Clinton Truman Duffy (1898–1982) was the
warden
A warden is a custodian, defender, or guardian. Warden is often used in the sense of a watchman or guardian, as in a prison warden. It can also refer to a chief or head official, as in the Warden of the Mint.
''Warden'' is etymologically identic ...
of
San Quentin State Prison
San Quentin State Prison (SQ) is a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation state prison for men, located north of San Francisco in the unincorporated place of San Quentin in Marin County.
Opened in July 1852, San Quentin is the ...
between 1940 and 1952.
He was a prominent opponent of
capital punishment
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
.
[
]
Life
His father was a guard at San Quentin, he was raised on the prison grounds, and his wife's father was also a San Quentin guard.[
The 1954 film ''Duffy of San Quentin'' tells his story as a warden.]Alcoholics Anonymous
Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is an international mutual aid fellowship of alcoholics dedicated to abstinence-based recovery from alcoholism through its spiritually-inclined Twelve Step program. Following its Twelve Traditions, AA is non-professi ...
program
* Desegregation of the dining hall
* Creation of the first prisoner-developed radio programs inside a prison
* Inauguration of a prison newspaper
He was known to walk unarmed among the prisoners and to chat with them.[ Although he "supervised 90 executions during his tenure as warden", he opposed capital punishment.][
After he left San Quentin, he worked for the state's ]parole board A parole board is a panel of people who decide whether an offender should be released from prison on parole after serving at least a minimum portion of their sentence as prescribed by the sentencing judge. Parole boards are used in many jurisdiction ...
; in addition, he wrote books and gave lectures about capital punishment.[ He died in ]Walnut Creek, California
Walnut Creek is a city in Contra Costa County, California, United States, located in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, about east of the city of Oakland. With a total population of 70,127 per the 2020 census, Walnut Creek ser ...
, at the age of 84.[
]
Works
* Duffy, Clinton T., and Dean Southern Jennings. ''The San Quentin Story''. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1950.
* Duffy, Clinton T. ''88 Men and 2 Women''. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1962.
* Duffy, Clinton T., and Al Hirshberg. ''Sex and Crime''. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1965.
* Duffy, Clinton T., and Eva Irene Linkletter. ''From Heroin to San Quentin''. Morro Bay, CA: Java Books, 1977.
References
External links
A biography by William J. Duffy, Jr., a brother
* Speech delivered by Clinton T. Duffy to the Comstock Club of Sacramento, California
1898 births
1982 deaths
San Quentin State Prison wardens
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