied by a brief response from the workshop facilitator, complimenting the students on their writing or, sometimes, challenging them to come up with a plan to act on the wisdom they say they’ve acquired while in detention. “We want to show the kids that we take their writing seriously,” says Inocencio, “and that what they write deserves a response.”

Seeing their names in print is one reward for participating in the workshops. Another carrot that the facilitators dangle is the possibility of a paid three-month internship with the magazine when they’re released from juvenile hall. Hundreds of students have gone through the internship program. Some have stayed longer than three months and a few have even become full-time employees. The internship offers attractive perks: Participants work out of the Pacific News Service office, have use of its computers, and are trained as spokespersons for the project. The Pacific News Service has several other youth programs, and the interns can sit in on the meetings of the Youth Communication Team to learn more about editing and photography. And to help the interns make the transition from detention to living on their own, the Pacific News Service has a social worker on staff who acts as their advocate in finding housing and continuing their education.

The Beat Within’s operating budget of $527,000 is funded out of the Youth Communications Division of Pacific News Service’s annual budget. It also receives some grants from foundations and individual donors. According to Inocencio, a larger budget would allow him to develop a business plan for replicating the program and generating income. Establishing a speakers’ bureau would also be a way to bring greater visibility to the program’s successes and attract more donors. And, of course, a larger budget would allow him to raise the minimal salaries the facilitators receive. 

After 12 years as director of The Beat Within, Inocencio is as enthusiastic about the project as the day it began. ”It probably sounds corny, but the work I do is an act of love. The first time I sat down with kids in their cells and read their writing, I knew I had to create an outlet for their voices so that the community could hear their hopes and dreams and see that there was more to these kids than appears on the surface. I think The Beat is doing that."

www.thebeatwithin.org