This story was told by a person incarcerated at Riverside County Jail.
UCI: Okay. So please give your testimony about any aspects you think are important for people to know about the situation of people incarcerated during COVID-19. Go for it.
Caller: Oh, okay. Yeah. I would just, like, I’m in it right now. The pandemic has, like, obviously ended statewide businesses, I believe, like, two weeks ago, and we’re still on modified program.
There’s still no visiting for [unintelligible], there’s still, like, split tier and single staff for showers and the day room. And basically nothing much has changed since the – the pandemic has ended, you know, statewide for other things, for other businesses and church.
Also, we – we’re not religious services in here. Basics that we had before the pandemic, and we’re very patient with them, and they – they’re not changed. And we would like to know when these – these emergency powers are end because a lot have been incarcerated for a long time now.
Many of them for several years or more, and they’re still saying the courts, that they can use emergency powers to waive our, cut out our consent due to the pandemic, and we’re saying that we’d like to have our rights to speedy trial, to due process. And being denied that based on what’s happening in the emergency powers granted to the county based on COVID-19 pandemic.
And since that’s ended, these powers have not been redacted or returned to the pre-pandemic conditions that, you know, we as Americans and citizens of the State of California are [guaranteed] by law and those are being [unintelligible] to us [unintelligible] and also those [unintelligible] prison. That’s all. Thank you.
