Tehachapi, California
[The small town of Tehachapi is situated 104 miles away from Los Angeles in the middle of farmland and desert chaparral, and with a pre-pandemic population of twelve-thousand, the town has remained relatively unscathed. To the west of Tehachapi lies the abandoned concrete structures and fences of the California Correctional Institute, its former population- three thousand inmates. It is here at the prison's outskirts that the subject of this interview has agreed to meet. We walk along the perimeter fences, long rusted.]
Prior to the Outbreak, CCI was a supermax prison. I was only twenty-three when I was sentenced. I came from a middle-class background, got a diploma, went to college for a couple of years, played PC games, went to conventions; accomplished things that a majority of my fellow inmates didn't. I was sheltered. Then I got arrested. I won't delve into the details of my crime, as none of that matters anymore.
[We stop]
If you thought that the conventions of normative society don't apply today, with all the upheaval and restructuring of order and nations, and walking corpses; I'll tell you that it never existed in prison, even prior to all this. Before I go on- let me just tell you that prison is an intellectual wasteland. Where physique and violence were the quantifying units that determines who was top dog. To be quite honest, if you could survive in prison you could survive anywhere, and penal society shaped inmates in a way that made them quite inclined to what awaited them beyond those walls.
[We continue]
People who didn't read the papers were oblivious to the first signs of a growing pandemic. Initially maybe a small box of text relegated to the corner of a newspaper, or isolated incidents of violence misreported as mass hysteria. None of that disrupted our incarcerated lives, but things slowly escalated from there.
At first, television service and newspaper deliveries were discontinued. The next amenity to go were the phone calls, those fortunate enough to have had cellphones smuggled in got in contact with their loved ones right before reception was lost entirely. Rumors of an unknown disease.
After that commissary deliveries were stopped, showers were limited to once a week, then once every two weeks; electricity was limited to a few hours everyday, yard time abolished, and all inmates ordered back to their cells. The trustees (inmates given janitorial duties) were the last to be ordered back to their housing block, and with them our last source of information. Meals were coming in smaller portions. Fewer and fewer guards showed up, and those that did were jittery and strictly muzzled.
3,000 inmates cooped up in their cell blocks for weeks. Rioting and escaping was ineffective if the steel doors to our cells couldn't be opened without power. We were on indefinite lockdown. Eventually you lose track of the time. Tempers flare. A murder here, a suicide there. Even I came close to the latter. I slept. Slept enough for a lifetime. And I prayed. As things were, it couldn't hurt to try.
"When did it end?"
When? That's the wrong question to ask. Rather 'how did it end?
It happened one night. Power came back on and we were all ordered out, cell by cell, one block at a time, and told to form single file lines of multiple rows on the yard. I swear we were all so ecstatic like children on a field trip. Yet, it wasn't the deputies, but what I assume were the reserves- the army, who let us out.
Surprisingly enough we all didn't die that night, with all the demands for an explanation and to see our families. The agitators among us were either summarily shot where they stood or sent into solitary.
"You mean-"
From what I understand, when the remnants of the United States government were driven into a corner- that is West of the Rockies. There was a shortage of manpower. With California being the second highest in terms of prison population, what better than to utilize this reserve of institutionalized and physically fit demographic group? Penal battalions are the obvious answer.
Yes, that initiative. A very pragmatic one too. The very same a fringe group in our legislature would happily see overturned, today. A pardon for your sacrifice and work. Of course there were safeguards in place. Those who were given life sentences, or those whose crimes were deemed too violent in nature were excluded or given an "early pardon." Those who proved too unruly and obstinate were simply re-incarcerated to serve the remainder of their sentence.
[He stares at the weather-worn facade of the prison]
I can say with certainty that recidivism has never been at its lowest.