This letter was written by a person incarcerated at Valley State.
Let me just state that we as prisoners have a far different experience to the pandemic than you free worlds people. It’s scary and it’s hopeless because we know there is absolutely nothing the Department of Corrections can do to protect us. Literally every single one of us will catch the virus.
The few that don’t are the blessed few. There is no safety precautions or measures that can stop the spread of any virus in a state penitentiary. And any protocol CDCR implements is only to look good on paper for the politicians in Sacramento.
It is more for the effect of keeping lawsuits at bay than protecting our lives. Hell, they kill us every day in subtle ways by denying or delaying us standard preventive medical care. We have a doctor here that systematically denies us treatment of any kind during regular times. He sure won’t save us in a pandemic.
Staff treat us as if we brought the virus to them instead of them bringing it to us. I told one officer I’ve been self isolating for 13 years inside these walls. The virus began in China. How the hell did I get it?
They have all these social distancing protocols in place that we can be punished for not following. Yet at the end of the way we are locked in a cell with eight men in it. There is no such thing as social distancing in prison.
When a man tests positive they make the entire cell to different units in the prison furthering the possibility of more transmission. They should just quarantine us where we are. They move the exposed people to one unit and the positive person to another.
When I went to the unit for the people who came in contact with an infected person. The officer of the unit greets us by saying if you don’t have the virus now you will by the time you leave this unit. Welcome to hell.
