CHAPTER 6

Visitation / Phone Calls

3 P.M.

YOU’LL WAIT IN line at the pay phones for twenty minutes. When it’s your turn, you’ll try calling your wife’s cell but what if she doesn’t answer? The line of convicts behind you, impatiently waiting for their one phone call, will definitely notice if you try to dial another number. You accept this fact quietly, and you do not to slam down the phone or draw attention to yourself. When the guy on the phone next to you starts screaming and beating the receiver against the wall, you just walk away.

I had a love-hate relationship with the prison phone. I’d be so excited to talk to someone and then I really hated it when I got the answering machine or voice mail. I saw plenty of grown men plummet into depression because their loved ones were not answering the phone. The worst, though, was when my friend Rydell ran out of minutes. The automated system would announce how many minutes he had left for the month, but he hadn’t been paying attention and ran out. He ripped the phone handle and cord off the box, screaming like a madman. He was like a young, black Lou Ferrigno in his prime and all of us in line behind him could see his muscles flexing as he waved around the helpless receiver.

You only get three-hundred minutes per month. That’s five hours. Five hours a month. My teenage daughter can wipe that out in a day. When you reach three-hundred minutes, that’s it, you’re done talking to the outside—unless you’re lucky enough to be incarcerated close to family or friends and someone is willing to travel to your prison on visitation day.

Let’s get this out of the way, right off the bat: If you’re in for three years, you’re going without sex for three years. Well, you’re not going to have conjugal visits, anyway. Those are a myth. The federal prison system does not allow for conjugal time, ever, and while four states still have the “extended visits,” those are for the select few. Remember, this part is just as tough on your spouse as it is on you, so you two need to support each other, continue showing respect and love for each other, making it easier for the one on the outside to stay loyal.

Despite what you see on TV, hugging and kissing is often allowed on visitation day for most inmates (except in the county jails), but it is closely monitored. In order for someone to be allowed in, you must have submitted their name on a visitation list along with their address, and that person will need to have completed a questionnaire and passed a background check. Once your visitor arrives, he or she will be searched and scanned, as will their belongings and any gifts they will be allowed to bring in. You will get a single thirty-minute slot a week for visitors who will usually be allowed a short hug hello and a short hug good-bye. This type of visit is in an open, shared room with small tables. You can get away with limited hand holding if you haven’t been causing problems, but that is if you’re lucky enough to have a kind guard. And kind or not, you will get strip searched before you to return to your block, to make sure a loved one didn’t slip the proverbial file into the cake.

I saw plenty of visits broken up early because either the inmate or the guest got loud or sexual with their conversations. You’ll have to make sure your visitor knows what’s appropriate and what isn’t. That includes warning your loved one not to eavesdrop on the other prisoners’ conversations and to turn a blind eye if other couples are up to something they shouldn’t be—otherwise, there will be an immediate confrontation, or you will be getting your head stomped later. I recall sitting in the visiting room with my friend Lasharra when she tapped me and asked me to look. I glanced around the visiting room but didn’t notice anything unusual. She tapped me again and nodded her head to indicated the table behind me. My friend Shaheed, who was serving a twenty-year sentence, was getting oral sex right there. Miraculously, the guards were not paying attention. I was embarrassed for Lasharra, having to see that, but kept my mouth shut. They are simply the rules of the game. Respect.

Maybe for this reason, I’ve never seen a county jail allow contact during visits. Noncontact visitation is exactly like what you see in the courtroom dramas, where the visitor is seated on the other side of a glass partition talking to you on a telephone, usually for less than thirty minutes. Metal partitions separate the four to twenty inmates sitting on stools behind a half-inch wall of glass. There are no hugs or kisses, unless they are acted out like a game of charades. I remember seeing women lift their skirts, remove their panties, even their bras, for their loved ones on the other side of the glass. These daring women were providing a three-second peep show. The saddest thing was when the women would hold their infants in such a way as to block the view of officers while they exposed themselves.

It’s tough on you when visitations are canceled, but it does happen. Unforeseen things come up, such as car trouble, sicknesses, work, or transportation funds. I remember receiving letters from my friend Stacey, who is like a sister. She’d written me several times. I was expecting her one Monday, patiently waiting to hear the guards say, “Inmate Fuller, Unit 5811, you have a visitor,” but the announcement never came. After several hours, I called to see if she was okay. She answered the phone crying—when she’d reached the prison earlier that day, the officers told her I’d been transferred to another institution. She argued, but they were adamant. I knew something that Stacey didn’t: this nasty business of tormenting visitors was common. Some correction officers are envious of the strong bonds that exist between inmates and their loved ones, or they want to wield a sadistic power over inmates.

I would like to say this was a onetime incident, but my friend Lasharra experienced the same type of treatment more than once. They would tell her to go home and change, knowing she’d driven seven hours to come see me, and she was wearing clothes that met all the regulations. They’d comment on her looks, telling her a sexy woman like her shouldn’t wait around for a guy that was never going to get out, and tell her if she complained or didn’t toe the line, they’d put me in The Hole. At the time, she didn’t say anything to me because she didn’t want to waste any of our short visits together on anything negative, plus she was worried I’d get angry and do something to get myself in trouble. She believes the guards at that prison were trying to assert dominance over the visitors so they wouldn’t want to come back, but also to push the inmate’s buttons. Even the state seems to be going out of its way to make it tough for the inmates to receive visitors, putting the prison hundreds of miles away from urban areas, out in the middle of nowhere. Lasharra not only had to drive forever, she’d have to pay for a motel. Once, when she was visiting me in the federal correctional institution in Loretto, Pennsylvania, she was chased by several rowdy white guys in a nearby town called Johns Town, who were shouting racist and sexist threats. She made it back to her car and spent the night scared out of her mind, a dresser pushed in front of the door, and no one close by to comfort her.

Not all visitation experiences are that complicated or nerve-racking, but some are. When the visit is canceled, it’s emotionally hard on your guest, just as it is for you, and especially when they’ve had to jump through so many hoops to make it happen. You need to make sure your family call ahead, that they have the right date, and that you are still eligible for a visit that day. An inmate might lose his visitation privileges as punishment and the administration doesn’t have to notify anyone, so visitors should also call the day of the visit to make sure it’s still on. But sometimes visits are canceled at the last minute because of bad luck, such as weather or prison-wide lockdowns. Make sure they know to adhere to that facility’s dress code and only bring in what is allowed, so they are not the reason the visit is called off. One of my friends was turned away three times in a row when she tried to visit her boyfriend, once for wearing yoga pants, once for not having emptied her pockets, and once because they changed the visitation schedule without telling her.

Once in the visiting room, it’s not always smooth sailing. I witnessed a lot of visitations go south when loved ones starting arguing. Usually, it was because the person on the outside was moving on or struggling to make ends meet. While it’s true that family business needs to be taken care of, it’s too bad when the conversation turns ugly because you have so limited time with your visitor. The prisoner has little to look forward to, and enough stress to deal with behind bars, so it’s good for his morale if the time together is spent peacefully. However, it’s not always the visitor who ruins the visitation.

One day my friend Rita came to visit while I was in FCI Petersburg, Virginia. We just happened to be in the visitation center at the same time that Tee, a convict on my cell block who came from West Virginia, got into a disagreement with a woman I originally thought was his sister. It got loud, really quick. I glanced over just as he was tugging his wedding ring off. He handed it to the woman and said, “My woman is in here with me. Please don’t come back to see me.”

His wife cried profusely as Tee got up and walked out of the visiting room. The jerk had just broken the heart of his poor wife, who had stood by him through the trial and then incarceration. But, I have to admit, I was shocked to find out he had a wife. I can’t tell you how many times I saw him sitting around the commons room, chatting with his friends, when he’d get up and excuse himself, saying to the group, “Okay, I have to go get with my woman.” We all knew what he was talking about. Or, rather, who. He was obsessed with a transvestite named Michelle. Tee would walk the prison yard hand in hand with Michelle without any shame. He and Michelle met up and ate lunch and dinner together in the cafeteria as if he were on the streets, proud to take his woman to a five-star restaurant. They’d watch inmate basketball games in the gym, walk the track, go the library, walk to the commissary, etc. I’m sure his poor wife hadn’t seen it coming, and certainly wasn’t pleased to find out about his new love interest while in the visitation room, in front of dozens of pairs of eyes.

Video calls are starting to be offered as an option in some facilities, using a system similar to Skype, but it’s not common, and can cost families over a hundred dollars a month, usually around ten dollars for twenty minutes. They are monitored closely and recorded. The visitation schedules and dress and behavior is supposed to be what you’d see in a visiting center in the prison. Some opponents to video visitations worry that prisons will do away with in-person jail visits since fewer personnel are required. With no background checks or strip searches, it would be cheaper. But I can’t imagine doing away with that human contact.

I understand, as a former inmate, the strong desire to maintain contact with family and friends, coupled with wanting to maintain some control over the world beyond the wall, may cause a prisoner to make irrational decisions, like being careless on the telephone. Every conversation is recorded, so not only your time but your discussions are monitored. Phones are intended only for conversations with family or friends, and calls must be made collect or paid from the inmate’s account. Legal calls, made under the direct supervision of prison personnel, will not count against your three-hundred minutes per month, but that’s little comfort when you just want to hear your baby girl babble on about her first day of school or a birthday party. If you are caught conducting business via phone, a sanction by the disciplinary hearing officer (DHO) can result in a loss of visitation, telephone, commissary, recreation, or movie privileges from a month to a year. You can also lose these privileges for unauthorized embracing or kissing while receiving a visit.

My job as a prison consultant is to encourage all family members to remain supportive through the use of the phone and in writing, but especially while visiting in person, if circumstances permit. A kind touch is so important, helping us to remember we are human, and that there is someone on the outside expecting us to return to them.

If you are one of the unfortunate inmates who does not have visitors, or if your family stops showing up, it is important you find a way to have a normal human conversation, speaking with a counselor or a minister, or even joining a support group or a writing group. The absolute hardest situation for an inmate is when he feels he’s been betrayed. You have to remember that your loved ones are facing stuff you don’t know about, and life isn’t always easy. Again, you can let depression or anger make you hard or violent, or you can choose to deal with your grief and other emotions in a healthy way.

Snail mail will always be dear to those on the inside. Inmates do not have access to the Internet, which means they also do not have access to emails. Well, actually, some prisons have finally decided to move into the twenty-first century and have started using an online system that allows families to pay into an account so an inmate can receive and send monitored emails. The prisoner is only given a few minutes on the computer, however, and it can become expensive. If there is email available, there will be information on the prison’s website.

While emails are nice because the response time is usually quicker, most inmates still want snail mail. You can pick up a letter and reread it, or pull out your child’s drawing when you’re feeling low. If you don’t have anyone close to you, consider reaching out to an old friend or distant relative, maybe a teacher who meant something to you. They may or may not respond to a letter, but it can’t hurt to try. I didn’t have much family at the time, but I did have Stacey, my friend who agreed to write back and forth with me. We’ve remained close friends to this day. I will always have that girl’s back.

Make sure not to draw or write anything on the envelope other than the prison return address and the address of the person you are writing to. Mail is usually picked up and delivered throughout the week. Some prisons will hold on to mail so inmates can receive letters on Saturdays while others only deliver Monday through Friday. Incoming mail is opened and scanned, though certified mail is only opened in your presence. If there is no return address on the envelope, you will not get it. If someone sends you a package with something that is unapproved, it will be returned or thrown away.

While they might be limited to paper and pen, your family and friends can still be creative. Ask them to print pages of jokes off the Internet and send those along. Or have them send copies of crossword puzzles or any kind of word or math or logic puzzle you’d come across in the newspaper. They could even make up a crossword using words and hints with a special meaning to your family. You could ask your family and friends to mail you pictures of themselves in different places you liked to go to together, or doing something funny—appropriate, of course. Better yet, some people have been making flip books out of photos of themselves by taking a series of shots over a minute’s time. Then when you flip through the pages quickly, it looks like the person is moving. It is fun for your kid to make, and something to make you smile for years.

You could also start a writing project together. One of you writes a page of a creative story, mail it to the other, that person has to add another page to the story and mail it back. You could go on forever, if you wanted to. Or, like one of my cellies, you could do this with a risqué story, keeping your relationship “alive” by writing erotica together. Of course, you don’t have to do this exchange with just fiction, you could also mail journal entries back and forth. Or read the same book at the same time and discuss that. The goal is simply to stay involved in each other’s lives as best you can.

If your people want to do something really outside the box, they could always go online, look up a star registry, buy a star for thirty bucks, and name it after you or the family. Then they print the picture of the night sky, circle where your star is, and tell you where to look at night. Then you can look up at the same star and share a moment, even when you’re hundreds of miles apart. Sure, it sounds sappy, but love is important.

Remember, it’s just as important that you reach out to your family, to reassure them, as much as it is for them to stay in contact with you. However you can.