After seven years with my husband, I finally consented to visit his workplace. He’s Deputy Warden at a medium-security prison, which has a population of about 2,500.
He asked me last night because he knew I had today off of work. I demurred. I’m a little afraid of inmates, and secondly, I don’t like people staring at me, and any young woman entering a prison will be in a fishbowl. “We have puppies you can play with in my office,” he offered. That did it. I agreed to come.
I entered at the Visitor’s Gate. The room was filled with about two dozen people, waiting to visit inmates, of all races and socio-economic backgrounds. A charmingly fat toddler stood in the aisle as I passed, wobbling on her feet as she tried to look up at me. I smiled and spoke to her, wondering if her father was the inmate they were here to visit.
At the desk, I presented my ID when requested, and placed my purse in a tray to be searched. I had already removed any medications and other contraband. The officer asked me if I had a cell phone, which I didn’t. (Cell phones cannot enter.) I was sent through a metal detector and issued a Visitor’s pass. My hand was stamped with invisible ink.
An escort waited by the door, and asked me to follow him. “Careful of your fingers,” he said to me. “We had an officer lose a finger in this door last month.” I shoved my hands into my pockets. The door buzzed, and he pulled it open. We stepped into a tiny room where my hand stamp and ID were checked again by the woman behind the glass. There was a clunk, and a set of keys appeared in a revolving metal tray-- my escort had had to surrender them before entering the building where he met me.
The door buzzed, and we went outside. There was a long corridor in front of us, formed by a fence topped with razor wire on either side. It led to a large brick building. Inside, my ID and hand stamp were checked again.
My husband met me in the hall. The walls were crumbly and worn-looking, but the floor shone like glass. He led me to a small waiting area with worn wing chairs. An inmate stood in front of them with a puppy on a leash. I immediately forgot my nervousness and started petting the dog. The inmate, speaking to my husband, said the dog’s name was Lucy, and detailed the different tricks he’d taught her. Lucy kept turning back to him for assurance, and he rubbed her back fondly. You could see the affection they had for one another.
“Would you like to play with her while we wait for our transport?” Hubby asked. He politely told the inmate to wait where he was, and took the leash. We went down the hall to his office.
I felt a little strange at this-- I was taking the man’s dog away, and he had to remain where he was told until I had finished playing. Of course, this is why the inmates raise the puppies, so the public can adopt them, but it still felt odd, like I was violating some unnamed ettiquette norm.
As we walked down the hall, everyone we met, staff and inmate alike stopped in their tracks and put their backs to the wall until we had passed, as if to give us more room. The hall was wide enough for six men to walk abreast, so it struck me as overkill. My husband greeted both staff and inmates alike, asking how they were doing.
I played with the pup in his office until his secretary pushed her head in the door and told us that our “Gator” was available. This turned out to be a golf cart. The puppy was handed off to a guard who took it to return it to his trainer. Again, I felt a little unsure, like I should have returned the pup myself and thanked the inmate, but everyone acted as if this were the norm. When in Rome, I told myself.
We drove across the compound, past the dorms and chapel to the factory buildings. Inmates lounged on the yard, and loitered near the entrances of buildings. Some were playing basketball, or running on the track, but most just sat. It was too hot for much activity.
The factory was explosively hot. On the second floor, the inmates were making mattresses. I squeezed the foam padding as we passed-- very dense. Hubby explained that the State had decided to issue new matresses which have the pillows built in, rather than the old, seperate, bedding. The new matresses are supposed to last longer. I leaned my elbows down onto one of them, and pronounced it as hard as a rock.
They were also making mattresses for college dorms, and as I marvelled at one of the sticthing machines, the inmate came over, unbidden, to demonstrate how it worked. They must be used to showing the factory to visitors.
Downstairs, they were making office chairs. It looked just like any other factory in the world, with workers seated at tables, busily stitching fabric seats. Fans were running full blast, but all they seemed to do was push the hot air around. I wondered how they could stand it.
We went next to the truck factory. They finish detailing trucks for road crews, and also make transport vehicles for prisons. My husband put me in one of the transport trucks which has a cage built into it to segregate the inmates. When it was closed, it was an extremely tight fit-- and I’m only 5’4", 119 lbs.
We walked back through the shop, boxes of scap metal here and there. “It’s a security nightmare,” Hubby said, “All this metal lying around . . . .”
We went next to the dining hall. It was much like any other cafeteria, but the seats were bolted to the floor. In the food service area, a metal shield kept the server from seeing whose tray he was filling. Hubby said it’s called “blind feeding” but the new Director has demanded the shields come down because it’s “too impersonal.”
“But I would think that being impersonal would be a good thing,” I said, “Because they can’t mess with an enemy’s food if they don’t know who is getting each tray.”
“Nor can they be pressured into giving extra portions,” Hubby countered. “But the Director wants it changed, so that’s what will happen.”
It was incredibly hot and steamy in the kitchen. Giant vats of water boiled with ears of corn bobbing inside. Huge ovens with racks inside baked burritos, and mixers the size of washtubs churned the batter for desert.
We went into the chapel after that. It has a Christian non-demoninational chapel room, and a Catholic chapel. Services for smaller sects are performed in small rooms to the side. In the Catholic chapel, an inmate sat with a rosary, praying. He must have been devout, because the chapel was as hot as an oven. Off to the side was a tiny room in which the priest prepares the holy water in a stainless-steel sink. It had a locking cover engraved with a cross. The need for a lock got my imagination running.
The imam of the Islamic inmates was standing in the hall. He greeted my husband in Arabic, and my husband replied in the same language. (He said later that it meant, “Peace be with you” and “And also with you.”) He had a question to ask him, and as they spoke, I browsed through the rack of tracts against the wall. Many of them were well-thumbed and worn, apparently having passed through many hands.
As we left, the air outside felt wonderful. I commented on the heat, and Hubby said there are plans in the works to air-condition the chapel. “You’ll get more customers that way,” I said, smiling. “There’ll be a rush to go to church since it’s the only cool place they have access to.”
“Well, you know the preacher likes the cold,” Hubby joked, and I giggled.
We were stopped about a dozen times as we drove around, by inmates who had requests. Hubby seemed to be on good terms with most of the people on the yard, at least to speak a greeting. I eyed the dogs who were being walked by their trainers. In the school building, Hubby stopped by an elderly inmate who was obviously distressed by the heat, leaning into a fan. He put a hand on the man’s shoulder, and said, “Okay, buddy?” The man nodded.
We visited the power plant, but briefly because of the heat, and then went to one of the housing units.
It was a long, narrow room, filled with bunk beds, which seemed very close together. Near the door, there were four rows of benches, on which about five inmates sat, watching “Judge Judy”. Inmates lay on the beds, their arms cast over their eyes, or curled on their sides. Some had small plastic fans attatched to the end rails, and large fans sat at the ends of the aisles. The heat was sickening.
I saw a glimpse of their bathroom, but quickly looked away. There is very little privacy. No doors-- just partitions which don’t go to the floor, and only go about chest-height up.
We went into the dorm manager’s office. It was cold, compared to where we’d just been-- air conditioned to the point of being icy. The manager was actually wearing a jacket. I wonder what the inmates, who can see her through the door, must think of that.
Back in his office, Hubby showed me the inmate cable. It carries the four networks, an institutional information channel, and a channel on which they run approved movies. Most of the time, when I saw inmates watching TV, it was tuned to a soap opera or court show. Hubby said the inmates LOVE the court shows, especially “Judge Judy.”
All in all, it was very interesting. My general impression was that it was quite clean and orderly, but ugly and worn. The heat was the worst of it-- Hubby said sometimes the dorms go over 100 degrees in the summer.
I’ll have to go back, because there were a couple of areas I didn’t get to see, considering I was feeling a bit ill from the heat. Leaving, I was checked, again, three times to see that my hand-stamp and ID were valid.
When I got home, I was awed by my house. Cool, well-lit and spacious. My livingroom is bigger than one of the dormitaries I visited.
), she always hated having to go back inside because she would be subject to a full cavity search.