It’s hard to tell what the actual situation is at the Lompoc federal prison, other than it’s not good.
After promising inmates increased phone minutes to stave off concerns about the loss of other rights, “officials” (we have no idea if they’re local, national, or somethings else) decided to cut off inmate phone access altogether due to the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak in the federal prison. Families are pissed!
So pissed they held a rally outside of the prisons—there are two facilities on the compound—on April 25 demanding change.
And I don’t blame them at all.
Now, the only way for them to figure out how their incarcerated family members are doing is to wait for snail mail or just trust that the Bureau of Prisons is taking care of things the way they ought to.
And if you check out the Bureau of Prisons’ website, you’ll get a slightly different view of what’s going on at the Lompoc facilities than if you look at the numbers compiled by the county. Which is insane! Why can’t everyone just track the same damn things? It would be so much easier for everyone, but maybe it’s too much to ask government agencies to stay in touch with one another.
Then the public wouldn’t be playing a guessing game about this pandemic!
As of April 27, Santa Barbara County listed 104 positive confirmed inmate cases at Lompoc’s facilities. According to the Bureau of Prisons’ April 28 numbers, 92 inmates had confirmed cases. Uh, so is it 104 or 92 or some other randomly generated number without explanation?
The week prior, a Bureau of Prisons’ spokesperson told the Sun that the agency was only listing “unresolved” cases. But we have no idea what a “resolved case” means. Does it mean the inmate fully recovered from COVID-19? Does it mean they were released into home confinement? Does it mean they are no longer with us? They’re in the ICU attached to a ventilator?
God, I hate bureaucracy. It sucks!
Why all the secrecy? It’s not that hard to just be honest. Be factual. Be precise. Be upfront.
Don’t be opaque, imprecise, and general.
Then there’s the whole home confinement release issue. The bureau won’t tell us whether anyone from Lompoc’s prisons has been released into home confinement, only that agency-wide, a little more than 1,500 inmates have been released and sent home to confine.
Thanks for the specificity.
But, of course, it’s not just incarcerated criminals we should be concerned about. It’s the people who work at the U.S. Penitentiary Lompoc and Federal Correctional Institution Lompoc. Between the two facilities, 25 staff members have confirmed positive for the virus. But, of course, that number is coming from the Bureau of Prisons, so who knows what the actual number of staff members who have contracted the virus is.
All we really know is that, according to U.S. Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-Santa Barbara), some of the staff members have started sleeping in their cars because they don’t want to get their family members sick. What the hell, Bureau of Prisons?
Take care of your employees. It’s literally the least you could do.
The canary is sick and tired of being sick and tired. Send comments to canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Apr 30 – May 7, 2020.