In the mid 2000s, a group of incarcerated men from Richmond, California began meeting inside San Quentin to discuss a shared frustration: they were watching their hometown, located just five miles away from the prison, show up in the news night after night for the same reason—gun violence.
Among those men was Mount Tamalpais College (MTC) alumnus Sam Vaughn, who paroled from San Quentin in 2007 and now serves as the leader of the City of Richmond’s Office of Neighborhood Safety (ONS).
“We were just tired of seeing so many people in our city getting shot and killed,” said Vaughn. “Going to chow in the morning or going to work and realizing it was somebody’s brother, somebody’s cousin, somebody’s uncle who had been shot. We all got together to try to figure out what we could do to reduce that violence on the streets. We called it the Richmond Project.”
Vaughn had transferred to San Quentin in 2001, simply trying to get closer to home. When he arrived, however, he was surprised to learn that this prison was very different from the one he was coming from—this one had a college. He immediately enrolled at Mount Tamalpais College, a decision that would have a significant impact on his future.
“When I found out there was a college program, I felt like it would be a crime not to take advantage of it. So I took the English and Math college prep courses that first term, and the next semester I started working towards my degree.”
Growing up, Vaughn’s relationship with school had been complicated. He was a talented student, but as he got older, life got in the way of his studies.
“School was always easy for me growing up,” Vaughn said. “Once I hit high school, my personal life and family life—it all went bad, so I kind of just stopped caring, stopped applying myself. I failed the 10th grade for the third time, and then I just dropped out.”
At Mount Tamalpais College, Vaughn rediscovered his strengths as a student. He also began connecting with people he wouldn’t normally have engaged with.
“When you went to school, you were a student,” he said. “You weren’t a black dude from the Bay Area. You weren’t a Crip or BGF. You weren’t Norte. You weren’t an Aryan—you’re a student. We were all students and we treated each other as such. So it broke down a lot of normal prison culture. And it broke down all those barriers.”
That is when the Richmond Project was born. Vaughn and his co-organizers realized that the perspective they had gained at San Quentin and in MTC’s classrooms could help them develop solutions to the violence in their community back home.
“Out there, folks were killing each other over what neighborhood they’re from,” Vaughn said. “In here, we’re from those same neighborhoods, but now we’re sitting here eating with each other and taking care of each other.”
Over time, the work became more formal and drew community and civic leaders into the conversation. Vaughn describes meetings that brought together advocates and officials from across Richmond.
“They started coming into the prison to talk with us,” he said. “We’d have city council members, city managers, the mayor, community advocates, and the consultant they hired to help solve the problem.”
In 2007, the City of Richmond launched its Office of Neighborhood Safety with a focus on interrupting cycles of retaliatory gun violence. The Richmond Project was an influential factor in the creation of ONS.
Shortly before Vaughn was released from San Quentin in 2007, a close friend and mentor asked him what he planned to do with his life when he got home.
“I told him I was planning on getting right back in the union—go back to being a heavy equipment operator. He said, ‘Man, that’s such a waste.’ I was kind of offended—how is it a waste for me to go home and have a good career and provide for my family? But what he meant was that it was a waste of talent. And so I got it.”
When Vaughn finally did go home, the economy was in shambles and the union wasn’t providing enough work. He was forced to pivot, and his community—shaped by the relationships he built at San Quentin—helped open doors as he found his footing.
“Almost every job that I’ve had since then has been from my network, or a learned experience from my time at San Quentin. After I got home, I facilitated programs in the prison and in other facilities, like Alameda County Juvenile Hall and Youth Authority departments in Preston and Stockton, California. I was kind of piecemealing jobs to survive and pay bills.”
In 2018, Vaughn became the leader of ONS. Under his leadership, the office has continued to expand its prevention and intervention strategies—and in 2025, Richmond recorded its lowest murder rate ever: five homicides, down from 47 in 2007, the year ONS was founded.
For Vaughn, higher education helped him turn talent into purpose—and brought a broader perspective to his life and his work.
“The classroom gave me the chance to experience vulnerability and transparency with groups that I would normally have had no access to or contact with. Without that, I would have stayed in my own judgment. I would have come to conclusions without all the facts. Changing that perspective helps in this work. You have to have understanding. You have to be non-judgmental.”
