At least twice every day, I walk past or through the adult detention center. I park in a garage with a view directly into the cells. When I get to work after about 8:45, I typically have to pass through at least two groups of prisoners out doing chores - mopping, gardening, collecting trash. I never know whether to say "excuse me" when I have to scoot through them, or "thank you" when they hold the door open for me. I usually do, but get scowled at by the prison guard who is on their watch.
When I get to work and look into the cells (it is literally the only view I have as I walk down the steps or ride down the elevator), the prisoners are either on their beds reading books or working out in the gym that's just beyond the doors of their cells. As I trudge into work, often grumpy from traffic, I begin to wonder if their life is all that bad. Do you know the last time that I had the time to work out??? It was before I started this job, so in August sometime.
So the last time my judge threw a guy in jail for not paying his child support, I didn't feel terribly bad for him. Especially because he had told her that the reason he hadn't paid was because he was living in his car since he was jobless. I thought, hey buddy, you can have a bed, food, all the reading time you want AND a gym! It's almost like a pleasure cruise.
But then, when I'm on my way back to my car in the afternoon, I realize that maybe the prisoners don't have the best life. After about 4:30pm, they sit in their cells with their faces plastered against their windows... waving. Desperate for someone to wave back. The other day, when I got into my car and looked up (the jail is probably 10 stories tall), I saw at least 20 prisoners waving at me. I did not wave back. It felt too strange. It also feels strange not to wave to a crowd of waving orange jumpsuit wearing folks. So then I get annoyed at being put into that position of fretting about whether or not to wave back.
In talking to a co-worker who used to work in the prison, I learned that those 20 people know exactly what time I leave every day and exactly which car I drive. Creepy. (For what its worth, she implored me not to wave back at them...) I also learned that a good number of the people that I pass every day, in and out of the courthouse and jail, are members of MS-13, which is a gang that is always in the news for doing very bad things. Kind of strange to literally rub elbows in the elevator with gang members.
Oh, and apparently the women had to be kept far away from the actual courthouse. They can't do their chores out in the main hallway. It turns out some of the "ladies" were playing Mardi Gras and flashing attorneys and parties heading into the courthouse. Classy.
Perhaps my favorite part about the jail is seeing the people getting released on Friday mornings, obviously having been picked up for something alcohol related the night before. Wearing "going out" clothes, with their belt and other personal items in a little plastic baggie that they're carrying. Usually a girlfriend is picking them up, but one time it was this guy's mother. The moral of that story is that if you ever get thrown in jail, your mother is not the person you want coming to pick you up. Hire an attorney for that.
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