The Inside Scoop

So we recently had an outbreak of Covid-19. By the way, nobody went to the hospital or even had more than a sore throat and a runny nose. It used to be if someone tested positive, he and his celly went into quarantine regardless of his test status, but they changed that for awhile, which was a good thing. Eventually a lot of people caught it and they moved all the positive cases out of the building. Some of them were even sent to the hole (administrative segregation), which has no TV, or phones, and they only let them bring food. Everyone who tested negative got put on quarantine due to potential contact despite our negative results. Then more positives showed up, and Sacramento told the prison to pack the whole building up (over a 100 people and their belongings) and take us to the dining hall so they could sanitize the whole building. They soon realized that was not going to work, so they had us put our stuff outside our cells and wait until about until about 7pm… a lot of people’s m...

This is just a general idea of what a day of mine might look like--they are by no means constant though. 6:00am – Wake up, get dressed, and make bed. 6:30 – Go to chow and eat SOS or something close. 7:00 – Brush teeth, stretch, and prepare for the day. 8:30 – Go to dayroom, work out, and phone call or shower. 11:00 – Back into cell to eat lunch. 12:30pm – Go to substance abuse/self-help class. 2:30 – Come back and work on college material. 4:30 – Count time! 5:00 – Watch world news. 5:30 – Go to dinner and eat slop or close to it. 6:00 – Come back, brush teeth, and see what’s on TV. 7:00 – Unroll mattress and make bed. 9:00 – Go to sleep unless something really good is on TV until 10:00 10:00 – Bedtime. Time management can be a challenge because you are always at the will of the institution. Sometimes they will pull everyone out of the building, out of nowhere, for a search. Another example is how I have to plan my exercise around when I can get a shower....

  Since I’ve been down, I’ve been to a few prisons. I did time at Tracy Reception Center (DVI) and that place is really run down. It’s a good thing they’re shutting it down. I’ve done a layover in Wasco, and that place was very dirty, plus the food was terrible.  So far, most of my time was done in Calipatria (CAL). It wasn’t dirty and the food was halfway decent, but there were no options for jobs or self-help programs, and there wasn’t a lot of dayroom or yard… but it’s a level 4.  The place I’m in now is Sierra Conservation Center (SCC) in Jamestown, CA. When I showed up it was Disneyland. All day programs, lots of job options and self-help programs. But, ever since covid hit, all that pretty much cut in half, which is better than most other places.  I have heard that Mule Creek, Stockton, and Donovan are pretty nice, but everyone has their own opinion of nice. It’s all still prison. If anyone feels like they would like to write to me personally, that’s fine wit...

Ever since this pandemic started, all the prisons in the world went to some sort of modified program… among those is my prison (Sierra Conservation Center). A modified program consists of below normal amounts of yard, dayroom, and/or jobs, and self-help groups. We understand that it’s because of Covid-19 and we’ve gotten kinda used to it, but for the past couple months my prison has been going through some sort of bureaucratic bull-crap that doesn’t have anything to do with inmates—but affects inmates. Randomly, throughout the week, multiple correctional officers won’t show up to work and we won’t get yard, or any program at all, and sometimes this happens multiple days in a row. Now, I’m not exactly sure why this is, but I’ve heard a couple of rumors. One is that the union cut a deal so they can take away vacation days whenever they want, just because they feel sick. The other is that nobody wants to work with the new sergeant that took over second-watch. Regardless of all of this,...

So, imagine what your kid eats at meals and I mean like a 7 or 8 year-old. If you don’t have kids, just imagine a Happy Meal from McDonalds. That’s about how much food we get—just of lower quality. According to rumor, people used to eat pretty good in prison, but within the past ten years they have been slowly diminishing the size and quality of our meals. They say it’s for health reasons, but how is a 200 lb. young man with a high metabolism supposed to keep himself in shape when he barely gets 3000 calories a day? That might seem like enough to people who want to sit on their butts all day, but that’s not a healthy lifestyle. How can a 3000 calorie diet promote good health? On top of all that, they’ve taken sugar out which doesn’t prevent diabetes. People need to learn self-control—otherwise, too bad! The replacement for the sugar is much worse than the real stuff. I’ve personally stopped using sugar substitutes because people say they can cause cancer. I’ve had bowel issues, cog...