I Went to Jail This Morning

I sat there alone for some time in the jail reception area with no particular desire to converse with the other folks waiting.  It’s not that I felt superior to the rest of the visitors, but I didn’t have much in common with some of the attitudes being expressed.  Two women who apparently were there to see the same man talked with each other, and the air was electric with their contempt for one other.  My guess is that one was the mother and the other the girlfriend.  Eventually the younger woman stalked out.  The older woman said aloud to no one in particular, “Can you guess I don’t like her?  If she dropped dead right here, I wouldn’t give her CPR.” 

When the reception window opened, we all went up to sign in, surrender our IDs and receive a badge to wear during the visit.  I returned to my previous seat and found it had been taken by an attractive and dressed-better-than-most, forty-ish woman.  I sat down next to her.  She was there to visit her son.  I was there to visit my granddaughter’s boyfriend.  I’m not even sure how the conversation began.

She didn’t want to be there, but felt obligated to come.  Her son would always be her son, in spite of his poor choices.  She had raised him until he was 12, and then he had gone to live with her ex-husband.  She remarried and has daughters who are good students and cause no trouble.  Her son has been in jail before.  Recently they helped him get set up in an apartment.  He got a job.  They thought this was the time he would be successful.  But, here she was visiting him in jail….again.  She never did tell me exactly what he had done.

I didn’t want to be there, but felt obligated to come.  The biological and adoptive family members of my granddaughter’s boyfriend do not visit him.  My granddaughter can’t visit him, because there is a “stay-away” order.  I couldn’t think of anyone else who would visit him, so I figured it was my job.  But, it isn’t fun to visit someone in jail.

I have been in jails many times in my life.  From childhood through my teen years, I attended a church which held monthly services at a local prison.  I went frequently.  I sang solos there.  Later as a professional person, I visited jails to offer health services and information to staff.  Of course, I went through metal detectors and listened to the doors lock behind me, but that was not as dehumanizing as going to visit a prisoner.  You are required to be there 30 minutes before the visit begins or you are turned away.  After signing in and surrendering your ID, you wait.  You are then herded into an entry room and the door locked behind you.  From there, you go into a locker room.  All of your personal items must be placed in a locker.  You take nothing with you from that room but the clothes on your back and the locker key.  Next are the metal detector, and another room and another locked door.  Finally, you enter the visit room.  The prisoners are already seated at small tables.  You are allowed a brief hug and then you sit opposite the person you are visiting for one hour.  You cannot leave early or wander about the room.  A guard sits at an elevated desk constantly observing.

The visit is over.  I smile at the lady I talked with earlier and ask if her visit went OK.  She nods with a bit of a smile playing on her lips but sorrow in her eyes. 

We never even exchanged names.  I suppose we each like our anonymity, but we share a sad and heavy common bond.