Youth correctional magazine founder David Inocencio dies at 59

Incarcerated youths wanted to express their feelings, said longtime colleague and friend Michael Kroll, and Inocencio wanted to help them pursue it. The first issue was a six page magazine that was brought back to the juvenile hall the following week. Since then, the program has expended into juvenile halls in four different states and 12 different counties in California. It has been a part of San Mateo County’s juvenile hall for the last 20 years.

The magazine hasn’t been published locally since Inocencio’s death July 8. Now, incarcerated San Mateo County youths, who he championed for decades, are paying tribute to Inocencio’s legacy by creating an issue solely about the social worker. That edition is anticipated to print later this month but Kroll said he’s unsure what is next for the volunteer-run organization.

“[We have] one foot firmly in the past and one foot in a mush, unsettled future that I don’t know what it holds,” Kroll said. “But in the words of David, the Beat must go on.”

Inocencio had a personal impact on the incarcerated youth at the Hillcrest Juvenile Hall. He and his wife facilitated the workshops together once a week, during which facilitators present multiple topics for the participants to write about before their work is collected and then reviewed. The following week, a magazine is printed and distributed. Kroll said everyone loves to see if their work made it to the magazine.

“That is the big payout for the incarcerated, they want to see if their work makes it to the magazine,” Kroll said. “They aren’t sure if they are going to see their writing in a magazine again, but they continue to write and it impresses me.”

Since Inocencio became ill a few months before his death, Kroll took over as facilitator in San Mateo. Those participants are still deeply affected by the loss of Inocencio, he said. The same goes for Kroll, who said he knew Inocencio for more than 20 years and spoke with him multiple times a week over the phone.

Although it’s been a difficult time for him, Kroll said the participants are what keep him going. However, without Inocencio’s leadership, the future of the magazine is under question. Kroll said he knows Inocencio would want the program to continue.

“The Beat was David, and David was the Beat. There was no separating the two,” Kroll said.

Inocencio and his wife Lisa provided an incentive program for participants to write. For anybody who wrote at least two pages during a workshop they were rewarded with a bag of chips and soda. That aspect of the program has since been discontinued but the participants continue to show up and write, Kroll said. The program is a form of therapy, he said. Participants may be limited to a cell, but Inocencio showed them what they are capable of doing with just a pencil, paper and a thought, Kroll said.

There hasn’t been a workshop since Inocencio’s death where his name doesn’t come up, Kroll said. During a workshop Wednesday, Aug. 16, Kroll said a participant who returned from California Youth Authority was unaware of Inocencio’s death. That day he didn’t write, he just sat there and processed the news, Kroll said.

“They are still trying to process it and they miss him. He had a way with these young people,” Kroll said. “They recognized in him that he loved them, and in return they loved him too.”

The last time Kroll saw Inocencio was in the hospital a week before his death. Next to him was a little stack of Beat Within magazines his family brought him because he usually took them with him everywhere he went, Kroll said. A woman in the hospital room next to him, whose son was incarcerated, asked to see a copy. After jokingly asking Inocencio whether they should start hosting a workshop, Kroll said Inocencio, weak and sick, responded, “I’m game.”

“He wasn’t someone who was just doing a program,” Kroll said. “He was seriously committed to the program and it was his legacy.”