A Trip to the Delaware Correctional Center

Stepping into the lobby of the Delaware Correctional Center the largest men's prison in the state of Delaware housing about 2,500 minimum, medium, and maximum security inmates located Smyrna, Delaware, you see others there waiting; it is a system they may be use to, depending upon how many years their love ones were incarcerated. Walk in, hand over an Driver's License or some sort of Identification Card, and the money order you may have for your inmate, give the prisoners name, receive a visitor's badge and wait, until the guard says, "Check your pockets, check the pockets of your children, and if you have anything other than a car key your visit is canceled." Then everyone stands to walk though metal detectors, patted down, then wand down, to go to another room and wait another few minutes. Children are with Mothers and you wonder if they are there to see a Father, maybe Girlfriends are there to see Boyfriends; Parents to see Sons.

Finally a group is herded to another part of the prison, sent to a room that is concrete, hollow like a gymnasium. There is a window up above where a guard can be seen looking down at the visitors. Unlike the movies where a prisoner is often behind glass or sitting at a table, there is a concrete wall built between visitors and prisoners. For a person of average height the wall allows you to see the prisoners face, but for a shorter person it is a strain to see over. The small children may have had trouble seeing their father.

Visitors wait anxiously, and there is a sadness to it all as prisoners begin to walk in one by one to their family, dressed in white "uniforms" with the letters DCC printed in different places like their leg. Just as statistics prove, most inmates walking in are black, there was one white inmate and he looked young. Many prisoners had bushy beards; a common trend in today's prisons. They came with smiles, giving hugs to their visitor, and held babies; precious, yet sad. Conversations begin as a guard stands against a wall and watches. With the room being so hollow voices begin to carry and the room sounds as if there is a basketball game being played. You find yourself yelling to the prisoner you are sitting across from.

The average person may think that prisoners don't know what is going on the outside, but they know just about everything if not more than those visiting. "Word" about the "streets" gets back to them because the prison doors seem to always be open and friends return as inmates. It seems that the rehabilitation process one is suppose to go through while in prison never works, because those who are released almost always make a return. According to the prisoners, inmates love to hear of the downfall of those on the outside. "Misery loves company," and some in DCC are miserable, but on a day of a visit inmates are happy, even if it is only 45 minutes of conversation to just catch up. It doesn't make up for the 2, 5, 10, 15, 20 years that they sit and wait for a judge to make changes, or that they must serve for what ever crime they commit. Of course, that is the path that they chose to take no matter how unfortunate it is to sit and dissolve in a jail cell, living daily as basically an animal permitted out only at given times a day.

An alarm goes off acknowledging the end of the visit. Everyone stands up to give another hug, until the next visit, and a few last words of encouragement. Then just as you were herded in you are herded out, back though gates and through a heavy duty door; back in the lobby where you began; handing in your visitors badge and picking up your ID, then walking back to the parking lot. It seems as if it didn't happen. The visit was so quick, and there you are back on the road; to your life of freedom unable to forget your loved one; father, brother, cousin, uncle...etc, who is feeling some joy that ...so and so is doing good in school or feeling sad because, so and so died; back in the cell paying his debt to society.