Once Upon a Time at San Quentin is an uncensored, candid photo documentary, exposing the San Quentin of the 1970's, the most violent decade of the twentieth century, together with amazing first-hand accounts of life within the prison. John Wedgwood Golden grew up on prison grounds, and became a Correctional Officer in 1972. His descriptions are often mind-blowing, his ideas controversial, but the writing also contains humor and pathos. The book is a series of short stories and essays, part auto-biographical, part historical and part philosophical, illustrated with photos taken with a Hasselblad CM500 camera, smuggled into the prison when the author was on duty. This remarkable, attention-grabbing book provokes the reader into pondering the entire justice system today.