San Quentin Outbreak Archives - Street Spirit

San Quentin Outbreak

‘The only way the virus gets in here is through them’: San Quentin prisoners frustrated with latest COVID-19 outbreak

By Joe Garcia on September 6, 2021

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has reported nearly 300 new cases in its facilities across California since the beginning of August.

San Quentin on trial: widespread COVID outbreak in crowded conditions causes courts to question the prison’s habitability

By Joe Garcia on July 7, 2021

News

For the last month, prisoners, prison officials, and expert witnesses have been testifying in front of a federal judge about San Quentin's mishandling of one of the worst COVID-19 outbreaks in the country.

Inside the struggle to depopulate San Quentin

By Joe Garcia on February 11, 2021

News

In light of a botched transfer last year, federal judge ordered San Quentin State Prison to decrease its population. Here's a look inside San Quentin as officials begin to do so by transferring incarcerated men to other prisons—rather than releasing them.

Large-scale decarceration is the only way to halt COVID outbreaks in prison

By Stop San Quentin Outbreak Coalition on July 17, 2020

Commentary News Opinion

Releasing a mere 6 percent of the people inside California’s overcrowded prisons falls woefully short of the large-scale decarceration needed to protect the health and safety of the community.

I am incarcerated at San Quentin. I have COVID-19.

By Thanh Tran on July 17, 2020

First-person Opinion

I write this after 3 days of being curled into a fetal position, fighting off COVID-19. I was sick and bedridden when I received my test results that read, "COVID Negative." This is what it looks like to test someone and then try to transfer them.

Right side of history

By Steve Brooks on July 17, 2020

Commentary First-person Opinion

When future generations look back on the devastation caused by this coronavirus pandemic, they are likely going to say that what happened to incarcerated populations in America’s prisons is tantamount to crimes against humanity.