Tag: jail

The Looking Glass House

April 11th, 2026

“Oh, Kitty, how nice it would be if we could only get through into Looking-glass House! I’m sure it’s got, oh! such beautiful things in it! Let’s pretend there is a way of getting through into it, somehow, Kitty. Let’s pretend that the glass has got all soft like gauze so that we can get through. Why it’s turning into a sort of mist now, I declare! It will be easy enough to get through—-“

The quotation above is an excerpt of Alice speaking to her cat in the first chapter of Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll

I sat in the Nikiya Harris-Dodd Visitation Center, which is part of the Community Reintegration Center (CRC) in Franklin, Wisconsin. The CRC is a jail, and all jails have the same depressing vibe. It’s part of their essence. As far as jails go, the CRC is not that bad, but it is still intimidating. The visitation center is clean and neat and utterly uninviting. When I checked in at the counter for my scheduled visit, I had to show the guard my photo ID, which she kept and explained that I would get it back upon my departure from the facility. I was there early because I didn’t know how busy the place would be, seeing as visits to the “residents” can only happen on the weekend. I had an appointment to see the young woman at 9:15 AM. The waiting area was almost empty, which was a good thing since there are only six chairs available. The walls are painted a dull bureaucratic grey color. There are two vending machines containing overpriced snacks and beverages. There is also one vending machine tucked in the corner of the hall that dispenses Narcan for opioid overdoses, Deterra bags for safe deactivation and disposal of drugs, and fentanyl detection strips. Everything in that machine is free of charge.

The little boy sat near me in a chair with his legs folded underneath him. The young man had never been in a jail before. It was his first time visiting his mama while she was locked up. He was excited about seeing his mama, but he really didn’t like his environment. He and I waited for the guard to call us through the security check.

A Black family walked into the lobby. There was a very elderly woman, a middle-aged lady, and a small child. They checked in with the guard and handed over their IDs. The middle-aged woman asked about getting a locker. This confused the guard. The woman explained that they had to put all their belongings into a locker at a different facility when they visited their incarcerated family member. The guard said they didn’t need one at his jail. They could take their purses and keys with them. I wasn’t surprised that they didn’t know the rules for visitations at the CRC. Every jail and prison is its own little kingdom, and each one has slightly different regulations. A visitor really can’t know what the rules are until they actually get there.

I talked with the family after they sat down near the boy and me. Their little guy was two years old. I told the great grandma that my boy was five. Their two-year-old was there to visit his mama, just like my boy was. The two women were raising that toddler just like my wife and I are raising our boy. Our families are in very similar situations. We are all just doing what has to be done to care for the children.

My little guy and I finally went through security and entered a big room with several long, narrow hallways, each of which had many windows. None of the windows looked outside the building. They all looked into another hallway where the inmates were. The boy and I were assigned to window 51. We sat on a stool apparently molded from concrete. There was an old school telephone receiver attached to a cable. The receiver was made of some kind of dense plastic and heavy enough to be used as a bludgeon. My boy did not want to hold the phone, so I held it for him.

His mama was extremely excited to see her son. She wanted to know everything he had been doing. The boy was reluctant to speak with her. He sat on my lap so that he could see her better through the window. His mama kept joking with him. She kept saying how much she loved him. The boy did not like talking on the phone and he did not like the glass that separated him from his mama.

At one point, he reached out and touched the window with his index finger. His mama did the same, and their fingers almost met. Almost. Almost wasn’t quite good enough. It never is.

“Let’s pretend that the glass has got all soft like gauze so that we can get through.” Alice said that. It worked for Alice, but this boy couldn’t get through the glass into this particular Looking Glass House. And his mama couldn’t get out. It’s probably better that he didn’t go inside.

We left after twenty minutes. The boy doesn’t want to go back. I don’t blame him. Maybe he will change his mind. I hope so for his mother’s sake.

Community Reintegration Center

April 4th, 2026

I pulled into the parking lot of the Community Reintegration Center. The center is a rather ugly brick structure. Its primary purpose is to keep some people inside and other people out. The housing area has translucent windows that allow light inside, but do not allow the occupants to look out. The building is surrounded by high fences with razor wire on the top. The place is no way welcoming, not on the outside and definitely not on the inside.

The Community Reintegration Center (CRC) is a jail. Period. I saw no evidence of anybody being reintegrated into the local community. The whole point of the facility is to keep the folks inside separated from the community. Those who are incarcerated within its walls are referred to as “residents” on the CRC website. Residents? Really? I guess in a strange way they chose to reside there, but they are prisoners, plain and simple. Why not just call them that?

I went to the CRC to pick up a young woman’s personal property. It’s not a major issue to pick up her stuff, but I don’t like doing it. This is not the first time that I have had to recovering her belongings, and it’s always a cause for anxiety and melancholy. The CRC has a visitor center, which is the first stop for anybody entering the building. At least they don’t call it a “welcome center”, because it’s not. The people working there are polite and professional, but the hall is a bit like an ER: nobody wants to be there. Nobody.

Since I was not there to actually visit the woman, I did not need to go through a security check. I did have to show my ID, twice, while I was there. After I told the guard who I was and why I was there, she called the lady in the property department to come on down, and then she told me to sit and wait.

The waiting area was strange. There was a total of six chairs arranged in a rectangular formation, two rows of three. The chairs were spaced well apart. The area seemed to be designed to isolate the visitors from each other. One guy who came into the center initially thought to sit in the row of seats that were closer to the entrance for the security check section. He decided to move back to where I was sitting when he realized that those seats upfront all had handcuffs dangling from them.

I sat and waited. It was kind of like going to the DMV, except more intimidating. Nobody is in a rush and there is no place else to go. I had time, so I gazed at the official bulletins posted all over the walls. Other people came inside. Two of them were obviously lawyers. The man and the woman might as well have worn uniforms. They both had that professional legal appearance: they wore suits and carried serious business paperwork in their hands. They had that look on their faces that said, “Let’s get this shit done and get out of here.” Actually, everyone had that look on their face, including me.

At last, the lady from property showed up. She was a tiny, older Black woman wearing a black surgical mask on her face. She carried a large plastic bag in one hand and some papers in the other.

She asked me for my ID. I fumbled for it. She told me to take my time. She asked me how I was. I told her that I had done this sort of thing before. She gave me a questioning look. I tried to clarify what I meant by saying,

“Not here, but for the same person.”

She nodded. Then she told me,

“When I was young, I made some bad decisions. Then I had time to think about what I had done, and I considered my options. Don’t give up on her.”

I replied, “I don’t. I can’t. My wife and I care for our grandson fulltime.”

Then lady asked me, “How old is he?”

“Five.”

She sighed and said, “Well, maybe he won’t remember any of this.”

I considered that. Maybe she is right. But this stint in jail isn’t the whole story. This is just the start of a long absence. The boy will remember something, even if it’s only a feeling of abandonment. He won’t forget, not entirely.

She had me sign the paperwork. I grabbed the bag. As I walked away, the woman called after me, “Don’t give up on her!”

As I tried to open the exit door, I called back to her,

“I won’t!”



A Backhanded Blessing

March 25th, 2026

She’s in jail. A person who I care about very much was incarcerated two days ago. It sucks. It’s really hard to give that event a positive spin. The person is looking at more than just jail time. They are staring at potentially years of prison. In many ways it’s a grim future.

On the other hand, it could be worse. I guess things can always be worse. The person is an addict. Their drug of choice is alcohol, although I am not sure that the word “choice” is accurate or appropriate. I think that for this individual the ability to exercise free will is much diminished. They aren’t in control of their habit. It is in control of them.

For weeks now, actually for years already, I have agonized about what this person would do next. My wife and I have lived in fear, a fear that this young woman would die. The person we love was unstable and sick, and with her anything was possible. We never knew what would happen. As I was told once, “The pattern is that there is no pattern”. That is the truth. There has been nearly constant chaos for as long as I can remember.

Now this person is in a location with structure and routine. She is relatively safe, well, as safe as person can be in a jail. Jails can be scary places. I spent just a few hours in a jail, and I remember quite clearly moments of raw fear. The only advantages of her being in a jail are that she probably cannot harm herself or others. Jail is not a good answer to her problems, but it is the only answer currently available.

The truth is that since this person was incarcerated, I have been breathing a sigh of relief. I am not as scared as I was just a few days ago. That does not mean that all is well. It isn’t. This turn of events brings new challenges for the young person and for everyone who cares about her. We’ll get through it together, but it will be hard. I look at the bottom line in this situation: she is still alive. Everything else is secondary to that.

It bothers me that in our society the best we can usually do for a person with mental health issues is to lock them up. We have a decades-long War on Drugs that has never had any real successes. Our country frequently blows up boats that may or may not be bringing drugs into the U.S., but we don’t make nearly the same amount of effort to understand addiction and its treatment. We only care about people with mental health problems when they inconvenience or endanger us. If a person decides to use a drug to quietly commit a slow-motion suicide, we are okay with it. We don’t care about the harm that addiction causes because we don’t care about the common good. We only give a damn when it hits home, and hits hard.

I prayed, and still pray, every night for the person I love. I prayed that she would survive. God answers prayers, but often in odd ways. Sending this person to jail is a backhanded blessing, but I’ll take it.