I watched the debates over people’s rights during the COVID emergency from behind California prison walls. Here inside Ironwood State Prison, prisoners are afforded a narrow range of “rights,” which can be suspended to preserve institutional security.

So, in March 2020, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation denied prisoners all their visiting privileges, educational and vocational classes, self-help groups, religious service gatherings and many work assignments. In effect, CDCR closed the system to the outside world and put prisoner rehabilitation on indefinite hold.

We prisoners are accustomed uncertainty. But in early 2020, no one expected that the shutdown would last more than a few months.

Instead, COVID infiltrated the system, and prisoners had to contend with slow development of effective pandemic protocols. The first masks I received in March 2020, when I was at a level-four maximum security prison yard in the San Joaquin Valley, were made from the cloth used for our state-issued pants. Months passed before better masks became available. And while inmates were required to wear masks from the pandemic’s onset, months passed before usage by staff became uniform.

My initial experiences with mass testing involved being herded into a line of 50 inmates to have nurses swab our noses. Many of us wondered about the wisdom of assembling us so close together. Jokes were common about being negative before such tests and positive afterward.

Other early policies also increased risk unnecessarily. Quarantine units housed both infected inmates and those identified as “exposed.” Inmates were quarantined after being exposed during trips to medical facilities — which discouraged prisoners from attending medical appointments.

For inmates living in dorms, isolation is impossible. Cell blocks, like the ones where I’ve been housed, afford isolation but are no guarantee against catching COVID.  I am in a cell block where practically every inmate got infected. I have met inmates who were infected multiple times (and others who weren’t infected even once). Statewide, more than 250 inmates have died from the disease.

Two years into the pandemic, I contracted COVID. By the time my test came back, my symptoms had passed. (I was already vaccinated and boosted.) Nurses checked my vitals twice daily during my 10-day stay in quarantine. It was an uneventful experience; I feel lucky that I did not get COVID earlier.

Trial and error made prison COVID protocols more effective and sensitive, but it was the vaccines that lifted the statewide shutdown. Inmates were again able to hug their loved ones. Study toward GED diplomas or vocational certificates resumed, and many inmates returned to  work assignments. Self-help groups — where inmates learn to overcome addiction and criminal thinking and to develop pro-social skills — restarted. So did religious services.

Now, rehabilitative programs are still suspended for at least 14 days at any yard with a COVID outbreak, normally defined as three or more positive cases. Unfortunately, outbreaks often last at least a month. These disruptions are significant setbacks, especially for inmates hoping to parole with a GED, diploma, college degree or trade certification.

Lessening the impacts of these disruptions will require more than just better management. California would benefit from an independent commission to examine how state personnel and institutions responded in the pandemic. A well-run inquiry could inspire broader changes in prisons and other state systems.

In the meantime, there are ways to make improvements in outbreak response.

CDCR should change incentives so that outbreaks are fewer, smaller and less disruptive. Every quarter without a facility outbreak could earn inmates good conduct credits and prison guards some type of bonus. Inmates also should be given greater input into the review and creation of pandemic protocols — which would give us a larger stake in the overall health of the prison environment.

Proactive policies could facilitate immediate alternative access to educational, vocational and self-help programs when outbreaks occur. Right now, there is no moving classes online or scheduling make-up sessions.

On the yard where I am housed, programs are running. Inmates are no longer required to wear masks, and staff use masks sparingly. But COVID will likely move through our state prisons for the foreseeable future. At the same time, inmates will be released back into society. The CDCR can ensure that the larger mission of rehabilitation does not take a backseat to pandemic protocols. That would be a cost too great for California to bear.

David Medina is an inmate at Ironwood State Prison in Blythe. He wrote this commentary for Zócalo Public Square.

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