Prisoners Rights Being Trampled

Physical, Emotional, and Spiritual Health Endangered

I sent the following notification to various prisoner rights groups today (12/31/2020). It concerns conditions in California prisons, specifically or particularly CTF Soledad:

Hello,

I want to make you aware of some situations that I know (in some cases) or believe (in other cases) are taking place at CTF Soleded (and possibly other California prisons). I am in regular contact with over a dozen inmates there (per U.S. mail); this is primarily where my information is coming from.

1) FAILURE TO PROTECT INMATES FROM CONTRACTING COVID-19

Inmates who are still testing positive for COVID are being assigned to cells in which inmates who have not yet tested positive for COVID are housed. The institution authorities are claiming that it is safe to do so; I have my doubts. This happened to an inmate with whom I correspond; he refused to accept the COVID-positive cellmate, and was transferred to another cell. This is what he wrote to me:

"But for some idiotic reason, people who have contracted COVID are constantly being moved around by staff: from isolation, to quarantine, then back into the housing units, _while still positive!_ The nurses here say that after two weeks the inmates that test positive aren't infectious anymore so they're "safe" to be around the rest of us. I don't believe that at all. The number and increase of cases tell the true story.

"Last week they tried to move a guy with COVID into my cell and I _immediately_ told them that I wanted to move." [ By the way, they did move my correspondent -- from one cell to another one in the same wing ]

This is from another inmate, in a letter dated 12/23/20 which I received 12/26/20:

"Yes, they have mixed us up in every wing, and even let the ones who tested positive go to work in the kitchen around our food. I don't understand that. You can't be cleared to work in the kitchen with T.B. so why let people with the Corona-Virus work around the food? They wanted it to spread, if you ask me.

"It's 859 positive inmates and 102 staff members."

2) INMATES' WATER SUPPLY UNSAFE

I worked there at CTF Soledad for 2+ years until my retirement in September. I was advised by several coworkers on many occasions not to drink the water (from the water fountains), but to bring in my own water instead. The water in the fountains, they told me, was not safe. But this is the water the inmates are getting: not only are their meals presumably prepared with this apparently unsafe or unhealthy water, but it is what they are provided for drinking water, also.

So the water is “good enough” for the inmates, but it is an “open secret” that it is not good enough for the employees.

I filed a whistleblower report about this to the State a year or more ago; nothing was ever done about it (the water system was not improved/upgraded).

3) RELIGIOUS DISCRIMINATION

Members of certain religious groups are being discriminated against, in that the materials provided by their religion are not being broadcast on the institutional channel[s]. According to my understanding, all religions are allowed to have their materials broadcast. I was a religious volunteer there at CTF Soledad before I became an employee. Now that all religious programs within the prison have been postponed due to COVID, the only way for me to provide ministerial/pastoral services to the members of the group I served is to correspond with them via mail and try to see to it that these video programs are played for them. CTF claims the materials we have provided ARE being played, but according to ALL of the inmates with whom I correspond, they are not. The Chaplain at CTF claims to be shocked that they are not being played, so I don't know if the problem is farther down the chain of (video material) custody.

4) RACIST RELEASE POLICIES?

This is not something I know for sure is happening, but I have suspicions that it is, and feel that it should be audited by someone: My theory is that, if you compared the inmates' records classified or filtered by race, you would find that minorities have a more difficult time getting released by the Parole Board than white inmates do (I am white, by the way).

In other words, if inmates were classified by crime for which they are incarcerated, I think it would be found that a smaller percentage of minorities are deemed ready for release when they meet with the Parole Board than is the case with white inmates who committed the same crime.

5) RACIST SENTENCING? (Not directly a Prison issue, but rather a "Justice System" issue)

Finally, I would like to know if you are interested in looking into a particular case of an inmate I know who is serving 82 years for murder, although he did not directly commit murder (he was an accomplice). It was his first and only crime -- he had no "priors," nothing on his "rap sheet." He was a young man at the time, 20 years old. He had enough confidence in the justice system that he opted for a jury trial rather than taking a plea "bargain." He is black. There were no black people on his jury. The case did not take place in Wyoming or New Hampshire. It took place in Southern California. There’s something wrong with that picture.

Eighty-two years seems an astonishingly excessive ("over-the-top") sentence to me. In my opinion, justice calls for him to be resentenced. He has been a model prisoner and has done everything he can to demonstrate his efforts to be a productive citizen. I can give you more information, including his contact info, if you are interested in helping him receive justice.

I have contacted several people in the prison system about his case, including the CDCR Secretary; also Governor Newsom. I have not heard anything back from them (after more than two months).

This is the “Whistleblower” letter I sent to the State of California approximately one month ago regarding these issues (to which they have not responded):

I need to report a dire situation at CTF Soledad Prison. I have been a religious volunteer there for several years. Due to COVID, I haven't been able to go into the prison in that capacity for 9 months. However, I have been writing to several of the Jehovah's Witnesses and those who are interested in our teachings who are incarcerated there -- those who attended our meetings regularly when we were able to hold them there.

I got a letter from one of them yesterday which, in part, stated:

"But for some idiotic reason, people who have contracted COVID are constantly being moved around by staff: from isolation, to quarantine, then back into the housing units, _while still positive!_ The nurses here say that after two weeks the inmates that test positive aren't infectious anymore so they're "safe" to be around the rest of us. I don't believe that at all. The number and increase of cases tell the true story.

Last week they tried to move a guy with COVID into my cell and I _immediately_ told them that I wanted to move." [ By the way, they did move him, but from one cell to another in the same wing ]

On a secondary, but still very important, issue, the religious programs which have been provided by us (my fellow religious volunteers and I) to CTF on DVD to be broadcast on the institutional channel[s] are not being played on a regular basis as they are supposed to be. In fact, they are apparently not being broadcast at all anymore. We (Jehovah's Witnesses) have provided plenty of material to the prison, and we were assured that our material would be broadcast 3 times a day, 7 times a week, and that this was Statewide policy. Yet, the dozen inmates with whom I have been in contact there at CTF Soledad have all told me that they aren't being broadcast at all.

If I do not hear that these problems have been addressed by January 1, 2021, I will go to the press with this information, including but not limited to PAN (Prisoner Advocacy Network).

B. Clay Shannon
bclayshannon@att.net
(831) 251-4279