This letter was written by a person incarcerated at Chowchilla.
When the COVID hit here in March, it was very weird in the beginning. We were on complete lockdown for the first two days, which means our breakfast and dinners were brought to us and no movement. It was somehow like they had no idea what to do with all these women so they just did what was easiest for them.
After those first few days, we got put into a modified program schedule. They shut down all classes, all groups, all jobs. The back lot was empty. A first for that, CCWF shut down programming for the first time ever. Some of us were relieved because now we were basically on a break, while some of us are not too happy because they like to program.
To this day, we are still on a modified program. About a month and a half ago they opened up a few things, like every unit got night guard once every four days, school went back for one session only, and we were programming two wings at a time. We recently had a COVID outbreak, so everything got shut down and we got an even stricter modified program.
