Same Difference
By JMR
What is the difference between being in jail and being in detention? Nothing, especially here at Yuba County Jail. I’m being told that I’m not an “inmate”, I’m a “detainee.” But what’s the difference? It feels the same to me.
When I was transferred here in August 2019 from Mesa Verde in Bakersfield, right away I noticed some differences. First thing was the poor conditions of the jail itself. The smell! The booking area smelled like dirty feet and bad body odor. The walls and floors all look disgusting, the toilets stink of urine. Something I never experienced at Mesa Verde. Everything was clean and smelled clean in Mesa Verde. Mesa Verde did not feel like a jail.
Next, when I dressed-out into Yuba County clothes they did not smell or look clean. The mattress and blankets were all torn up. We don’t get any shoes here, just “shower sandals.” We are expected to exercise, walk around, and go to visits in the same sandals we shower in. In Mesa Verde we got clean clothes, mattresses, clean good blankets, shoes, and shower sandals.
Now I’m escorted to my housing unit, when I look I see county “inmates” and “I.C.E. detainees” living in the same unit! So what’s the difference? We’re housed with inmates, treated like inmates, and punished like inmates. How are we not inmates? In Mesa Verde we were treated with more respect and had way more privileges.
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Living in these tiny 20 man tanks is horrible: no privacy, no peace of mind. Most of the county inmates are White. Not regular White inmates, though. They are White Supremacists, many of them with racist tattoos. Swastikas, iron crosses, portraits of Hitler, 1488, and white power just to name a few of the tattoos we see on almost every White inmate that comes in. It makes all of us feel very uncomfortable and unsafe. We are constantly being attacked with derogatory racial slurs. Some of us have been physically attacked. The jail is very aware of all these dangers yet they do nothing for the safety of the detainees.
Inmate or detainee, there’s no difference here at Yuba County Jail. Technically the law sees us as a “civil matter,” not “criminal.” Yet no other civil offense calls for being detained in a jail while the civil case is resolved. Even in criminal court, there is an opportunity for bond. Yet in this civil immigration court most of us don’t get the same opportunity.
So now, I’ll tell you what the difference is between an inmate in criminal and a detainee in civil immigration court. The criminal inmate has more rights and privileges than the civil immigration detainee. Where’s the justice in that? Jail and detention; same thing from where I’m sitting at.
Detention Digest is a publication aimed at exposing the injustice of ICE detainment at Yuba County Jail. Sign up for our email list, leave a comment, or reach out to us about writing a story here: https://forms.gle/xihc452yYvkze5Gt8
