I’ve been incarcerated for almost 18-years, and during that time, I’ve asked, and been asked, more times then I can count what I planned to eat for my first meal once released from prison. Without hesitation, my answer has always been the same: while lasagna is, hands down, my favorite dish, it’s pizza I truly crave. To be specific, a large with sausage and extra cheese. The cheese melted all over the place, and stretching from the pie to your mouth as you lift to the slice away from the box, the steam rising from the center as it separates from the pack. I also wanted some fried chicken, extra crispy and a 2-liter of Coke. My mouth waters just thinking about it and I knew, I just knew that, on August 7th, 2020, I’d be out in the free world eating my first slice of pizza in well over 18-years, followed by an extra crispy drumstick and an ice cold Coke. Then COVID-19 hit.
I watched the COVID pandemic sweep
throughout the world. No one, it seemed, was safe. Small “mom and pop” stores
all over the world closed their doors, hoping and praying it was only
temporary, only to later learn they’d been closed for so long there was simply
no recovering. One after the other, businesses would shutter their doors, temporarily
at first, and then permanently, and soon enough, bigger businesses were
following suit. As I watched the drama unfolding, I began to realize that I’d
be lucky to get a meal when I got out, let alone a slice of pizza, but then
decisions were made by those in government that allowed restaurants, especially
pizza places, to continue doing business during the COVID crisis, if they were
willing to follow the guidelines. “All was saved,” I thought. In just a few
weeks, I’d be out of here and having my first slice of pizza, sauce and cheese
sliding down my chin as I stuffed 18-years worth of missed opportunities down
my gullet, but then the prison system decided to have a laugh at my expense.
Some of my readers already know that I
played a role in convincing the CDCR to give everyone a credit of 12-weeks
towards our prison sentences. Naturally, I thought I’d be one of the ones
getting the credit. After all, I hadn’t received a rules violation in well over
13-years, had been a model slave and was mere months away from the house as it
was. Instead, they chose to sit on my credit issuance for a week, and then
issued me only 48 of the 84 days, claiming they still needed to provide my
accusers with 60-days notice. Well, not being able to access the law library, I
had no idea they were full of it, but by the time I completed the appeals
process, I would have been home anyway, or so I thought, so why bother. Don’t
get me wrong, I filed anyway, I was just never able to complete the process because, as I predicted,
they refused to give it the urgency it merited and I was forced to stay in
prison for another couple of weeks. No matter, right? I’d still be eating that
slice of pizza, it would just take me a few more weeks. Did I mention that CDCR
wasn’t the only one about to have a laugh at my expense?
So, there I was, just two days away from
being released and I’m told to “roll it up.” “Roll it up? For what,” I
wondered. Well, it turns out that my sentence may be ending in a mere two days,
but the Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office had plans for me, big plans.
Turns out that I fell into a category of people that, when their sentence
expires, they’re subject to being put away for the rest of their lives in a
mental health hospital. Well, shit, let’s call a “spade” a “spade,” shall we?
You can call it what you want, but at the end of the day, it’s a secure
facility with guards provided by the State’s prison system (CDCR), with rules
and regulations out the wazoo, without any ability to come and go, let alone as
you please, and with inmates serving prison sentences. No matter how you spin
it, it’s prison. Anyway, according to the mental health evaluations served on
the court, I suffer from something called an Antisocial Personality Disorder,
which doesn’t mean someone who doesn’t like to socialize. Essentially, it means
someone who doesn’t care about rules or regulations, someone who doesn’t care
about anyone else’s feelings or rights, someone who, basically, can’t stay out
of trouble to save their life, and since I was in prison for a sexually based
offense (regardless of the fact that I was innocent of this particular charge),
I fell into that special category meriting special attention once their
sentence was complete. Never mind the fact that I haven’t been in trouble for
well over 13-years, and forget about the fact that the “evaluator” didn’t even
bother reading my mental health file. According to them, I was dangerous and
the public needed protecting.
So, there I was, mere hours from
tasting that first slice of pizza, only to have that melted cheese snatched
away from my grasp at the last moment. The extradition officer was nice enough,
even buying me 2 small cheeseburgers and a small fry from Burger King (were
their small cheeseburgers always that bad?!), but it wasn’t the pizza
I’d had my heart set on for so many years, and then HCCF decided to have a
laugh of their own at my expense.
HCCF, in case you didn’t know, means the
Humboldt County Correctional Facility. Now, technically speaking, they’re not
allowed to subject me to punitive of confinement. The reason for this is
simple. The U.S. Constitution prohibits double jeopardy, which is a
fancy way of saying you can’t be punished twice for the same allegation. Since
I’d already served my prison sentence, (in full), I couldn’t be punished again,
but the law does allow for someone to be placed in a mental health facility
because, allegedly, it’s not meant to be punishment. Well, someone
clearly forgot to explain to the HCCF that I wasn’t supposed to be punished, because
the first thing they did was throw me into solitary confinement. The first 14
days were for “quarantine,” never mind the fact that I’d been on quarantine for
months, or that I’d just given 2 separate negative tests for COVID-19. I was in
solitary confinement, allowed out for 30-minutes a day. When my quarantine
ended, I was moved to the hole, where I was released a few hours later because
there wasn’t an outlet for my medical device, but even then, I was just
released to another building where I continued to remain in solitary
confinement. After weeks of arguing, fussing and fighting, they finally agreed
to treat me the same as any other person in here, which was a major step
up from where I was, but still punitive.
So, I’m sitting there on the phone one day,
and I hear the woman who runs the mental health program talking about how she’s
going to throw a Christmas party for the guys on her wing. She’s bringing in
pizza, chicken and their choice of soda. I’m guessing you might be able imagine
the thoughts that ran through my mind in that moment. If they’re getting
pizza, surely someone will slide me a slice, right? I mean, after all, I’ve
already served my time, and they haven’t, but not a chance. They completely
ignored me, and when I asked, I was told, emphatically, “no, not a chance.”
Surely they’re joking, right? Surely they’re not going to bring in pizza,
chicken and soda and not share, right? I mean, even if they didn’t know I was
innocent, so what? I’ve paid my debts to society, in full, but they could
have cared less. On Christmas Eve, she brought everyone on her tier pizza,
chicken and soda, and I could only watch and drool as my dreams, once again,
passed me by. This incident only reinforced something I came to realize some
time ago: at the end of the day, it’s the little things you miss the most.
Shawn L. Perrot
826 4th St.
Eureka, CA 95501
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