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  2020-12-04

  Roxanne Garcia Oral History, 2020/12/04

  Roxanne Garcia, a worker and mother, is the person I am interviewing. We discuss her life, including some background information about her family; including her parents and siblings. In this interview we reflect on suicide, prison, education, enfranchisement, COVID-19, and motherhood. The overall concept behind this interview is to see where a random mother and worker finds herself within the complexity of modern life, specifically as it relates to her children’s education, prisoner’s rights, and the pandemic. Her experiences intersect many issues and hot topics.
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  2020-10-19

  California Defendants Entitled to Mental Health Care Languish in Overcrowded, Unhealthy Jails FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditShare

  The writers’ son is a patient with mental health-related rights that have gone unfulfilled, along with thousands of others, in the downtown Los Angeles jail nicknamed the Two Towers.
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  2020-07-31

  ‘It’s hell living there’: Texas inmates say they are battling COVID-19 in prisons with no A/C

  Conditions in Texas prisons notoriously unhealthy, these inmates face inhumane living conditions during a pandemic.
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  2020-08-14

  Texas prison system still tops US in virus cases, as deaths and criticism mount

  A father who has been incarcerated for 30 years holds a baby prior to imprisonment; this man died in prison without seeing his family during the last months of his life.
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  2019-05-10

  The Penal System Today is Slavery’: Lawmakers Finally Start to Talk About Unpaid Labor in Texas Prisons

  Protestors demonstrate in public against the abuse of prison inmates forced to work for slave wages in unhealthy conditions.
• 2020-10-11

  California kept prison factories open. Inmates worked for pennies an hour as COVID-19 spread

  The state is responsible for the spread of covid19 from the neighboring men’s institution to the women’s institution, leading to death.
• 2020-10-24

  COVID-19 cases increase at California Institution for Men

  This is an article about a state prison in Chino, California. The state could be responsible for the increase in covid19 cases in the Institution.
• 2020-10-18

  The Summer of Stress

  In the days following my graduation from community college in 2015, I fulfilled my lifelong pursuit of procrastination and let my apartment lease run out without securing a new residence. The two weeks of couch surfing and car sleeping which followed surely taught me a lesson in preparedness. I never thought I would be in a situation where I would lose my job and home. in 2015, I still had a job. I had friends who could take me in and help me re-establish; it is easier to continue work and remain healthy when sleeping indoors and enjoying hot showers daily. But in 2020, the story is different. My friends could still take me in; many urged me to. But the pandemic put a weight on my mind that I was not safe to stay with my friends; and I couldn't stay with one friend for a long time (and therefore minimize new contact). I am incredibly afraid that I could harm my friends' families because of the pandemic. Then my job as a cashier at a 7-Eleven by the Orange County Airport was lost because the travel and traffic in the airport area dropped drastically as lockdowns and travel restrictions began; many stores in the area closed. I waited all of summer before I applied for assistance. I kept thinking it would be like the two weeks in 2015; but this was not just my own negligence as a procrastinator, this was my own fault compounded by the pandemic. As the method of my hygiene (24 Hour Fitness) closed, I truly felt the weight of stress on my mind. No more daily hot showers. Luckily my mobile residence, my car, allows me to sleep near the cold showers of the beach. Luckily the YMCA has begun phased re-opening, and I began showering there end of September when I could afford the membership. I am still without a job, and without a permanent residence. It was impossible to manage what money I still have, because eating as a homeless person is not cheap; hot food costs far more money than grocery bought. I had to use my friend's address to even get EBT/food stamps; this is why the homeless folk who are less fortunate than me, who no longer have friends pursuing their safety with them, suffer. There is no address for EBT to send them the food stamps, or they as people in need simply have no friends who can help them shoulder the stress of bad fortune and extreme circumstances.