This summer, I spent two-and-a-half months in recovery at a different type of rehabilitation center: California Health Care Facility, in Stockton, Calif. When I arrived, I was told, “Don’t drink the water,” because of an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease. I was handed a one-gallon bottle of Niagara-brand water.

“Rehabilitation…” I said to myself. Then it occurred to me, July marked the 20th anniversary of the month in which former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger added the “R” to CDC, which created the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation — the place we all know as the CDCR.

Anyone currently and continuously incarcerated (in the CDC) before July 1, 2005, may recall the days in which “punishment” was the stated purpose of prison, according to the then-Penal Code.

Schwarzenegger’s envisioned transformation did not happen overnight, and punishment — through deliberate indifference — lingered. Weekly preventable deaths of prisoners persisted due to prison overcrowding that intensified medical negligence. The CDCR’s suicide rate rose to nearly double the national average. 

Twenty years ago, both rehabilitation and healthcare happened in a leisurely and aimless manner. Change arrived slowly; soon, California’s prison system fell under the scrutiny of a federal court.

By 2008, rehabilitation was in its infancy and a three-judge panel convened to address the CDCR’s defective medical system. The following year, the Northern District Court of California issued its findings about the prison system’s healthcare in a 184-page report. 

The Court found the CDCR in painful need of rehabilitation itself. In short, prison overcrowding contributed to poor healthcare at a level that violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against “cruel and unusual punishment” and “deliberate indifference.” 

The Court cautioned the state that it could not build its way out of overcrowding, and ordered the CDCR to reduce its excessive population to 137.5% of design capacity. At its peak, the prison population soared to 175,000 by some estimates.

Before the CDCR adopted rehabilitation as part of its mission, a life sentence meant just that for “Lifers” serving indeterminate sentences. The Board of Prison Terms — the parole board at the time — made it clear with one word: “Denied.” The year I arrived in prison, only 13 Lifers were found suitable for parole. I recall that most, if not all, had their dates taken by Gov. Gray Davis.

Much has changed in prison over the past 20 years, some for the better and some for the worse, while much about prison has remained the same. 

Back to my stopover at CHCF. It opened in 2013, and from my limited time there, I can appreciate just how much the billion-dollar facility has helped to improve healthcare inside the CDCR. Is it a perfect place for one’s medical rehabilitation? Nothing is faultless, but viewing it with impartiality, CHCF is better than what was available 20 years ago.

The growing number of elderly in prison is one of those facets that has remained the same, especially at CHCF. They reminded me of those 13 Lifers back when I arrived, though more of them have been released over the decades.

Unfortunately, the worst has already arrived in the CDCR. It is the ugly side of prison that rehabilitation has yet to pierce: the absurdity of prisoner politics, the foolishness, and the gratuitous violence at the higher level institutions. Simply put, this has been one of the bloodiest and deadliest years in recent memory.

In an effort to not sound too preachy, I will repeat what someone said to me at CHCF. He said the facility is the place “where gangsters come to die.” I saw many men who were probably “that guy” on the yard. In his day, he “put in work” and called a lot of shots. He was the man — in 1975!

Time and no rehabilitation placed “that guy” in a wheelchair. His sedentary condition has caused him to gain weight. Now he has high blood pressure while decades of hard drug use has afflicted him with sepsis. Abuse of alcohol has taken its toll on his kidneys; now he is on dialysis. A body and a sleeve of well-worn tattoos are remnants of his past life. Now that the wisdom of the years has reared its ugly head, looking in a rearview mirror, he has nothing but absolute regret. 

So here goes my point: If you are reading this, and you were in a CDCR prison on or before July 1, 2005, and you are still the same person today, then you have wasted 20 years of your life. Rehabilitation or not, people are supposed to change — especially with age.

I was elated to return to San Quentin, the CDCR’s flagship institution for rehabilitation; and I was pleased with my treatment at CHCF — the other flagship — when it came to my healthcare rehabilitation, but I had to remember: Don’t drink the water.