This story was told by a person incarcerated at Solano.
Caller: I think, I think in terms of like, the biggest issue right now is mental health. You know, prison as repressive as it is, we do have a daily routine to where we can get out and exercise, we can, you know, partake in group activities, recreation. All of those things have pretty much came to a pause.
And so, you have a very limited program, uh, no visitation, phone calls is pretty much the only communication we have with the outside world. And, I think it started to weigh on a lot of people, you know. So, it’s one of those things, I think frustrations are mounting in terms of people who are not, uh, you know, able to access, you know, mental health, recreation, the families, stuff like that right?
Because we all know the issue with the phones, phone calls and stuff like that. Not everybody can afford, you know, to be callin’ their family like that, so, so, that’s probably one of the pressing issues right now and the whole issue.
UCI: Hm. Is there anything that you’ve been doing specifically to cope with this crisis, like, what do you have a routine that you do, I mean, what do you do to deal with this?
Caller: Well, you know, uh, prison, prison has taught me over the years that I’ve been incarcerated, and I’ve been incarcerated for quite some time, uh, you kinda go with the flow of things and you try to keep yourself focused on doing with what assist you to get through your day. So, for me, what is exercising in the cell, or reading, I mean, the basics of writing, studying and, you know, just trying to stay focused.
But even so, you feel this sense of being out of the loop of everything that’s going down because you gotta look at what’s happening. You got a lot of us who are waiting for court dates, we got, you know, pending legal matters, and, you know, courts have been impacted to where this is like the legal process is coming in like a dribble. So, uh, even like access to the library, all this stuff has been severely restricted. And, uh, yeah, people are just, you know, trying to get through the best they can right now.
