This letter was written by a person incarcerated at CIW (California Institution for Women).
Hi, me being locked up I never knew that something this bad will happen. I was doing my prison time at a [redacted] and it held about 100 to 200 inmates. They had shut down the prison due to Governor Newsom wanting to support private prisons, but me doing my time there was very stressful.
It all started with one staff member getting sick. Mind you it was four dorms that held about 75 people. It was six rows that held seven beds that was only two feet apart from each other, so it was no way we could of did the six feet apart because the person who is right across from me could been sick. So it was very easy for me to catch the virus.
Mind you we is living inside of a dorm packed together like sardines sharing the same phone. It was about four phone booths. And also when we go to the chow hall, about four people can sit at a table. So during this outbreak, they still let four people sit at a table when it should have been one person per table just like it should of have been two people per row of where we sleep.
So one day these inmates got ill so news got back that she has caught COVID-19 mind you she is inside of the unit I in. So once she has caught it everybody in the unit started to fall ill. One by one people will get called out to be told that they tested positive. Row by row they was packing people’s property so it was only about three rows left.
When I remember the person who was staying in my row said he said [redacted] we are next in I had told him don’t think like that. We are OK. At the time they did give us cleaning supplies like Fabuloso, Windex, hand sanitizer, and every other day they will spray the bathroom down with bleach, and I told her I said we will be OK. We clean our area too much to get sick.
