This letter was written by a person incarcerated at San Quentin.
Greetings,
I would like to first express my thankfulness to your guts and your organization for taking the precious time to reach out to us. Especially in hectic time such as this pandemic. I pray that the members of your organization are well, and blessed even in this time. Thank You!
There are several issues I’d like to express. First, the clear disdain exhibited to the incarcerated population. My heart goes out to all victims touched by this terrible virus, and there is no life affected that is less or greater.
I have been incarcerated since January of 2009 and yet have I faced a time as stressful, hopeless, and down right fearful as now. This moment unfortunately reflects the gruesome truths of our rehabilitation system.
Some, more evident than others, overpopulation. Scarce medical attention available and the inner workings of the corruption and criminal behavior of the CDCR system. I among the incarcerated have been sentenced and convicted, which is our punishment to society.
However, we were not sentenced to death. Many of us, have embarked on a path of rehabilitation, change, and insight inwardly, as well as out. Yet there is an unspoken rule of punishment reflected in the nonchalant way we are handled and cared for.
This disdain, or indifference, was clearly shown to the population here at San Quentin State Prison, that resulted in the death of 28 inmates. During this unfortunate time, we have not been issued proper supplies, hand sanitizer, disinfectant, proper PPE, and of course space.
We have been shuffled around to display an illusion of a reducing population. There has been fabricated reports expressing things are better, and our needs are being met. And that guidelines are being met, these factions are reflected in the court order the reduce San Quentin population by 50 percent which exposed those reports as I said fabricated.
CDCR is attempting to transfer inmates to further avoid these issues. Sadly, we were into the second wave of this pandemic and little to no action has been taken to avoid another terrible spike. Only forced transfers to other institutions also now active in high number of COVID-19 cases.
This again is that evident careless behavior, and notion that incarcerated lives are less in importance, and obviously needs little to no planning and attention to our wellbeing. We are however in high hopes of the coming vaccine now available to the public.
Thank you for your concern, and for taking the time to reach out to us.
