This story was told by a person incarcerated at Solano.
Caller: Now while we’re being circulated like this, we don’t have the benefit of the laundry facilities because the prison laundry shut down. They shut the prison down. So, we have no means to clean our clothes. So, we have guys who are sick, in a hospital ward, who don’t have the benefit to maintain cleanliness. You know, with regards to, laundry and maintaining their hygiene.
UCI: Mhmm.
Caller: Let’s see number nine. After, what they’re telling me, and I’m not in that situation yet because this is like my ninth day. But after 14 days in this isolation ward that they have us in, once you clear, they say after 14 days you clear the COVID-19 virus. What they’re doing is they’re sending inmates back out into the general population. But what is striking is they’re separating us from our property.
So, they’re saying, “We’re gonna send you back into the general population but we’re gonna keep your property to decontaminate your property.” Now I can understand that to some degree, but what they’re doing is they’re not securing the property. You have inmate’s property just sitting out under the podium. Sitting out unsecured, so someone can just steal and take your property. And I don’t think that’s right.
Also, I’m not sure, scientifically, if you release me back into the general population, that I wouldn’t be more susceptible to contaminate other inmates than my property. I don’t know how much germ or how long the virus lives on property, as opposed to a biological organism by itself.
UCI: Mhmm.
Caller: But this is what they’re telling us, and we don’t have the science to argue with them. They have the absolute authority over us. But anyway, the property is unsecured and is accessible by strange inmates. Some of us are, you know, we have our family’s addresses, personal information, case information in our property, and other inmates can just grab it and take it and I don’t think that’s right.
