This letter was written by a person incarcerated at San Quentin.
Smoke and mirrors is the rhetoric of CDCR. It would likely take one million inmate lives to be taken for the CDCR to do the right thing, but not because they care, but because it may present excessive liability interest.
How do you really cope with thinking you will die? You have to lie to yourself, and that’s what many of us do. However, I don’t. I see it as it is with no elaborate delusions.
If I had a license to run a day care of 50 children, but because of my irresponsibility and negligence, five of those children die. Although it was an accident I would claim, I would still go to jail, lose my license and, be sued.
Why is CDCR still in business? Because laws and responsibilities don’t apply to them like they do to us. When inmates die, they say sorry, but let the roles shift and their loved ones die, and we tell them sorry. CDCR authority is hypocritical, and unless you experience this horrible contradiction, you can’t fully grasp the true nature of the CDCR agenda, and special interest to their stake holders.
Staff come to work, but go home to their families and friends in person, but inmates must visit in a video call for 30 minutes once a month. Staff bring in the virus, come to work with the virus, but inmates are treated as though we’re the problem and the plague. Sorry, safety and security are hollow platitudes used to impose excessive restrictions so staff does less work.
There are better solutions for visiting, like opening family visits. There is two units currently, but more waits to be added. Instead of a 48-hour visit, they can give us a 24-hour visit, and one or two family members are allowed predicated upon signing a liability waiver, so CDCR can’t be sued. Marriages and rehabilitation is strengthened by in-person intimacy.
The quarantine process here is generic because officers go home every day. All staff are given a weekly COVID-19 test, but inmates are not. Like I said, smoke and mirrors.
