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Testimonial

France: intimacy inside four walls

One week follows another, and trips to the visitation room, too. A slender thread connecting those inside and those outside, a fragile respite, short, frustrating visits without intimacy, more like interviews that put loving and family relations to a hard test. In France, Family Visit Units (FVU) 1 are available in some prisons. They are small, 2-3 room furnished apartments separate from the detention area, where a detained person can spend time with his family or relatives in some privacy.

Celine’s partner is serving a sentence of ten years. He has been imprisoned for six years when he submits his first request for an FVU. After months of visits in the regular visitation rooms, permission for a nine-hour stay is granted. Céline tells the story.

  1. for more in-depth details about Family Visit Units, you may consult OIP-SF’s website, (in French) ↩

Unless you have permission to take leave from the prison, this is the only way for us to spend time together

YOU SUBMITTED your request to the supervisor of the Family Visitation Units. I sent in my agreement, so we could benefit from this. Unless you have permission to take leave from the prison, this is the only way for us to spend time together. The first FVU will last nine hours.
That morning, I hurry over there with my suitcase. In it are black satin sheets…I promised you I’d bring them! Plus, everything listed on the form I received in the mail as permitted items. A sealed pack of cigarettes, even though you don’t smoke – you never know, it might let you buy something at the prison canteen.

The guard comes for me at the family reception desk and makes me empty everything onto a chair. The sheets will have to stay in a cubbyhole until I leave. I’m allowed to bring in a tube of shower gel, which I have filled with oil to give you a massage. We’re not just going to spend these nine hours watching television!

We can hear everything that’s going on outside: doors slamming, buzzers, keys turning in locks

That prison smell follows me everywhere

I come in through the same door I use when coming to the visitation room, but when I get there, I turn right to reach a staircase. I go through lots of doors with buzzers, before finally arriving at the door of the FVU, which the supervisor opens to let me in.

I go into a little garden, it’s pretty sad, since there’s no grass, and it’s littered with cigarette butts. Instead of the sky above, I see layers and layers of metal mesh.

I follow the supervisor who shows me around the apartment. A small, three-room place graciously made available. Graciously, that is, as long as your “prison” account has a balance of at least 30 euros, which is what these nine hours are costing you, since you have to order drinks and something to eat for both of us at the prison canteen.

First, there’s a little living room, with bars at the windows. In the middle of the room sits a worn-out sofa-bed that faces a television set on a piece of furniture. On the right, there’s a kitchenette with appliances that are half-falling apart. Of course, I’m not here for the accommodations. The supervisor makes me sign an inventory document. Everything is counted, down to the last little spoon, as if I might want to redo my house with prison items. Next, there’s a little hallway with the toilets at the end. It’s spacious, but looks dirty. And that prison smell follows me everywhere, just like in the visiting room. From the living room, I go into the bedroom. On the ground is a laundry service net bag filled with sheets and towels. I look at the double-bed in the middle of the room. The mattress is smaller than the bedframe. That doesn’t look good. At one end of the room is a bathroom with a shower stall. We can hear everything that’s going on outside: doors slamming, buzzers, keys turning in locks.

The justice system that has condemned you has also condemned me to wait until you’re released to become a wife again

Time goes by too fast

The supervisor goes out and I start putting sheets on the bed to make things look nicer. I avoid examining the sheets closely, as I can see traces of former occupants. Finally, you arrive. We have nine hours to ourselves, a little less than a day, and we are going to do our best to forget where we are. We watch a little TV, you heat up a pizza for us, and then, together, we drink the coffee we’ve been anticipating for six years.

Time goes by too fast. We’re not programmed to take advantage of what is always forbidden to us.

One hour before the end of the FVU, we tell ourselves that we should, after all, take this opportunity for a little cuddle in the bed. It’s good, but it’s short and it’s frustrating. It’s a reminder that even if we are a couple, we don’t have the right to be together intimately. The justice system that has condemned you has also condemned me to wait until you’re released to become a wife again. For the time being, I’m nothing more than the wife of a detained person. That’s why the supervisors call the UVFs “fuckodromes”. For the next three months, we will have no right to make love. Time’s up already, and the supervisors come to take you back. Before coming here, we knew it would be even worse now. We tasted a semblance of freedom, but it was a mirage. After you leave, I have to clean the apartment and put everything back in its place. You didn’t even get to keep the rest of your coffee, even though it’s from the prison canteen. It cost you money, but I’m the one who has to go home with the leftovers. Next month, I’ll send you a money order to pay for the next FVU three months from now. This time, it will last twenty-four hours, so we’ll be allowed a night together.

— Translation Lynn E. Palermo
Céline H., for Prison Insider
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