I'm not sure why I am writing this, except that I guess I just need to vent. It seems that life is so unfair, and I am completely helpless to make things OK.

My husband is serving a 12 month sentence at FPC Forrest City. They have visitation every Saturday and Sunday from 8-3. My children are 4 yrs and 21 months. They say this is one of the worst camps for visitation. There is one large room and a small concrete patio, and that is it. There is a small locked room with a window looking into it from the large visitation room that is full of toys, videos, a VCR, books, etc. My kids can see into this room, but we are not allowed to get anything out of it. Once a month (if we are lucky) the "education director" comes to visitation and pulls out some of the toys for the children. Otherwise, there is absolutely nothing for them to do. We are not allowed to take any toys inside. My husband stayed home and kept our children the last 2 years, so he is very close to them. Last weekend, the guards would not open up the patio. (They said it was supposed to rain--it never did.) One couple who comes every weekend has gotten to know my kids and called my 4 year old over to talk to them. A guard came and tapped my husband on the shoulder and told him that his kid was "bothering those people" so he needed to keep him with us. How do they expect us to keep our children in a very small confined space for any length of time with absolutely nothing to do? Plus, they asked my son to come over there. My husband said that if we complained, they could make it hard on him. I feel so helpless. First they took my husband away from his children (for something that he did not do, which I guess is irrelevant at this point), and they don't make the environment conducive to them spending any time with him at all. And I can't do anything about it. I can't even complain! It is so frustrating. Does anyone have any suggestions on how they have handled this situation, or is there not a way to handle it?

Well, thanks for letting me vent.

I totally understand. All I can tell you is that during visitations my keys, my license and change become toys. They sometimes get thrown across the room though. No one has said anything to us. But we all get really frustrated.

Like candysunrise, napkins balled up have become hockey pucks my husband and Zach shoot with their fingers. They thumb wrestle... Improvise.... Unfortunately, the DOC folks don't seem to give a rip so we have to do what we can to make the visits be ok....

Deb

I understand your frustration...where Stephen is there is absolutely nothing to do fo rhe kids, no toys nothing and we ahve to stay at the little table and there isnt even enough charis for the kids to sit on .......guess I needed to vent a little!! the only way to get things changed though is to raise up our voices and make things change ourselves!!

Personally I would call the the prison and ask NICELY if they could at least have someone there to give the kids some toys. Or I would write a letter explaining how difficult this is on the kids to see these toys and NOT be able to play with them. I would do it in a proffessional and polite matter as to NOT stir the pot for your honey. Good Luck. I'm not saying this is going to work......but I would at least try.

Stacy

We always improvised, like it's been said, change, keys, napkins, all become toys with a little imagination. Our daughter visited from the time she was born so she's been at both those ages and I know it's tough sometimes but we just improvised, we'd play "I spy" in the visiting room, we'd play the matching game with new quarters, play heads or tails with quarters, spin quarters on the table, my husband used to play "operation" with her, put her on his lap and pretend he was doing an operation on her arm or something, dampen the area with a moist napkin, saw it open with a quarter, .... in other words you have to use your imagination. When she was that young we didn't really get to talk during visits, me & him, the visits were totally centered around our daughter cause it was play time with her & it took 100% of our time to keep her occupied & happy in order for ALL of us to be able to enjoy the visit and come home feeling happy instead of pissed off. So we just reserved our talking to each other about normal, husband wife things, until she either took a nap or we just talked on the phone. We were busy using our imaginations in the visiting room trying to make games out of everything.

Hello!! I hate that you are having such a difficult time. No one knows the heartbreak that the children suffer. My mother is in a regional jail and I am taking her grandbabies to see her. They are only allowed to go one thursday a month and there is four of them. They only allow 2 at a time to see her and we only have a half an hour so we have to split that up. So we drive an hour and a half to see her for fifteen minutes a month. And the best part is that there is no human contact there so they have to sit in a booth and look at her through a glass and talk on a phone which they fight over the whole time. A lady gave one of the children a lolipop and the guard questioned her as to what she was hidding in her purse other than candy. I went down last week and I was 12 minutes earliy instead of fifteen and they didn't allow me to see her at all. This is comp;etely unreasoniable and there is only so much we can do. I would suggest media involvement and talkshows love these people!! Don't be afraid to call anyone to get it on TV.Besides what do we really have to loose!!

God bless!!!
Deanna

Man does that bring back memories. My husband’s son is deaf and there weren’t even vending machines at Jackson. If he made a loud noise we would get yelled at to keep him quiet. We tried to explain that hey he's deaf he can hear himself and he is only 2. My jewelry was his toys and our legs always ached from hours of horse rides. I wore a lot of extra jewelry and stuff in my hair in those days. Thank god for keys.

My fiance is in FCI Forrest City and visitation is horrible. My first visit was so stressful. Our daughter was about 8 months old at the time and we got there around 7:45 am. We got our visitation forms filled out after pushing and shoving our way through the crowd(They were just on a counter for everyone to fight for...) After all of this we sat and sat... Maybe 10 chairs in this small room and of course they were all taken. We sat on the floor against the wall and WAITED.... For anyone who is guilty of this or anyone who has had to sit and watch this---- PLEASE STOP!!!!....... the metal detector.. You already know you are going to have to take your shoes off and please do not wear your whole jewelry box.... Dont wear 100 hair pins... Be considerate. Shoes with 100 buckles are not necessary!!! AND putting your hand over whatever is causing the machine to beep and then walking back through DOES NOT work.... OK OK I got off subject.. Just aggravated. Anyway all of a sudden they had count at 10 am and they cant call any of us back until 11am... So we WAITED some more.... By the time we got back it was like 1pm and my baby was so irritable and hot and the visitation room was so noisy that basically we had to turn around and leave!! If you do get in the room before count like at 9:15am you still have to sit back there by yourelf until after count... I know it could be worse and now I am just B*TCHING. But couldnt it be a little better. Needless to say I just get there around 11am now... No need in getting up so early to sit and wait.. Might as weel wait until some of the crowd is gone. I end up back around the same time then anyway...