Prison Friendships

Today I sat at lunch, referred to as chow time, with another inmate I haven't seen since we worked our gardens together this summer. I realized how insular we sometimes are as prisoners, even among ourselves. Prison gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "fair-weathered friend." 

Some friendships formed in prison are tenuous at best; I hadn't even realized I hadn't seen my gardening friend. Other friendships have greater meaning and the absence is felt when days go by between connections. These friendships involve intentional bids for connection through door-calls, or other methods of finding the missed person. 

Without cellphones to make a call or send a text, prisoners use the lost art of walking to the other person's residence and 'ringing the doorbell' (what we call giving a door call.) This bid for connection requires more effort than what is put out by most people in this instant message generation. 

More rarely, some friendships formed between prisoners extend beyond the space inside these fences and beyond the time of incarceration. These are lifelong friendships formed on the battlefield of prison and secured through shared joys and sorrows as experienced through the life of a prisoner. 

Prisoners are no different than free people. We need the connections of friendships. For many prisoners without outside connections friendships with other prisoners meet this basic need.