This letter was written by a person incarcerated at Lancaster.
I’m currently at a medical facility at CSP-Los Angeles, Lancaster, CA. There is a huge COVID-19 outbreak with around 60 percent of the inmate population (approximately 500 inmates) on full quarantine status. That’s three out of the five buildings in our A yard facility.
Conditions are beyond poor with very little room for six feet of physical distancing. We are being forced to live on top of each other in tiny cells, like cage animals. Staff members and ranking officers are rebellious to respect proper masking and physical distancing protocols, jeopardizing lives. CDCR and prison officials are failing to be fully transparent, lying to our families and have hid many COVID-related cases. Our medical is poor with extreme delays, placing lives in danger.
The prison system and CDCR has failed to provide us the inmate population with multiple mask, and forcing us to wear a mask that has been worn and torn by constant usage, given to us back in April and expect us to use it for the entire pandemic.
We are not being provided with self-sanitation supply nor provided with any type of hand sanitizer that would kill viruses such as coronavirus effectively. We are given our regular three-ounce bar of soap and expected for us to make it last seven to 10 days for washing our hands and showering – only lasting a few days of usage and told to wash our hands and body with nothing more than just water.
Officers are also forcing quarantine inmates to report to work and work exposing themselves to other inmates. The way prison officials handle the pandemic puts nearly 100,000 inmates at risk. It seems like their biggest concern is about revenues and not lives.
At the moment, my safety is at risk and being ignored by prison officials and Sacramento CDCR. CDCR is slowly approaching 100 COVID-19-related deaths statewide, and has surpassed the 10,000 plus inmates infected with COVID, from the start of the pandemic and rapidly growing. I’m currently at risk under the care of CDCR. Fearing of being infected with the virus, since I do suffer with multiple chronic pre-existing healthcare conditions making me vulnerable.
I wake up each and every morning thinking, will today be the day I contract COVID-19 and die? Whatever happened to humanity? Why do they have me in a death camp, serving a COVID-19 death sentence, a term never once ordered to serve. Is profit really worth more than lives?
