This letter was written by a person incarcerated at Calipatria.
First and foremost thank you for blessing and reminding me that there are people out there that care about our well-being even though we made our mistakes. I hope you’re safe out there because this COVID situation is serious it has affected us a lot for us in here it’s crazy.
There are so many things that this prison is doing wrong it’s bad and basically illegal. And all they do is blame everything on COVID. Yes some people here have had COVID and they kept us all together. Luckily me or my celly have not caught it, which is a true blessing.
They have tested us all a lot of times. Most inmates where I’m at like how we can’t play basketball or have our dayroom time (time out our cell inside our dorm to interact with each other of course safely with our mask on).
This has made it very depressing and difficult to get through our days smoothly. We can’t even change out our laundry because we can’t just walk to laundry like we’re supposed to be able to. They do give us disinfectant here but it’s all water down so it’s not getting areas fully clean at all.
This prison has just started doing video visits but we can only get one visit every thirty days when regularly we are able to get visits every weekend.
Also they do a phone list for us by going by if we have a job or are going to school etc. meaning if you don’t have a job or are enrolled in some kind of program you only get a phone call to talk to your loved ones once a week for fifteen minutes but if you are in a program or have a job you get a phone call every day that not fair at all.
There have been times when the COs hang up our phone calls short so we don’t even get our full fifteen minutes. They also have not been giving us our toilet paper and soap on time. As I write this we were supposed to get our toilet paper yesterday and they have not told us why we haven’t received it.
People in jail have filled out the 1040 paper for the stimulus check. Have received feedback saying the check has arrived at the prison but they are holding the money for a really long time. So people can’t spend their money and for some people that’s all they have.
On top of all of that there’s been situations where after 72 hours we have not received our showers because the COs come with attitudes or they’re too lazy.
As far as safety concerns some people here have dropped levels and are on the wrong yards. Like my celly has level two points but they have him on a three yard. It’s not just him. There are many others and they’re all waiting to be transferred to other prisons.
They have been telling them that there is no movement in or out of this prison but they’re bringing people in but they aren’t letting people leave. I can go on and on about what’s wrong and messed up but I don’t want to take too much of your time.
I also know not everything is going to get changed but I had to let someone how they’re doing us and just blaming everything on COVID in here. Thank you for your time and compassion be safe and have a nice day.
