This story was told by a person incarcerated at Donovan.
UCI: I don’t know if you wanted to finish or if you finished with the coping?
Caller: Wait, can you say that again for me?
UCI: Yeah, so I was saying that I don’t know if you finished with how you were coping with the crisis before the call ended. I don’t know if you wanted to continue that, or?
Caller: I think, I don’t even remember where I left off.
UCI: That’s fine.
Caller: But it’s all good. I’ve just, I’ve been hanging in there. I’ve been hanging in there, like I said I’m an optimistic person, so I tend to look on the brighter side of things, but it’s been difficult emotionally and mentally and, you know, but I’m making the best of it.
UCI: And I, I think you mentioned this and how the, how you could improve the situation at the facility, but I don’t know if you would mind repeating that part and your perspective and how you would change things to better the facility and how they handled the situation.
Caller: Well, I’ll say, like, it needed to start with this prison following its own policies and the policies of CDCR. Meaning there were policies that said infected people and uninfected people shouldn’t be mixed together for a period of time. This prison needed to respect that and honor that and separate people.
They didn’t and as a result, people gotten, more people got infected and more people, more people died. This happened several months ago. I personally know a guy that passed away, his name was [redacted] and it boils, I actually know several people that passed away but he passed away in my building and it’s because CDC dropped the ball.
They, there were a number of infected people that tested positive that should’ve been removed but, for whatever reason, they allowed them to stay and other people got infected as a result and people died. Now I can’t say for certain how people got infected or if he died because this or that. But what I can say is that there were at least 20 people in my building that tested positive and instead of moving them out of the building like they were supposed to do, they allowed them to stay in the building and the virus spread.
And it spread fast and people died, a number of people died. So, you know, like I said, that happened several months ago, so now they have started doing that policy again where you get, if you test positive, you have to go to a different yard, to a different building because people were complaining.
I know I complained to my family, people made calls down here to the prison, made calls to Sacramento and was bringing awareness to the issue. But this should’ve been, this all could’ve been prevented but this prison dropped the ball. And I know the warden has been under heat for his handling of the coronavirus and before that situation had happened and he dropped the ball again. Yeah.
UCI: And is there anything else that you want people to know about your experience?
Caller: I mean, I just think it’s just really rough being in prison. Like, I understand that the whole country, really the whole world is going through it as a result of COVID, the pandemic, but it’s just, it’s really difficult in here, you know.
We’re not allowed to get visits, the phones are messing up, we’re not having a lot of contact to reach out with our people, and incarcerated people are dying, people on the outside are dying and you just never know when it’s going to be the last time you’re talking to your family. And for the management here to just not be quick and not be able to deal with this crisis. I mean, it’s, it’s, the problem, it’s, it’s really a systemic issue, it’s just so many different issues.
But, I mean, let’s just start with you got too many people in prison. These laws are ridiculous and people are just totally over-sentenced. People, some people shouldn’t even be in prison because they’re innocent. And you just have too many people in prison. So, when a situation like this happens where there’s an outbreak, like, and there’s just too many people, like, we can’t social distance in prison.
We don’t have any choice in that. Like, it’s difficult to social distance in prison. Like, so, it’s like we’re put in the situation to where we can’t even defend ourselves, we’re helpless. We’re just helpless.
It’s like, you know, at least people on the outside, they have more power and latitude over, you know, who they can be around with, who they can interact with, where they wanna go or whatever, but it’s different here. We don’t have any structure, so we’re just stuck here and we just, oftentimes we’re just left to die. So, yeah.
UCI: Awful. Is there any questions you have left? I think that was, in part for me, all the questions. I don’t know if you have any questions or anything like that?
Caller: Yeah, I think I was, you got phone time right now?
UCI: Yeah.
Caller: Oh, shit. It’s, I gotta go actually, this guy has phone time right now so, all right.
UCI: Yeah, yeah.
Caller: But yeah I did, well I can just try to call another time and ask. Do you pick this phone up all the time or is it somebody else that picks up this phone up too?
UCI: Yeah, somebody else picks up the phone like, it just depends. Everybody takes shifts here, every week is different people, different shifts, from five through nine, Monday through Friday.
Caller: Okay. All right well, thank you for the interview and I’ll try to get back to you another time.
UCI: Yeah I appreciate, I appreciate you calling. If you have anybody else that would like to call as well regarding their situation, family members, friends, or anything like that, they could also call as well.
Caller: All right, cool, I’ll definitely pass that information along.
UCI: All right, thank you. Bye.
Caller: All right, peace.
