I am currently incarcerated at Santa Rita Jail. I have been in custody since 2016. I am a federal inmate. I am currently an inmate worker, and have been an inmate worker since COVID-19 hit around March/April, 2019. I am now housed in HU 34. I have been in 34 for about two weeks. Before I was in HU 22.
Part of my work includes taking the food carts and putting them into the refrigerator, taking the food trays and loading them into the ovens, and passing out the food trays to the other inmates. In HU 34, I serve approximately 80 trays per meal, three meals per day. In HU 22, I served 100 trays per meal, three meals per day.
The breakfast cart arrives the day before usually around 6 p.m. The proper procedure is for cold and trays to be placed into a refrigerator. The hot trays are removed about two hours before the meal, the trays are placed into a warming oven, heated and then served. However, depending on the deputy, the hot trays may not be refrigerated, and are directly loaded into the oven at night. The trays sit in an unheated oven until 4 or 4:30 a.m. when the oven is turned on. We inmate workers get up at 5 am to begin preparation for serving breakfast. When this happens, the food in the hot trays sit, unrefrigerated for up to 8 hours. This is because at 4 or 4:30 a.m., the inmate pod workers are locked in our cells, and the deputy would then have to load the trays into the oven. Some deputies don’t want to do this type of work, so they skip the refrigeration and have the trays in the oven. This was especially the case with Deputy Harris, who always had us load the breakfast trays into the oven, the night before.
When I was in HU 22, there was a period of about 2 weeks where the refrigerator was broken, and during those two weeks no food was refrigerated. When the food carts came, we just wheeled the carts into the closet where we stored the laundry. Everything sat out.
When I was in HU 22, there was a period of about 2 weeks where the refrigerator was broken, and during those two weeks no food was refrigerated. When the food carts came, we just wheeled the carts into the closet where we stored the laundry. Everything sat out.
Once, we opened the closet and there was a rat. The deputy’s response was, this was a “mascot” for the unit. Once we opened the freezer and there was a rat in the freezer with the food. The deputy’s response was “Whoever doesn’t want to eat it – don’t eat it.” There were no replacement food trays.
The food at Santa Rita Jail is frequently spoiled and inedible. On the week of October 5, 2020, when I was still in HU 22, beans were served with maggots in them. The maggots were cooked with the beans. When we told the deputy, his response is “this is all you get”, “eat it or throw it away”. Most of us threw it away. Jose Lepe wrote a grievance about this.
The food at Santa Rita Jail is frequently spoiled and inedible. On the week of October 5, 2020, when I was still in HU 22, beans were served with maggots in them. The maggots were cooked with the beans. When we told the deputy, his response is “this is all you get”, “eat it or throw it away”. Most of us threw it away.
Often, the hot trays are put into the oven and heated for hours. The food then becomes burnt, black, and the food is so tough and dry, you have to scrape it with your fingernail to get it off the tray.
At least twice a week, when I get cold cereal for breakfast, the bottom of tray was wet when they put the cereal in, so the bottom layer of the cold cereal is soggy. The kool-aid packets, I guess this is suppose to be our juice, are also wet.