This letter was written by a person incarcerated at Orange County Theo Lacy Jail.
Yes I do draw and have been told I’m very good at it. Which I will be sending some to you. I myself was diagnosed positive COVID-19 back in December 2020 and the beginning of January 2021.
It was a real life struggle since at the time no one was able to get any type of visitation from family. I do speak to my family on the phone and have a wife who’s been diagnosed as well on the outside. She’s struggling with life on the outs financially so that is why I don’t get to go to commissary so I can buy other other food items that we don’t get free.
We eat three sack lunches that are not nearly as close to what calories we are supposed to get in here, nutritional wise. Having to be wearing face masks just about 24 hours at a time is really bothersome at times. You don’t get to breathe clearly.
Knowing that we should be wearing new clothes so we won’t be having to worry about catching COVID-19 again, and bed linen as well. We should be given all the opportunity at the chance to be able to get some type of compensation while we’re incarcerated. The beginning when it first hit, the jails we were given a goodie bag from the commissary because it was from people who donated money to the jails, so we got something, but now they have stopped it.
While people are receiving their stimulus compensation cash we are in here with no chance at the stimulus. 1,400 has been given to everyone that’s not incarcerated. What do we get, nothing just three sack lunches which is very tiresome when we are given four slices of bread and a pack of lunch meat for us to eat three times a day.
We don’t get treated fairly as it is in by the deputies, why do we have practically starve on the food that’s being given to us. We are supposed to be six feet apart from one another. How are we supposed to do that when someone like me is in cell living and have a cellmate.
We can’t be six feet apart in a cell that’s the size of small restroom with two twin size beds in it with a desk. So I apologize to you if I sound a little irritated, but to cope with all this I turn to my artwork. As it is I’ve been diagnosed with bipolar, manic paranoia, anxiety disorders and I’m taking meds for all of it.