First count time
My First Count Time
I wrote at least 2 different entries about “count time” in prison, but
I wanted to try to share a more specific experience from it. I want to
share with you an excerpt from something I wrote, and then I will
follow it up with some discussion:
Sometime later, as I was
still learning the new surroundings, there was an announcement over the
loud speakers that it was “count time”. This was very new to me; there
were no count times as far as I knew in county jail, certainly no
announcements of it. Of course I was in a single cell for over a year,
so I suppose it wasn’t hard to count me. But now in prison I was to
learn about this process. It was probably around 2 or so, one cannot be
too sure since I had lost sense of time at Craven. All of the inmates
began moving, as if controlled by one person, to their bunks. One of
the inmates told me that it was count time and I had to stand in front
of my bunk. I was pretty confused about what was going on, but I went
on the inmate’s advice and a saying, “when in Rome, do as the Romans
do”. So I went to my bunk and looked at the other inmates as they began
to move to the front of the bunks. Each bunk was numbered on the front
metal post, or the foot of the bunk if you prefer. I stood beside the
bunk, taking a military stance with my hands behind my back. I wasn’t
trying to impress anyone, just trying to look like I wasn’t too new to
this place. However, one of the other inmates told me that we had to
stand directly in front of the number of our bunk; I was kinda wide
right. I immediately began to get into position as from the entrance of
the dorm 2 or 3 officers entered, followed by one guy who apparently
seemed to be in charge. I looked at the chevrons and saw he was a
sergeant. All the inmates had to stand quietly and not speak at all
while we were each counted by the officers, and supervised by the
sergeant. We were counted twice; one officer would count us all,
downstairs and upstairs, and write it down, and the next did the same
thing. I was not sure what they were going to do next; for all I knew
they might throw someone in the hole. But after counting, there was a
period of time of us just standing there, doing nothing, but not
allowed to speak, even though there were some mumblings, like in school
when the teacher tells the class to be quiet; you always have a few
that insist on talking. After about 15 or so minutes, there was an
announcement that the count was clear, to which all the inmates began
moving around normally. I continued to stand there like an idiot,
wondering what to do next until an inmate told me we can move around
now.
(end of excerpt)
The reason why I am sharing this
part is because so many people want to know what goes on in prison, but
are not being told about it. I truly believe that there are thousands
and thousands of people out there who can’t sleep because they have no
idea what their loved ones is going through. Many of them think that if
they could just know a little bit about the prison world, maybe it
would help them understand just enough to be able to get some decent
rest.
One of the hardest things for a mom to go through is the
“not knowing” part of prison. Now, I am not saying to know every single
detail of what he goes through, because on the other end of this
situation, there are indeed lots of people who don’t WANT to know what
their loved ones is going through…
Hmmm, kinda…well,
problematic if you ask me, since it is almost like turning a deaf ear
to someone calling for help, but hey, to each their own.
But
you can read from my excerpt kinda how the count time works. I want to
emphasize that this was my very first count time, even though I had
technically been incarcerated for about a year and a half. Like I said
earlier, when I was in jail for 17 months, I was never in a count, but
here in prison I would learn that this is very routine.