This story was told by a person incarcerated at John Latorraca Correctional Center.
UCI: And what has the COVID situation been like at your facility? How has it been for you?
Caller: In the beginning, they stuck me in the cell and I was without contact with my family or anything like that for at least a week. I mean, I wasn’t able to use the phone. And, I mean, it kind of stressed me out a little bit because, I mean, the phone is the only kind of connection we have to the outside world.
And then, to have a little bit of comfort from my family, it wasn’t there. Even though they had to put me in quarantine because I said I had a headache and stuff like that. But I mean, I always have headaches in the summer, but they weren’t trying to hear that afterwards.
So I was like, I mean – I guess, I guess for safety reasons for the staff, and I mean, I guess they figured that – I mean, that’s okay. But for them not to give me phone time and stuff like that, for whatever reasons, it’s – it was crazy. But after that, then they – they let me out and now I’m with the general population. Normally, I was – they still don’t let us see our families.
I don’t go to court, like, normal court. I have to do it in the video. I can’t even talk to my own public defender to defend myself right now without being recorded over the phone like this.
UCI: Wow. I’m so sorry to hear that.
Caller: Yeah. And then there’s, we can’t even have visits from our family. And they’re – here, in this facility, they’re contactless, I mean they’re behind the glass visits, regardless. I mean, there’s no contact visits and we still can’t get them.
So, it’s been kind of, you know what I mean? It’s been kind of hard. And they say they offer us one free phone call every Monday for like five minutes, and half the time it cuts off.
And I mean, sometimes Monday is not the day I need to talk to my family. It’s Tuesday after court or something, and to get their insight and to help me do my time a little bit better. That way, it gives me a little bit of ease, I mean, knowing that I have my family’s support. But I can’t get that.
To get that money or something, this county has to be able to do something. Or should I say, the county needs more funding for them to provide us – like, other neighboring counties, they have, like, Zoom or some other, I don’t know what the hell they are.
GTL and stuff like that where it’s all video visits, but they still get to see their loved ones. And this county, we’re – we’re just trying to get, you know, one visit a week would be enough. And we just – I mean, I’m trying to file some paperwork to maybe throw some suggestions in. I mean, it takes a month just for them to answer you, sometimes.
I understand that sometimes because, I mean, I know I’m not the priority over the whole facility, one person. So, that’s where I’m at right now. And even though I’m fighting a case right now, I have no idea what’s going on. And nothing like that, because my lawyer won’t come see me over here. So, that’s kind of where I’m at right now.
UCI: No, you are just as important as someone else. You do deserve to know what’s happening in your facility.
Caller: So, I mean, I could call – I could call my lawyer told me to call him over the phones. They’re recorded. But where my confidential, you know, my rights with me and my lawyer when these phones are recorded and listening? They might say, “Well, we didn’t listen.” They’re listening no matter what. They have to for security reasons.
