A visit is a Dickensian prospect–it’s the best of prison, it’s the worst of prison, etc. It’s the only place you can touch or be touched without weird or menacing undertones. When I saw my friend last year, it was my first hug in years.
For two hours, I felt somehwat normal by not putting on a mask or putting up my guard. Unfortunately, those had become my default operating mode.
However, everything surrounding a visit makes the process arduous and demeaning.
It starts with scheduling. pre-covid, your people could show up at the prison during approved visiting hours, and get in. They could stay for up to 8 hours.
Post-covid, visitors have to create an account on a third-party website, and login a week before their desired visiting time. But it’s not so simple.
The visiting schedule is released at midnight, and slots are limited. They fill up within minutes. Potential visitors have to refresh their web browser at exactly midnight, and hope there’s an open two hour slo when the page reloads.
Here’s the typical experience: I had a visit this past Saturday. It was scheduled from 8-10 in the morning. I was notified at 730 to go up to control center. Knowing I’d be waiting around, I stalled and continud to get ready: combing my hair, applying deodarant, and changing into my blues.
I made it to control center in time, just asthey were patting down and leading everyone into the visitor’s room.
I walked to the podium at the front of the room, and was told to sit at table 12. Prisoners are not allowed to leave their tables in the VR, unless told to, so I sat patiently, eyeing the vending machines, picking out what I was going to eat. The other dozen inmates did the same, or talked amongst themselves, or simply twiddled their thumbs.
Usually, it takes 10-15 minutes before the first visitors are brought in but a half hour passed and still, no one had entered.
Over the CO’s crackly radio, I heard bits and pieces of an issue in G unit. An ambulance was on the grounds, and nurses had rushed over there with a wheelchair. It was a medical emergency demanding the attention of any available COs.
Fuck, I thought. Now this process is going to take even longer.
Prison had calloused me so much that I didn’t think someone could be seriously injured. I had assumed it was a retard smoking tunechi and having a terrible reaction, an “epi”, as they’re wont to do.
Eventually, the guards pushed a wheeled stretcher out thru control center, which interfered with them patting down visitors.The inmate looked pretty pleased with himself as he exited thru the sallyport.
Normal operations resumed fifteen minutes later. Because they only pat down 3-5 visitors at a time, I prepared myself for a slog. I eagerly watched the groups of visitors being ushered into the sallyport, expecting to see my parents among the faces.
They weren’t among the first groups. Or the next. Or the ones after that.
This continued for an hour until I suspected they might not be coming at all. I had watched as everyone else’s visit began. I was the only inmate yet to have his visitors.
When I was about to give up hope and ask to be sent back to my bunk, I finally glimpsed my mom, who waved excitedly.
Easy Trouble 