All these very different people work together towards a purpose we share: to reflect on life in the penal institution and on some situations that, however unworthy or unfair, we would like to highlight or change if possible.

Among all the concerns and difficult experiences lived in prison, one situation stood out above the others:

how are communications
with families in prison.

Audio transcription – Why did we choose this theme?

Woman1: I would like you to explain to someone why we have come to the conclusion that this is the issue we want to bring to light.

Man1: Man… I think because it’s an issue that affects not only us but also our families. Because if it is an issue that only affects us, well… We have done what we have done, those are the consequences. But of course, those who are paying for it are also family members when it comes to communications and that’s because many may feel a little… as… I don’t get the word out. I don’t know… I don’t know… embarrassed, I don’t know what the word would be… uncomfortable. A little uncomfortable. So I think that we have decided to talk about this in order to, in some way, be able to modify it and not… not be like that.  I don’t think family members should feel that way. 

Woman1: Why do you want to participate in this project?

Man2: Because it seems to me an interesting topic for people to know the reality of prisons, of… especially of communications, the security that there is. 

Man3: In my case, it was very easy. Because I was asked to do a job, right? What would you personally change about your stay in prison, or what most marked you, or what you would like to change? And, I’m telling you, it was very easy for me because what I proposed was precisely the subject that is going to be dealt with. So… clear and in bottle. It was something… it was my biggest concern and on top of that I’m going to do some work on it because that’s why I’m participating in it. I think it was the thing that most… that most marked me…   

Woman2: Somehow you were all…

Man3: I think that was the thing that most marked me in my time in prison; that was it. More than being locked up, more than the bars, more than… more than anything else, what most marked me were the visits of family members. And I repeat myself again. More by the fact that I involved my family and my environment I made them feel imprisoned without having done anything. And we return to the same thing: what I would like to change. That this process of family visits and reunions would be something more… more positive. For children, grandparents, couples, friends… That they don’t feel the way we feel. That they are not to blame. We have done something, we have to pay for it; but the people around us, in most cases, don’t. No. No. And I think there are things that could be avoided and should be avoided. Yes, I do. They could be. They should be. Yes.  

Audio transcription – How are the communications?
How do we feel? And the families?

Woman1: What do you expect from this project?

Man1: From this project? What do I expect? First to make known. And then already, because if something can be done to modify it, it would be better.

Woman1: What do you expect from the project?

Man2: Well, as you said, let many people listen to it and become aware of the reality inside the prisons.

Audio transcription – What do we hope to achieve with the project?

Man3: Let’s see. The communications, the place where we make communications, we are going to start with the family visits and the… the intimate visits, right?

Woman1: Wherever you want.

Man3: Well, as has already been said, the place where we carry out the communications is a room more or less like this, of about 20 square meters, in which you receive your relatives: children, parents, children …; with a furniture consisting of a table, four chairs, a bathroom with a sink and a toilet. That’s all we have. That’s where we welcome our children, our families, our friends, everything. To give you an idea: a room, 20 square meters, a round table, four chairs and a toilet and a sink. That’s what we have to… to be there with our children, with our partner, with our grandparents, with our friends.

Woman1: With or without a window?

Man3: With… let’s say with a window that you can’t see… you can’t see anything, can you? It’s a small window, tall, that barely has…

Man1: I don’t know, I don’t remember it well.

Man3: You can’t see, you can’t see. It has a window, light comes in, but there isn’t… you can’t see it on the other side. No. You can’t see it.

Man1: It’s just that the one I remember used to look out onto the courtyard of the parlours.

Man3: In the parlour courtyard.

Man1: Yes.

Man3: But you can only see barbed wire because it’s upstairs and you can’t… The window is high. You can’t look and see what’s outside.

Man1: No, no. I just don’t remember it well.

Man3: It’s a small window, high, in which you can’t see anything from the outside.

Woman1: With bars?

Man3: Huh?

Woman1: With bars?

Man3: With bars? You can see the bars. I’ve been in bars. It’s a window that you see bars. In other words, you are with the children, with your parents, with your parents; I’m telling you, it’s very sad. It’s a room with a table and four chairs. There is not even a toy for children, there is not even a television, there is not even a magazine, there is nothing at all, nothing, nothing.

Man3: I would dare say that relatives have a much worse idea of prison than it really is.

Man1: Yes.

Man3: Only for what they have to go through when they come to see us. In other words, if I, as a family member, when I go to see a person who is in prison, they make me go through what I have to go through, I, as a family member, would say ‘my mother, if I have to go through this, how does the person I am going to see have to be, in there’. When in reality maybe it’s not so complicated. Maybe we’re better off than people think we are inside. I don’t know if I can explain.

Woman1: Tell us about your experience.

Man2: Well, the truth is that I haven’t communicated much either but, and almost, I almost preferred it, because the times I’ve communicated, between the fact that I wasn’t very well and that my family saw me badly, and that they didn’t look so bad either, they weren’t very… very good communications. The only thing that, well that always that, that when the communication ends that you go up very … I at least arrive very, very bad and eager to mess it up again, obviously, of course. And that’s it. No…

Woman1: When you talk about going up, can you explain it to us?

Man2: When you go from communication back to your cell, to the courtyard where you are, to your module or to… Well, where you normally are. I don’t know, the family you… they try not… not to pretend that they are wrong but… but you know. You know they are bad because you can tell them, you can tell them a lot.

Man3: It’s complicated.

Man2: And they too I imagine that they will also notice that we are also bad and, well, for me at least it was suffering. For me communications vis a vis were suffering. But well, in the locutorios I’m half an hour, an hour with them and that’s it; but to be so close for me was to suffer. It was suffering and more for my mother. Especially for my mother. In fact… in fact I forbade them to come with my mother.