Member-only story

Private Prison Punishment

Discouraging family visits

Aunty Jean
6 min readJul 20, 2022
Photo by billow926 on Unsplash

My husband’s brother is incarcerated in a private prison. This article is not about guilt or innocence, but rather about cruelty in the name of profit.

Visitation days are determined by prison blocks. My husband can visit his brother at 5:45 pm on Mondays. He has to arrive at the prison no later than 4:45pm. There is paperwork to fill out on every visit, then sitting in a waiting room for an hour.

Leaving personal belongings in one’s car is discouraged. Although the parking lot is enclosed, the prison makes it clear that property stolen from one’s vehicle is not their problem. So, they have lockers for phones, wallets, jackets, and all the other stuff that is not allowed in. It’s 50 cents to open a locker to put your stuff in; then, once it is closed, it’s another 50 cents to open it to get your stuff out when you leave. The key stays in the lock. How secure is that?

And then there is the dress code. This is from the prison’s website:

No clothing revealing the midriff, breast, genital, and/or buttock area. This includes but is not limited to: low cut crew neck garments, crop top garments, tank top garments, halter garments, tube top garments, off the shoulder garments, sleeveless garments, wrap around shirts, wrap around bottoms/dresses, muscle shirts…

--

--

Aunty Jean
Aunty Jean

Written by Aunty Jean

Constantly curious, dog-loving, politically progressive, book-loving, vegan lady. I want to keep learning every day, exploring other points of view.

Responses (8)