This story was told by a person incarcerated at Donovan.
UCI: What facility are you currently housed at?
Caller: I am in San Diego, called RJD Donovan.
UCI: Okay, so what has the COVID situation been like at your facility?
Caller: I have a quick question.
UCI: Yeah.
Caller: What is the purpose of this?
UCI: Okay, so-
Caller: I just got a letter in the mail. And I read it, but.
UCI: So this project is basically, it’s set up to bring awareness to people who aren’t aware of the situation going on in the correctional facilities, and we want to make that known.
Caller: Okay.
UCI: So, many of the things that people will call us and talk to us about are concerning the facility, and everything that we get consent to put up to the website repository, people can use for any purpose, for any lawsuits, for whatever reason.
Caller: Okay.
UCI: But you guys remain anonymous.
Caller: Okay. You ready?
UCI: Yeah.
Caller: I’m ready.
UCI: Awesome. So, can you hear me?
Caller: Yes, I can.
UCI: How has the COVID situation been like at your facility?
Caller: It seems like it’s kind of leveling out now. We’re at phase two. So, I think it’s part of the inmate population. There hasn’t been any outbreaks for a couple of months now. But that’s not the [unintelligible] staff. And officers, they’ve been having outbreaks, deaths, and we have to go back on modified lockdown, because there was an outbreak with them.
But yeah, I think things are kind of like, leveling out now. It was worse before, I don’t think that this prison did a really good job at really dealing with the COVID issue. A lot of people, I think out of all the [unintelligible] prisons, we have the second highest mortality rate. In our whole prison, there was an outbreak here, there was an outbreak and they were mixing incarcerated people, they were mixing with [unintelligible] last year.
They were mixing infected people with people who weren’t. And they already had a policy where if you were an infected person they would move you to an isolated place, and it was on another yard, B yard. But the prison went against its own policy, and housed infected people. And I’m on A yard. They were housing infected people with uninfected people.
And they knew about this, and they put a tag on the doors of people who had tested positive, or had come into contact with people who had tested positive. They put a tag on their door saying this, but still had them all in the same area and were supposed to move them.
We used the same showers, we used the same telephone, we used the same dayroom, so they had infected people with uninfected people. And it spread, it really spread in our prison. So I don’t think that this prison did a good job of really dealing with that.
And this was all after the outbreak that had happened at San Quentin, an outbreak at another prison, so this prison could have been better prepared, knowing how to deal with it, but they just dropped the ball. And the result was that a lot of people did die as well.
UCI: You mentioned a current outbreak, right?
Caller: Uh-huh.
UCI: So, regarding the prison staff, do you know if they got COVID, and how many?
Caller: Say again?
UCI: Due to the outbreak, do you know anything regarding the staff? If they had COVID, or how many of them had COVID?
Caller: I don’t know that data. But I know my fiancé, she’s pretty active with prison related issues. She’s on these prison websites, so she keeps me informed, and I do the best of my ability to stay informed in here.
But I know that there was this staff and he got infected, he tested positive, and he had been coming to work and I’ve heard that he didn’t have his mask on at certain times and stuff, and he’s been in contact with a bunch of incarcerated people because of the nature of his job, and we end up going on lockdown. So I know about that, and then there were some other correctional officers that I’ve heard about, but I can’t give you specific data, I don’t have that information.
UCI: Oh, that’s fine, just wondering.
Caller: But I know they put us back on lockdown as a result of that, and it was the staff.
UCI: I also wanted to ask about the vaccination situation at your facility.
Caller: Okay, what do you have?
UCI: Yeah, so how has that been handled?
Caller: Truthfully, they have been doing the vaccination, they have been offering it to people, I know they offered it to me. And a lot of people, like my cellmate, he got vaccinated. He received two vaccinations already.
And from what I see, they have been rolling that out making it available to all incarcerated people. I think at first they started off with the elderly people, maybe 65 and older, and then they kind of worked their way down. But they have made the vaccine available to my knowledge for – I didn’t take the vaccination, you know, for personal reasons, but they did offer it to me. So yeah.
UCI: With reduced visitation and programming, how has that affected you?
Caller: Horribly. I think, I haven’t, I got a visit, they opened up visits for one weekend and I got a chance to get an hour visit. My fiancé comes from Oakland, so she flew all the way out here for an hour visit. Trying to get in, with all of the new rules and stuff, as far as you have to prove that you took the COVID test, and she’s fully vaccinated and still making her take the COVID test, so it just seems like really unnecessary, kind of really overkill.
And it’s delaying, it’s delaying people’s visits. It’s really hard on people, it’s really hard on me. Like, it had been a year already before I had seen her, and we were supposed to get married last year and I’m still unable to get married because visits are really restricted. I can’t even marry her video visit, that would suck, but that’s not even available.
I think there’s more that this prison can do, you know, things are opening up out there on the outside world and we’re still restricted in here. I guess I understand the concern, but it’s really tough. It’s really difficult not being able to see our families, people are kind of losing their minds in here.
I know it’s just really difficult for me emotionally. You know, I’m in a building too, where the phones don’t work. There’s six phones in here, three of them don’t work. We’ve been having problems with the phones for, since last year. And there’s not enough phones for people to get a time.
So we’re not getting visits, we’re not having access to our family being able to use the phone and to call our people. People are getting into it, people are on edge, it’s not a good situation. We have brought up the issue with the phones to, we’ve written 602s and the warden knows about it. We spoke with an ombudsman the other day, and she said she’s going to do something to fix the phones, they still haven’t been fixed.
It’s really a bad situation. We don’t have access to our people like that, and people are dying in here, so you never know when the last time you’ll be able to hear some family. So it creates a lot of anxiety and fear, and it’s just not a good situation.
UCI: Yeah. And also, regarding programming, is that also very limited?
Caller: Yeah, they opened up programming, where they’re allowing outside people to come in, in whole groups, but I think it’s still like, limited. None of the groups that I was in before the pandemic hit have been reinstated, so I’m still in no groups. Me personally.
But I have heard them call a few different groups daily, they’re calling schools and stuff. But it’s not fully resumed, but they did ease up somewhat. Technically right now we’re at phase two, so they have lifted some restrictions, but yeah, it’s not back to normal.
UCI: Okay. And you know, considering the reduced visitation and programming, and, you know, the whole COVID situation, how have you been coping with it?
Caller: I just do my best. I’m a positive and optimistic person just in general. So I just tend to look on the bright side of things and just have hope. But it has been difficult, it’s been really difficult.
Like I said, I was about to get married, so that I can, you know, have family visits with my fiancé, but like I said that was slammed like, two weeks before visiting happened. Can I call you back, or?
UCI: Yeah of course.
Caller: The phone is about to hang up. I think, no one asked me to get off, so I can call back for a little bit.
