This story was told by a person incarcerated at California City.
UCI: I see. And is there anything else you want people to know about your experience inside right now?
Caller: You’ve just got to, you’ve got to keep, you’ve got to be strong-minded, you know? You’ve got to find something to do, and you can’t – you’ve got to always stay busy, always stay busy and just as long as your body, like I say, your body is in prison, but your mind, it goes somewhere else.
You know, just always stay strong. Just think about what’s going to come next. You know, the future should be better, at least. There should be something better coming.
UCI: Yeah. So, you always have to think about other things than being inside, I imagine.
Caller: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, it can only get better before it gets worse, hopefully.
UCI: Yeah. And one more question about vaccinations. Does it seem like most people in your facility are choosing to get vaccinated? Or are they, you know, afraid to or they just don’t want to because they don’t have enough information?
Caller: A lot of people think it’s too soon. They think it was just too fast. And then they’re watching the news about all these blood clots and all this stuff going on, and a lot of people don’t trust it.
Mostly, it’s like the older people. They’re scared, so they want to, you know, they don’t want to take no chances. But I mean the majority of us, like we don’t really want to take it. They don’t really trust it.
UCI: And has your facility given you any information about the vaccination? Or have they just said that it’s available? They didn’t tell you what is like in it or how it is made, or anything?
Caller: Oh, no. They don’t tell us nothing like that. Well, some of us asked. We tried to say like, so, we’ll ask them, “Are you guys taking it?” And, you know, they don’t tell us nothing, but some would.
They’ll be like, “Nah. No, I’m not taking it.” So, if they’re not taking it, shit, we’re not going to take it. They don’t even trust it themselves.
But, no, they only tell us stuff, like “Confine yourself, Keep distance” and stuff like that. They put, like, alcohol in here and like the fucking hand sanitizer. They put all that stuff there, but they don’t really tell us nothing about it.
They haven’t actually told us nothing about it lately. I think it’s, “Do you want to take it?” I’m not sure, but they haven’t told us nothing about it lately.
UCI: I see. And do you think it would help if your facility gave you more information? Or would you still not trust it because it’s coming from the facility?
Caller: Yeah. Well, if they were to tell us like, yeah, they could give us more information about it, sure. I mean we’ve got to know what it does, what’s in it. I mean I don’t think they know, though.
I don’t even think they know, but I don’t know. If they were to tell us more information instead of just saying, “Do you want to take it or not?” then I guess we would feel a little better, at least knowing what’s in it or something.