This story was told by a person incarcerated at Avenal.
UCI: What facility are you currently housed at?
Caller: I’m sorry?
UCI: What facility are you currently housed at right now?
Caller: Avenal State Prison.
UCI: Avenal.
Caller: So, B yard.
UCI: Okay. Then how’s the COVID situation right now at Avenal?
Caller: We’re having actually another round. We already went through the first one about four or five months ago.
Pretty much the majority of my building got it, including me. And now here we are like I said about four or five months later, and they had a whole building go basically lockdown about yesterday or the day before. And then today, they tested the whole building and now I’m not sure what protocol they’re using for that.
UCI: So, how did they handle COVID-19 the first time around?
Caller: Basically, not at all. They didn’t institute social distancing until basically after it had become a relevant issue in the prison. And even then, they basically gave us these masks that weren’t really masks, they were kind of just like cloth like just strung together.
And then on top of that, they were saying basically like, you don’t have to wear them when you’re outside of your dorm, but if a sergeant walks into the building, put them on. You know, basically make it look like you’re doing something. And there’s, you know, they didn’t enforce social distancing because you can’t here. You know, they’re not doing anything to really give us any product to sanitize our dorms. They basically just let it run its course and kept themselves away from us.
UCI: So, I was going to … Do you know how your prison caught COVID-19, like who brought it in?
Caller: I don’t know specifically who, but from what I remember, about like I said, four or five months ago it was one of the kitchen staff I think that brought it in. And it was the main kitchen, so it kind of spread, you know, after that.
UCI: So, besides the masks, has there been any other changes that they’ve implemented?
Caller: They cleared out – so, there’s kind of a difference between the setting. So, in some of the buildings, and one of the buildings I’m in, there’s two floors of housing. So, you have the bottom floor, you know, like the first story, basically. And there’s one, two, three four, five.
There’re six racks in there. So, the middle two they taped off. They moved people out of those racks and basically put caution tape on them so nobody’s supposed to be on those or housed there. So, basically provide social distancing so to speak. But the other racks in the building or in the dorms aren’t, like they’re not less than six feet apart. So, there’s really no way to stop that. And we all live in close proximity to each other. And then I mean really other than that, there’s really nothing else that’s been implemented that’s keeping, you know, the spread down.
UCI: Do you have any ideas of what they should be doing?
Caller: I mean to be honest, they need to at least be giving us some sort of sanitation for our dorms, you know, for us that live in the dorms, not just the porters that mop and disinfect the sinks, you know, a couple times a day. You know, we need something that’s going to actively keep our dorms sanitized so that even if we do come into the dorm, you know, we can sanitize our areas as frequently as needed to make sure that none of us get sick.
And they recently actually changed out the soap dispensers. Because before, we didn’t even have soap dispensers. And then now they put them in. And then they switched them. So, now they’re these big steel boxes where you can’t even really get anything out of it. Maybe because they’re basically accusing us of draining it out and watering it down and using it for our own purposes. And now there’s a situation where we can’t even really get it out.
And when we do, it’s basically like, it’s detrimental to your hands. Like me personally, it started cracking my hands. It started burning my hands after a while. So, I mean me personally, I just take the state soap that they give us once a week and wash my hands with that.
UCI: That’s not very good.
Caller: No.
UCI: So, how have you been doing like mentally? Like has it affected you much?
Caller: Yeah, it’s honestly, it’s a whole different experience. I mean because for the longest time, we basically watched the pandemic takeover the world from in here. And then it’s, you know, for a while I kind of thought, I mean it’s not here, like nobody’s sick yet. You know, and this is before it hit. And I got to thinking, this is never going to hit us, you know, we’re so far away from everything. And then it just took over the whole prison in like two days, two or three days. And everybody started getting sick. One of my good friends, he almost died. You know, I basically watched him, you know, become just this zombie, you know, couldn’t even get up out of bed.
You know, and it’s scary, you know, because it’s something that, you know, you obviously can’t see. And these cops don’t really do anything to combat that. They don’t give us necessary, you know, like I said, no necessary cleaning supplies to clean our dorms. They don’t ever hardly wear their masks with each other until a sergeant walks in. You know, it’s just … It’s nerve wracking, you know, especially because a lot of these cops recently, because they just switched like …
So, they switch shifts. And how we have cops that are actively walking through our dorms going through our stuff. And the thing about it is, is that they’re not really wearing masks when they’re doing it. They’re wearing gloves, but they’re not wearing masks. And I actually had right after the pandemic hit this prison, I had one of the cops here actually like, I went to go grab my mail and he coughed on it and then gave it to me. And there’s no, that is not an exaggeration at all.
UCI: That is kind of unacceptable.
Caller: Yeah.
UCI: So, have you been able to like see your family or loved ones?
Caller: No, I haven’t seen my family since I’ve been in prison. And not for lack of trying. They just, since the shutdown happened, there’s been literally no contact like physical-wise or even through a telemonitor, or through a glass, nothing.
The only way I can contact my family right now is by phone or letters.
UCI: Is there anything else that you want people to know about?
Caller: I want to let them know that there’s not, the news isn’t telling them everything, not in the slightest. There’s actually, I’m sure people have heard, but in case they haven’t, there was a story in the LA Times and it’s actually posted up on the board that I’m looking at.
This man was on my yard and he was a kitchen worker and he feared for his life because that was the kitchen that was, you know, people were actually getting sick in, like really deathly ill. And he told the staff that I don’t feel comfortable going to work, he refused. And not obviously for any dumb reason, like it’s a life-threatening disease. And they told him, you’re going to go to work or we’re going to give you a write up, which is like a black mark for somebody that needs to go to a parole board. Because if you go to parole board with that write up, they’re going to deny you one, to five, to 10- year denial over that.
So, they forced him to go to work and he later died because of COVID-19 from the kitchen. You know, this isn’t a joke. These COs don’t care. A lot of them are here to just collect a paycheck. They don’t understand that this affects us too. And they’ve even gone as far as trying to put it on us that we’re not doing our part when it’s physically impossible for us to social distance here.
So, I just want to explain to the public that this is traumatizing for a lot of us. And I really hope that maybe soon or one day we can figure out a way to make this safe. Not just for the people on the street, but for prisoners as well.
UCI: Yeah, that’s the goal of this. So, I remember you said, did you say that you caught COVID?
Caller: I had what?
UCI: Did you say that you had COVID?
Caller: Yeah.
UCI: How was that – have you been worried about like what could happen?
Caller: Yeah. It’s definitely – when I had it, I knew I had it because I’ve never been an unhealthy person. You know, I ran track in high school, everything else. And I couldn’t even walk the yard. Like when we go to chow, we walk around the, you know, the yard counterclockwise. And I couldn’t even make it halfway around the yard without having to stop to take a breath. And I’m not talking about just a quick little breather, like I actually had to stop and kind of almost keel over for a second to breath.
You know, and then I had to do it again when I got to the chow hall. And, you know, it wasn’t fun. You know, I’d wake up in the middle of the night and I physically can’t breathe. It feels like my lungs are like locking themselves up, you know. I mean I’m lucky that I didn’t get any other symptoms aside from the respiratory issues. But that was still enough to scare me. And now that it’s coming back in a second time, and I’ve heard that you can get it again, it’s scary because I don’t want my family to have to get that phone call saying, you know, your son or, you know, your little brother died in prison because of COVID-19.
So, it’s definitely nervous, you know, it makes me nervous. I’ve never, I mean I don’t think anybody’s ever had to deal with something like this before, so …
UCI: So, how is the – has there anything like an over population issue at your prison?
Caller: Honestly, I’m not sure what the normal numbers are supposed to be for the prison, so I can’t give you a …
It seems like it though right now because our tables, they’re less than six foot across from the next, like from the little foursquare table. So, it says for the, the assistant warden, he put notices on all the tables saying four to a table, no visitors, which means no five people to a table, six people to a table. But it’s going to spread at a table that small. You know, there’s no – they’ve freed it up a little bit by emptying out the two racks in the dorms, like I told you before.
But even then, you’re still, you hop off a rack and you’re less than six foot away from somebody else.
UCI: Yeah. So, how many people live per rack?
Caller: How many people are where?
UCI: How many people live per rack?
Caller: Oh, live on the …? Okay, so there’s two per rack. So, it’s one bunk and there’s a lower rack and a top rack.
And they don’t, they’re not – me and my bunkee personally, we sleep opposite. So, his head would be where my feet are at and my head is where is feet are at because I’m on the top rack. But even then, you know, again if I hop off that rack for whatever reason, if he coughs or …
Caller: You know, if he coughs or sneezes, then, you know, it’s a wrap.
UCI: Yeah, that’s really close. So, when was the first round? Did you say it was a few months ago?
Caller: Yeah, the first time was about, I want to say four or five months ago.
UCI: Is the – do you know if it’s, how the situation is? Like is it a lot of people this round that have it?
Caller: Oh, yeah. Like … There’s … About 90 percent of the people in my building have it still to this day. I mean like they tested positive. And there’s more rates going up now. But even the people that were never sick are now getting sick.
UCI: Yeah. Does not sound like a good situation.
Caller: No, it’s definitely not.
UCI: Well, I just want to say thank you for calling us. It’s really good to hear, well it’s really good to hear more about what happens so we can try and help you.
Well, then please consider telling other people to try and call in and talk about how they’ve been experiencing this situation.
Caller: Of course, of course.
UCI: Thank you. Bye.
Caller: All right thank you, bye.
