This story was told by a person incarcerated at New Folsom.
UCI: What has the COVID situation been like at your facility?
Caller: Hectic, right now.
UCI: Could you elaborate?
Caller: Well, we on lockdown right now. Only thing we get, only thing we get is phone calls right now.
UCI: How does your facility handle the positive COVID cases?
Caller: Well, they’re, they’re figuring that out right now. Poorly.
UCI: How’s the vaccination situation been like?
Caller: I don’t, I don’t really know. They don’t really tell us all that, but we don’t really know who’s vaccinated and who’s not, so that’s the problem.
UCI: Do they offer vaccines at your facility?
Caller: Yes.
UCI: Well, how is the COVID situation at your facility affect your loved ones?
Caller: Well, can’t visit, so constant worries. They don’t know, you know, what’s going on in here. You know, constant worry, pretty much, as any family member should.
UCI: How have you been coping with this crisis?
Caller: Pretty much, you know, writing, you know, reading, you know, journaling basically.
UCI: What would have made the situation at your facility better?
Caller: Staff getting vaccinated, pretty much.
UCI: The staff don’t get vaccinated?
Caller: No. They’re not forced to.
UCI: Wow. Do they at least wear their masks?
Caller: Yes, we, at least, yeah. We – we all, we all wear masks, but staff is not forced to get vaccinated, which is the problem. Because anytime there’s a COVID outbreak, that means the staff brought it in ’cause majority of the inmates we’re – we decided to get vaccinated. So probably you know 90 – 98 percent of the prison inmates is vaccinated.
We chose to get vaccinated. So you know, there’s a – you know, any time a staff member catches it, the virus, we go on lockdown. So this is like our fourth lockdown right now.
UCI: How about your medical staff? How are they during this pandemic?
Caller: The – my – the medical care?
UCI: Yeah.
Caller: It’s mediocre. They don’t really know, you know. I mean, I mean, they don’t – there aren’t really any safeguards, to be honest with you.
UCI: Well, what else do you want people to know about, about your experience?
Caller: Survival of the fittest. Pretty much. That’s the best way I can serve it up. That’s the best way I can serve it up.
UCI: You feel like you’re surviving every day?
Caller: Yeah. Survival of the fittest. Yeah, pretty much.
UCI: Well. What’s a typical day during the pandemic like?
Caller: Huh?
UCI: What’s a typical day during this pandemic like for – for a prisoner like you?
Caller: Well, we, well, if there’s not a lockdown or anything, you know – you know, maybe go, you know – you know, go to the weight tower or something. You know, do some push-ups or something. Some pull-ups or something.
You know, it’s like the prison is not fully functioning, so we don’t have a lot of opportunities or resources to, you know, to make our time better, you know. A lot of programs aren’t running, you know. A lot of things are limited so, you know – you know, that’s pretty much a typical day, you know, we gotta make, you know, the best out of nothing pretty much.
UCI: Well, I want to thank you very much for participating in this PrisonPandemic project, and please consider telling your friends about us and seeing if they would like to call in. This line is open Monday through Friday from 5:00 to 9:00 p.m. I appreciate you calling and thank you for- I hope you have a good day.
Caller: You too. I wanted, I wanted to ask you – the last time I spoke to you, I was asking you about this pen pal project.
UCI: Oh, yes. The pen pal.
Caller: Right. Now, I’m in a situation. Now, I don’t know if you speak to, I had got a letter from [redacted].
UCI: Yes.
Caller: Now, I’m in a situation here because I don’t know, I don’t know – I remember, I remember sending a letter to this place. I had to go through all my letters. I got a stack of letters, and I remember sending a letter to this place: UCLA, School of Law.
UCI: Yeah.
Caller: Los Angeles. Now, I sent a letter to them requesting a penpal cause, you know, I’ve been, you know, I like to write to people. I like to make friends, to correspond with people, to, you know, give them an inside look at, you know, prison life ’cause, you know, I’ve been in here since I was a kid, but I haven’t got any response back.
Now since I’ve been in here, since the COVID, since the COVID thing been, you know, happening, I’ve been an advocate in here, so that kind of caused me problems. ‘Cause when you become an advocate, you’re targeted by officers. You’re targeted by correctional officers. Sometimes they mess with our mail. Sometimes they mess with our food. It’s an antagonizing method that they use to get us to kind of give up what we doing or something like that.
So I don’t know if my mail being played with. I don’t even know if my letter even reached them. So I have no, you know, it’s just ’cause usually, you know, I would at least gotten a response back, but I got no response at all. So I was hoping, if you know, I don’t know, do you know Kristin Turney personally?
UCI: No, I don’t, but I – I could let you know that it usually takes the UCLA School of Law, it usually takes them a month to respond to your first letter. That’s what I’ve heard.
Caller: It’s been past a month.
UCI: It’s been past a month?
Caller: Yeah. It has been way past a month. ‘Cause I got this letter in – let’s see. I’m looking on the letter. It says Santa Monica, Calif- no, Santa Ana, California, 2021. So this was in November. This, I got this letter – so, soon as I got this letter and it said – gave me the pen pal information, I wrote a letter that same day and sent it out.
So then, you know, I’m like, “Hmmm,” you know – you know. I’m something like, I would’ve at least heard something by now. So I’m thinking in my head that they might’ve, they might’ve – I think that the officers here might’ve tampered with my mail. ‘Cause they don’t like us writing people. They don’t like us, you know, especially when you’re an advocate.
I’m like a known advocate around here, and they’ve been antagonizing me finding ways to get to me, so I’m trying to find some way that someone can contact this UCLA School of Law Incarcerated Persons Pen Pal Project because I think my mail is not going – reaching them.
Because they, they – when we send mail out, they can read it before. We can’t just seal our mail and send it out. We have to give it to them open, and then they send it out. They have to read it. To, you know, it’s basically a security, it’s a security measure. They have to read our mail before they send it, and seal it, I mean, before they send it out.
So I’m thinking my mail is getting tampered with. My mail didn’t reach the UCLA School of Law Pen Pal Project. So I was hoping if you could relay this to [redacted] and see if she can contact them on my behalf because, you know, I don’t think my letter reached them at all.
And I’m in definite need of a pen pal. I like to write people, and you know, and correspond with people in the outside world.
UCI: I will, I will let my bosses know, and I will see if I if it is being tampered with or not. I’ll figure that all out. ‘Cause I’m pretty sure they give us – it gives us your name at the beginning of this call, but we’re not allowed to say it, so I’ll go ahead and message my bosses and see what’s going on.
Caller: [Unintelligible].
UCI: But I don’t have any direct contact with the, with her though.
Caller: Okay, okay. That’ll work. I just need a little bit of help, though, because the only thing we have here is sending out mail and making phone calls.
UCI: Yeah.
Caller: So I can’t, yeah, you know, I can’t contact UCLA, Law School. You know, you know what I mean? So the only thing I can do is, you know, discuss this with a person who, you know, who shot me the information and told me about the program, so therefore, you know, I can be at least assisted in some type of way because I’m kind of handicapped right now.
Especially when you got dirty cops because it’s a lot of corruption here at this prison. So when you’re an advocate, you know, you’re targeted, so if I could be assisted in some type of way, it would be very much appreciated.
UCI: Yeah. I’ma go ahead and shoot them a message as soon as I’m off of this. You said you sent it in November, right?
Caller: My number?
UCI: The UCLA, the pen pal project. You sent them a letter in November, right?
Caller: Yeah. The same day I got this letter. And, she, when [redacted] sent me this letter about the pen pal project, I wrote a letter that same night. I wrote a letter that same night and sent it out. So I let some time pass, ’cause I’m thinking, you know, “Maybe,” you know, “They take some time.” But I’m like, “Well, it’s been November.” I’m like, “Nah, this is kind of fishy.”
So then, ’cause they been tampering with my mail before. So, you know, I kind of put two and two together. They probably read my mail. I was looking for a pen pal. They trying to stop me from corresponding with people on the outside so they won’t find out what’s going on in here. I see the game the playing so. ‘Cause I know they would’ve contacted me by now. I would’ve at least gotten some type information.
UCI: Yeah. All right. I’ll go ahead and shoot them a message.
Caller: Okay. And if you can, how can I? Can you give me some type of confirmation? Do you want me to call you next week or can you send me some type of letter saying, you know, saying, you know, if I was assisted or not?
UCI: Yeah. We’ll send you a letter back.
Caller: Okay. That’s very much appreciated, man. God bless.
UCI: God bless you too, and I hope you have a great rest of your day and survive the strongest, right? Survival of the fittest.
Caller: Survival of the fittest. All right, man. You have a good night.
UCI: Yeah, take care.
Caller: All right, you too.
