This letter was written by a person incarcerated at Norco.
I’m currently housed at California Rehabilitation Center, Norco, Cal. Don’t let the name fool you, there is “nothing” rehabilitative about this place! So I got 12 years for walking away from Delancey Street programs. I was detained to Delancey Street instead of state prison. I left Delancey Street for family reasons and was given 12 years state prison.
I asked to come to California Rehabilitation Center, “CRC,” to get help with my drug problem. I arrived in 2019. I asked at my initial review to be placed into whatever programs available to work on my addiction and help me help myself so I can get my life back on track!
For several months I sat around with nothing to do because this prison was so full it was approaching at 160 percent. Way overcrowded. People have been on waiting lists for two and three years just to get into any programs, which also means our living conditions are inhuman! We live in dorms that are actually falling apart.
The floors have holes big enough to put a football in. Our were originally designed for 35 inmates, we have 80 inmates now. Our beds are bunk beds that are 20, 36 inches apart. Four toilets, two urinals and a wall with six shower heads on it for 75, 80 people to share!
Then COVID hit our dorm. We had 78 people in here, three feet wide with 40 bunk beds lined up one side, two, three feet apart, walkway is about three feet wide, with 40 more beds on other side, a door in the center for bathroom/showers. You can’t go any place outside this which means there is no possibility of social distancing!
And because people were catching COVID, you’d think the prison would have followed Governor Newsom’s order in March and stopped all transfers and movement and kept all of us confined to our dorms in case one of us catch it from staff, it would not be spread all through the prison. However, this prison ignored all Governor’s orders and did whatever they wanted.
So here at CRC there are four facilities here, A, B, C, D. Each facility has about 1,000 people in numerous dorms. As people caught COVID, they moved to dorm 410 on D facility. There the idea was move them to a designated dorm for 14 days, “quarantine.”
But once it filled up, they were moving people out after seven, eight days. That’s how our dorm caught it, they moved five people out of quarantine way before the 14 days, and one was contagious and our whole dorm got it. This prison continued moving people at random for several months. It really seemed like they were almost purposely spreading COVID all over the prison because there were numerous dorms that were COVID-free for months until they randomly moved inmates in and infected everyone.
So “if” it was not intentional, then it was extremely reckless and irresponsible at best. But then I find out they get $1,600 per inmate who catches COVID for what is suppose to be extra care. But that is the biggest out right bunch of B.S. EVER! They should be financially charged for theft!
For one, they do nothing for us (at all) different because we are sick. In fact I was sick in June, I have asthma and COPD. It took me going by ambulance unable to breath before I saw a doctor! And even then I was prescribed a different inhaler. I have have problems breathing since then and went back three more times because inhalers not working.
It’s now February, I have only seen a doctor that one time! The point is, $1,600 per inmate, 3,000 plus inmates. They made a lot of money from us suffering COVID.
Some people in here have caught COVID two and three times. But they put 32 tents on the yard to help relieve some of the overcrowding. Not only did COVID hit there, they also blew all over in the wind, flooded in the rain! It was deemed a failure, all removed.
The prison was given crazy amount of money for that, CDCR has made a ton of money from state funds, yet NOTHING has changed for us, except we have been locked down for a year. We have not seen any family in a year, no visits, and a lot of us, including myself, have lost relationships due to no visits. It is hard enough to have a relationship in here but take the only thing we really have to look forward to away (visiting) and it’s another strain, stress. It does create depression, anxiety, etc., etc.
We are fed in our bed area. So the only place to eat is on your bed. There are two tables with four seats, etc. in dayroom, so we have no place to sit and eat, a lot to mention, six feet social distancing. So we do not go anyplace out of our dorm, no work, no nothing, yet CRC gets all this extra money for our care.
But nothing has changed at all, where does all that money go? I have filed a writ of habeas corpus on inhuman conditions, it dirty and way overcrowded. I understand we broke the law, and it’s not suppose to be a vacation. However, I left Delancey Street
I don’t feel my life should be jeopardized in this way, regardless of my crime, we all are supposed to have some rights. I had to file habeas corpus just so I can have a judge order them to have me checked out by a specialist because after COVID, I have been having difficulty breathing.
And we’re also asking the judge to order a 50 percent reduction in our population so that we are not living in a “super spreader” environment. For whatever reason, CDCR just refuses to use Prop 57 for what it was intended for and let some of these guys out who qualify. Because CDCR keep denying people saying that they don’t have enough rehabilitation programs in!
However, like myself, I have been on a waiting list that is a couple years long due to overcrowding, so they have no way of doing any programs and now we are locked down. It’s sad, but it’s all about money, they get money for everybody in here, allowing people released and they lose their cash cow!
The problem is I have no voice to let the public know what’s really going on! There is so much more I could tell you if you’re interested. I also have a lot of documents to actually prove what I claim.
One last thing, my lawyer who’s doing my habeas, he said on CDCR’s website that out of every 1,000 people tested here, 95.5 percent have tested positive for COVID, 5 percent of population has “a lot” been infected. Since then it went from 95.5 percent to 115 percent, that’s because some have been infected multiple times. But it truly seems nobody really cares.
So far about 150 inmates here in California state prisons have died. Not counting federal prisons or county jails, just the 35 California prisons! Most unnecessarily, sad.
