Visitation Day

Yesterday, I had a great visit.  Matter of fact, for the past three weeks I’ve had wonderful visits:  parents, friends, close relatives.  For those “outside the wire” I’m not sure you can appreciate just how important visits are to an inmate’s well-being. Nancy LaVigne, director of the Justice Policy Center at the Urban Institute, a social and economic policy center said, “the more contact they have with family in prison, the better relationships they have when they’re out…and [they] will be less at risk of committing new crimes.”

Visiting someone in prison is tough. The actual process takes time.  You fill out paperwork, provide identification and undergo a background check (convicted felons are not allowed to visit without prior written permission of the institution’s warden).  Usually, the data-entry officer isn’t the quickest typist so you bring your paperwork and wait in line, sometimes thirty minutes, sometimes an hour.

You are told how you can dress.  Watches and even tissues are prohibited (my mom prides herself on sneaking in a tissue every visit).  Car keys must be locked in a cabinet before entering then, there is the pat down and metal detector scan before the visitor is permitted to exit the main building and enter the prison. Walk past a couple of electronic gates and you enter the “VI” room.

From what I understand from guys who’ve “done the tour” of facilities in the VA DOC system, VI rooms are almost always the same.  There are vending machines with sandwiches, sodas and juices, snacks and hot coffee.  Two or three microwaves are placed on tables around the room.  Each visitor is permitted to bring $20.00 in quarters to the visit to purchase food.  Microwavable sandwich may not sound too appetizing? Try eating the poor quality, bland diet inmates are fed and you soon realize a hamburger from vending is like a rib-eye from Morton’s.  Yes, food is a big deal at visitation.

The entire time you’re with “your people” you’re under the “eye in the sky” and the six to eight officers walking the room.  You huddle your plastic chairs and small plastic table in tight to let your knee touch your wife or girlfriend (physical contact, other than your initial greeting and goodbye is prohibited.  Hard to believe then that couples still find a way to “connect”).  You crave contact when you’re in here and sometimes just the simple act of a hug, holding a hand, can keep a man focused for weeks.

Mid-morning and the whistle blows.  “Count Time”.  You leave your table and go with the 80 to 100 other inmates and line up under your building number while officers with clip boards check your name off the pass list.  Out-count it’s called.  You are being counted outside your building.  Five, ten minutes pass and the whistle blows again.  You return to your table and try and regain a sense of normalcy with your family or friends.

You want to be part of their lives, but their days aren’t your days.  Do you care they went out to dinner last night or have tickets to a play?  You are still part of their life, yet the visit reminds you how little you know what’s going on in their world, how little they know of yours.

For all the talk about DOC wanting inmates to stay connected to family and community, actions speak louder than words.  The current administration has created a chilling effect on visits.  “Special visits” – family or friends from more than 100 miles away – are routinely denied extra time and double visits on weekends (inmates are allowed only one visit per weekend; those coming for special visits in the past were usually given both days).  The number of tables available in the VI room and gym (for spill over) has decreased by one-third.  Inmates are now having visits terminated after three hours even when the room isn’t full.

Connection to family and friends is crucial to an inmate’s rehabilitation and re-entry, yet Virginia DOC continues to allow its wardens and assistant wardens to implement policies contrary to that best evidence.  Why?  Does DOC know successful re-entry will lead to less incarcerated and less need for prisons?

So, the visit ends.  Guys hug their kids tightly, kiss their wives or girlfriends, say goodbye to family friends and head out.  It’s called “bein’ drunk”, that look everyone knows in the building when you come back and stare, that far away look, as your mind replays the visit.  Most guys lie down, headphones on, and go to another place, a place where visits aren’t once a week, or month.

In the Gospel of Matthew the Lord spoke these words about a righteous person.   “Naked, you clothed Me; I was sick, you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.”  And the righteous person asked “Lord, when did I see You sick or in prison and come to You?”  Jesus answered, “to the extent you did it to one of the brothers of mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.”

Visits matter, probably more than the visitors will ever know.  And to my parents, my friends, my cousin and her husband who regularly go through the process to see me, thank you doesn’t say it enough.  I love and appreciate you guys.