This letter was written by a person incarcerated at Mule Creek.
On March 2020 or around there, we stopped getting visits. I was at Calipatria and was moved to Mule Creek because I got really sick. At Mule Creek, I came to this world where it seems like all reason goes out the door.
This place is strange. Once visits stopped, people started acting better because there were no more drugs coming in. The only drugs coming in was from the staff, and that’s very little, so not many people had access to them.
A lot of people got clean and some took to drinking a lot more. I thought that the prison was going to set up a way for us to stay in contact with our families but that was the last thing on their minds.
They posted on the prison webpage that we were given masks but none were given out. They said that we were staying six feet away, but none of that was enforced. We were all using the same six phones.
There was no plan for anything. None of the COs would wear their masks. There were a lot of arguments between the inmates and COs. Because the COs would tell the inmates to put their masks on when they wouldn’t do it themselves.
The COs were supposed to wear full PPE but they saw it as a joke. The funniest thing is when there is an audit and there were a few. All the COs tell the inmates when it’s happening and to comply while the audit is going on.
That happens at every prison. It is not possible to have a surprise audit in a prison. As soon as the auditors leave, it goes back to normal.
I personally have a girlfriend in South Carolina that I have been with for almost 11 years and it’s hard to see each other. And with this going on we haven’t seen each other in person for over a year.
I will tell you a sad fact. Most inmates don’t have anyone who gives a shit about them. I am lucky, but I see it everywhere.
A lot of people don’t even care. What this pandemic did was isolate people even worse. They are trying to start a tablet program in California prisons, and it’s about time.
This pandemic has shown how easily things can go bad. In Mule Creek, in my yard, only one person died. He worked with me, and the sad thing is that I never even spoke to him.
