This story was told by a person incarcerated at John Latorraca Correctional Center.
UCI: And how has the COVID situation been like at your facility?
Caller: Well, lots of times, they mix – sometimes, they’ll mix us with people that got COVID. And we don’t got COVID, and then they’ll mix us in the same van when they’re transporting us from the jail to the – to the courts. We’ll all be in the same van.
Some time – one time, they raided our van our dorm with dogs and the dogs had COVID. And then almost the whole dorm, all of us all got COVID from the dogs. They really don’t give us chemicals like that, either, to clean up in here or nothing, really.
UCI: Mhmm.
Caller: It’s pretty bad. When I got arrested this time, just recently, like two months ago –
UCI: Mhmm.
Caller: When I was in the holding tank, there was about, like, 30 people in there.
UCI: Wow.
Caller: And like that’s the most I’ve ever been packed in. There was like 30 people in there and we don’t even – You know what I mean? Anyone could have COVID out of 30 of us. And they just pack us all up and then they just, like, mix us all together and stuff.
UCI: Mhmm. And how has the COVID situation at your facility affected your loved ones?
Caller: Yeah. They only give us one free five-minute phone call on Mondays and then that’s it. We can’t – we can’t see our families or nothing.
UCI: Mhmm.
Caller: No visits, no nothing. They don’t even give us Skype. We can’t – we can’t FaceTime our family, we can’t –
UCI: Wow.
Caller: Yeah. We can’t do nothing, really.
UCI: Mhmm. And what has it been like for you to have reduced visitation and programming?
Caller: I mean, yeah, it’s kind of like – It takes a toll on us, you know? Like, well, I’m pretty mentally capable of handling it, but most people, you know what I mean? They don’t – they don’t even give us indigent envelopes to write our families or nothing. They just, you’re just in jail and you don’t get to see your family no more or nothing.
UCI: Mhmm.
Caller: Well, yeah. Mentally wise, I’m good, though. But I don’t know how other people would take it, though.
UCI: I see. And what do you think would have made the situation at your facility better?
Caller: At least give us, like, in the dorm there, because I’m in a dorm with like 20 people. So, it would be pretty nice if they could just buy – give us one tablet so we could all share and all, you know what I mean? Contact our families and stuff like that. I know other jails they have tablets where they could, you know, FaceTime your family and stuff like that.
UCI: Mhmm.
Caller: You could buy FaceTime. We have- we’ll even, that would be cool, we could even pay for it, too. Like, we wouldn’t mind that.
