This letter was written by a person incarcerated at SATF (California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison).
We are with the prisoners who take very strong medications because they hear voices or their nervous system is very altered. We run the risk that one of them might hit us or even kill us. And we cannot do anything since hitting back or simply touching them they give us another charge.
Another one of the things that this pandemic caused for me personally here in the prison was provoked because everything was going very well. There was no sick individuals, for six months we have a supposedly normal program. Cloth masks were not provided until later of, most of the officers did not wear their masks.
One of the worst things was that they moved all the people from a part of the prison that had like 88 people, because that part of the prison was filled with people with COVID-19. That decision was questioned but nothing was solved since they gave us different excuses.
Another of the many things was that they were being fed on plates and we had to wash regularly without any protection. If we did not do it we were almost forced to. I am a cook in this prison and the dishes for those who were in quarantine were being used and served regularly.
There was no separation, so I think the contagion started in this yard because of that. They moved all those people behind the things that were supposedly building three, where they were in quarantine.
Because a prisoner tested positive they did not go out to the yard but they did let them sit in the dining room. Then we wondered what the supposed security of the quarantine was for. So I think that all that was intentional.
It was a great excuse for them to receive more money without thinking about the consequence since as far as I know in this yard there were already 12 to 14 deaths.
Another of the big mistakes that were made was that the results of the COVID test were up to two weeks late while you were living for all that time. That people who was already positive by logic one would be more prone to get infected.
The worst thing is that the prisoners themselves who work cleaning the building had to clean the cells that had people with COVID without any protection on. I personally realized all that and spoke to my roommate asking him not to do it.
That is because I am diabetic and for me getting infected with that disease was going to be very dangerous. That is why I kept wearing the mask all the time.