Visiting Dilemma

The visiting dilemma occrs when you are trying to visit a loved one in a Canadian prison. The first hurdle is to phone in and book a visit.
Booking should be straight forward and simple, bu that is not always the case. sometimes, you might have to try 20 times or so to get through. Not that they are busy, but they do not always feel like answering the phone. Once that is done, you proceed to the visit itself.
Getting there is usually fine, but then the procedures to get in might just get your goat. Please do not forge to bring ID. You will not be able to sign in without that. Then hope that your clothes are very clean, with no residue of any kind on them. You will be requested to swipe a piece of filter paper on your clothing that will be tested for contact with many known drugs. This is geared to esure that drugs are not being brought in to the prison by you. Unfortunately, the ion scanner is only checking for certain ions, not recognizing compounds. That means that if you are a diabetic, heroin will show up on the scanner test. Or if you take a cold medication, just a simple over the counter one, you may be hitting with cocaine or amphetamines on the scanner. If you have been shopping, there may be traces of all kinds of things on your hands and clothing. Eventually, you will learn how to avoid these traps.
Then you go to the visiting room and wait some more. I have found that it usually takes about 20 minutes to get through all the front gate stuff and another 20 minutes to wait for the prisoner. the visits are set for 3 hours, but, as you can see, you do not usually get a 3 hour visit. Always a tense time, but the visit is worth the effort. At least when a mother can see her son, it eases her worries for at least a little while.