This story was told by a person incarcerated at Donovan.
UCI: And is there anything else that you want people to know about your experience?
Caller: I mean, I just think it’s just really rough being in prison. Like, I understand that the whole country, really the whole world is going through it as a result of COVID, the pandemic, but it’s just, it’s really difficult in here, you know.
We’re not allowed to get visits, the phones are messing up, we’re not having a lot of contact to reach out with our people, and incarcerated people are dying, people on the outside are dying and you just never know when it’s going to be the last time you’re talking to your family. And for the management here to just not be quick and not be able to deal with this crisis. I mean, it’s, it’s, the problem, it’s, it’s really a systemic issue, it’s just so many different issues.
But, I mean, let’s just start with you got too many people in prison. These laws are ridiculous and people are just totally over-sentenced. People, some people shouldn’t even be in prison because they’re innocent. And you just have too many people in prison. So, when a situation like this happens where there’s an outbreak, like, and there’s just too many people, like, we can’t social distance in prison.
We don’t have any choice in that. Like, it’s difficult to social distance in prison. Like, so, it’s like we’re put in the situation to where we can’t even defend ourselves, we’re helpless. We’re just helpless.
It’s like, you know, at least people on the outside, they have more power and latitude over, you know, who they can be around with, who they can interact with, where they wanna go or whatever, but it’s different here. We don’t have any structure, so we’re just stuck here and we just, oftentimes we’re just left to die. So, yeah.
