Anyone know if VSPW is still on lockdown?

Was there some non-routine reason for it? If they're still locked down, any idea how much longer?

If there's no "visits phone calls, work, recreation, programs, etc..." What can/do they do all day?!

I have a penpal in VSPW and I'm getting nothing from her recently. What's with this lockdown stuff?
Rgds
J.N.

I talked to Nancy Rubenstein at inmates family council and got the attached reply
Quote
Dear John:

Lockdown ended some time on May 5th, I think. There apparently was a stabbing on one of the yards, and a guard brought in a cell phone in a lunchbox, which was 'lost'. At least, these are the rumors that I have heard. The whole prison ended up on complete lockdown, which means no one could leave their rooms unless they were having a seizure or a heart attack (there are different levels of lockdown, and this was the highest level, I think). At one point, they only had box lunches in their rooms for all meals. Everyone was strip searched, and their rooms were completely tossed, and everything extra that they had was taken away (that wasn't 'allowed'). I guess it was pretty bad. The cell phone was a guard's fault, by the way; the guards are not allowed to bring them in. I don't know if the guard simply misplaced it, or if an inmate actually got ahold of it. It sounds like several fights broke out during this period, and that several inmates ended up getting nailed with their rubber bullets (or beanbags, or whatever it is they use now). The fights are probably what led to the complete lockedown -- and the fights were probably a result of the intense strip and cell searches.

No matter how you slice it, it was bad news. I'm sorry to have to give you this kind of information. If you would like to do something about it, the only thing I can think of is to write to Senator Romero or some of the other state legislators and complain. Lockdowns of this severity make very little sense, and are due to the overcrowding problem, as much as anything else.

Sincerely,
Nancy L. Rubinstein, IFC Secretary
VSPW, Chowchilla
Unquote
trust this helps
regards
capn John

I think that everybody who was affected by this lockdown should email and complain to senator Gloria Romero chairman of the select committee of California Corrections. She has her own website with feedback facilities. I think that we should insist that such events should be the subject of somne sort of press release so that families and friends at least know that there will be a hiccup in the comms for a while.
Do you agree?

I think that everybody who was affected by this lockdown should email and complain to senator Gloria Romero chairman of the select committee of California Corrections. She has her own website with feedback facilities. I think that we should insist that such events should be the subject of somne sort of press release so that families and friends at least know that there will be a hiccup in the comms for a while.
Do you agree?


More than that, I'd like to see the CDC website(s) join the latter part of the 20th century... How excusable is it for the state that plays host to Silicon Valley and the Digital Coast to lag behind Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, and Florida with respect to information available online?

It costs nothing (realistically; you give the task to the most junior person in the office, and set them up with a $99 license to Macrovision's Contribute) to post news to a website, could be done on a facility-by-facility basis. And adding things like an inmate locator shouldn't be too difficult; the information's already in a computer somewhere, and integration tools have come a long way (and come down in cost dramatically). Nevada does it with some PHP code, the same as what this site runs on ...

My lady was at VSPW a couple of months ago and has since transferred out to CIW. She didn't have a lot of good things to say about it especially the R/C. Has anyone heard anything new on the lockdown?
And yes I do agree there should be some manner in which we can be informed of such events.