Among the saddest things I saw in prison — and that’s a long list — were men on the very small playground in the visiting area, trying to have a few hours of quality time with their partners and children, all of it coming to an end far too fast. Goodbyes in that setting were very, very tough as kids too young to know better asked: “When are you coming home, Daddy?” I knew a number of prisoners who refused to have their families visit because they did not want to be seen in that environment by their children.
In fact, the situation of the children of incarcerated parents is a really difficult one, as shown in a number of reports. Yet somehow these children are not usually regarded as victims of crime, even though they are often badly harmed and as innocent of wrongdoing as any other victim.
One concession that Canadian prisons do make to prisoners with partners or children is “private family visits” (PFV). Federal prisons — but not provincial jails — have facilities for prisoners to have two- or three-day visits with partners and families in a space that is not monitored by cameras or patrolling guards and that does not require you to check in five times a day as is otherwise the case. A prisoner can book three or four PVs in a year, as I recall.
In the minimum-security prison where I spent most of my incarcerated time, there were two cottages available for PFVs. They were located away from the other houses where prisoners lived. Each one had a couple of bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen and a small porch. They had a TV on the prison cable system, a VCR with some children’s recordings, and some toys and games. The furnishings, like the cable TV, toys and games in the visiting area, were all paid for by prisoners’ money; it would be too much to think that Canadian taxpayers would furnish toys for the children of prisoners even given a budget for the federal prison system of more than $3.5 billion a year.
The PFV houses, unlike the regular houses in which prisoners live, are air-conditioned. However, the thermostat is locked up and the temperature set rather low, so we ended up in warm weather having the windows open all the time, which of course causes the AC to operate all the time too. It’s rather wasteful but similar to what happens in winter in the regular houses with the heat; the control is locked away from the prisoners/residents, so many windows were left open all winter. As usual, nobody in the system cared about this.
While PFVs are available, making them happen is not a simple matter. From my first day in minimum security, I tried to schedule one. It took seven months to get approval and then to schedule a date. As with everything in prison, there was an extensive bureaucratic process to get permission, and as with everything in prison, nobody (other than prisoners) was in a hurry to make anything happen. A simple approval from my correctional officer and parole officer, indicating I was not a problem prisoner, took weeks. I cannot remember all the reasons for delays, but I do remember being very frustrated by how long it took.
Then there is the process for the visit itself. I as the prisoner had to be strip-searched on the way in and out. All visitors got a long list of all the things they could not bring and were subject to inspection by sniffer dogs, the ion scanner that checked for illegal drugs but was often inaccurate, and a thorough search of all luggage.
One of the most challenging aspects of a visit was organizing food. I had to make an order for any and all food we might want over the time of the visit — everything including salt and pepper. This order was not filled from the prison grocery but from an outside grocery store paying regular retail prices. I could only have what was on that order, and I could only order from a list that was made available. I had to buy quantities of everything (e.g., at least a pound of butter, a whole bag of apples, a whole container of any spice, a whole bottle of salad dressing) even though we were there only two days. However, my visitors could at least take home excess food.
The PFV grocery list contained more items than were in the prison grocery store — so I could have, for example, grapes, which were not available otherwise. But it all had to be paid for from the funds I had in my prison account, and the order had to be made at least two weeks before the visit. I remember many discussions about what we would need or want to eat. Two days’ worth of food cost way more than I would spend on groceries in the world outside. For me, fortunately, the money was not a great problem, but it was for many prisoners whose families were already highly stressed for money to support their other costs such as the exorbitant phone charges.
The actual visit was quite good when it eventually happened. When it’s your first time in private in many months with the most important person in your life, it’s a significant event. I think we had 48 hours. Only once a day did the guards require us both to appear in person on the outside of the house. Of course there was no phone, no internet, no cellphone. But it was a lot better than nothing — which is about the most positive thing one can say about anything experienced in prison. There’s not much good there, only some things that aren’t as bad, for which one learns to be grateful.
David Dorson is the pen name of someone who went through arrest, case disposition, imprisonment and parole in Ontario a few years ago. Law360 Canada has granted him anonymity because he offers a unique perspective on a subject that matters deeply to many readers, and revealing the author’s identity would make re-establishment in the community after serving his sentence much more difficult than it already is.
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