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Prison Visits


The paperwork that I got from the prison where Jorge is incarcerated mentions that visits are essential for inmates' morale and rehabilitation. One would think, then that they might make visits feel a little more... possible.

I've been trying to set up a visit for myself, my friend who graciously drove me last time and will do so this time (3.5 hours one way!! She's a saint), and Jorge's grandmother, who hasn't been able to visit him since he moved to the prison farther away. She was his guardian for most of his childhood and it's breaking her heart that she can't see him.

Trying to get all three of us to visit, I called the prison's visiting appointment hotline. It is only available for three hours a week (Tuesday mornings, 7-10 am) and you can only make appointments two weeks in advance. If you don't make an appointment, you can show up for "open visiting" but it seems to be first-come first-served (I can't get a straight answer on how it works) and as it's 3.5 hours away, that's not idea.

It took me a while to get everybody's drivers' license information, and I had it ready and called shortly after the window opened on Tuesday. Busy signal. I tried again. Busy signal. I had to call SEVENTY-FOUR TIMES before I could get through and make the appointment.



This leads me to a number of frustrations:

The three-hour-a-week time period to call doesn't work for anyone who works Tuesday mornings and isn't allowed to make a phone call.

If you are allowed to make a phone call from work Tuesday mornings, it's highly unlikely that you'd be allowed to stay on the phone for over an hour hitting redial.

If visits are important for rehabilitation and morale, shouldn't they be, well... important?

I'm furious, but we got the appointments. Now I just have to call Saturday morning to make sure the prison isn't on lockdown. If anything happens, we will have made the whole drive for nothing.




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