[8] The prison has been featured on film, radio drama, video, podcast, and television; is the subject of many books; has hosted concerts; and has housed many notorious inmates.

[16] As of 2001, San Quentin's death row was described as "the largest in the Western Hemisphere";[17] as of 2005, it was called "the most populous execution antechamber in the United States.

The adjustment center received solid doors, preventing "gunning-down" or attacking persons with bodily waste.

[16] Although $395 million was allocated in the 2008–2009 state budget for new death row facilities at San Quentin, in December 2008 two legislators introduced bills to eliminate the funding.

[31] On March 13, 2019, after Governor Gavin Newsom ordered a moratorium on the state's death penalty, the state withdrew its current lethal injection protocol, and San Quentin dismantled and indefinitely closed its gas and lethal injection execution chambers.

[53][54] In 1851, California's first prison opened; it was a 268-ton wooden ship named the Waban, anchored in San Francisco Bay and outfitted to hold 30 inmates.

After a series of speculative land transactions and a legislative scandal,[57] inmates who were housed on the Waban constructed San Quentin which opened its first cell block, nicknamed "the Stones", in 1854.

Prior to Duffy, San Quentin had gone through years of violence, inhumane punishments and civil rights abuses against prisoners.

[59] Duffy had the offending prison guards fired and added a librarian, psychiatrists, and several surgeons at San Quentin.

[61] In 1941, the first prison meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous took place at San Quentin; in commemoration of this, the 25-millionth copy of the AA Big Book was presented to Jill Brown, of San Quentin, at the International Convention of Alcoholics Anonymous in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Spector turned down the invitation to be assistant warden and chose instead to become senior librarian if he could institute his theories on reading as a program to encourage pro-social behavior.

[66] Between 1992 and 1997, a "boot camp" was held at the prison that was intended to "rehabilitat[e] first-time, nonviolent offenders"; the program was discontinued because it did not reduce recidivism or save money.

"[68] Later that year, the warden was fired for "threaten[ing] disciplinary action against a doctor who spoke with attorneys about problems with health care delivery at the prison.

By June 22, at least 350 inmates and staff had tested positive, in what a federal judge called a "significant failure" of policy.

[71] In March 2023, California governor Gavin Newsom announced a "historic transformation" of the then-called San Quentin State Prison as part of a project to improve public safety through a greater focus on rehabilitation and education.

A framing story is told in the first person by Darrell Standing, a university professor serving life imprisonment in San Quentin State Prison for murder.

Standing discovers how to withstand the torture by entering a kind of trance state, in which he walks among the stars and experiences portions of past lives.