Son Of Robin Williams Teaching Finance Behind Bars
By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large
Zak Williams, son of the late actor Robin Williams, has joined with a San Quentin inmate���who also happens to be a stock market whiz���to teach financial literacy classes to others incarcerated at the infamous California prison.
The inmate, Curtis Carroll, known inside as the ���Oracle of San Quentin,��� began taking an interest in the stock market when he was able to hang on to copies of another���s Wall Street Journal earmarked for the trash. For Williams��� part, he became involved when he developed an interest in prison rehabilitation, and, soon after, found a perfect match in Carroll with his MBA from Columbia.
While picking stocks is a big part of the class, and a feature in which the other inmates are keenly interested, the pair takes a ���big picture��� approach to money, as well, focusing on such things as the mechanics of the economy and how an interest in this area can translate to a useful, productive life outside of prison.
As long as people are in prison, any effort to make it a more ���elevated,��� less violent institution is as much in the interests of the staff who work there���and the rest of society���as in the interests of the inmates themselves. Hopelessness and the feeling of ���nothing to lose��� ill serve the innocents around those carrying such desperate emotions with them, and while many of us are justifiably oriented on traditional law-and-order postures, it is reasonable to at least look with an open mind at any effort designed, ultimately, to help make all of society a safer place.
