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When prisons go on lockdown, it limits how often incarcerated people can get out of their cell and have access to phones or computers. Lockdowns during the holidays means it could be even more difficult to connect with family and loved ones. NPR justice correspondent Carrie Johnson reports.
AUTOMATED VOICE: This call is from a federal prison.
CARRIE JOHNSON, BYLINE: Askia Afrika-Ber has spent 20 years in federal prison on a felony murder charge. He called from a facility in Hazelton, West Virginia, where he says lockdowns are common.
ASKIA AFRIKA-BER: We have perpetual lockdowns, right? The way we come out of our cells, there's absolutely no schedule. It's completely erratic.
JOHNSON: We spoke a few weeks before Christmas, in between lockdowns, when he predicted it would be another bleak holiday behind bars.
AFRIKA-BER: Last year, we wasn't allowed to use the telephones. You know, the year before that, we wasn't allowed to use the telephones during the Christmas holidays, and I'm certain the same is going to happen now.
JOHNSON: Advocates for prisoners and their families say they rarely get an official explanation for the lockdowns, but there seem to be a couple of common reasons. Sometimes it's because of a violent incident, either between inmates or involving a corrections officer, where the whole unit or the whole prison gets punished.
PAM BAILEY: The other common reason for lockdowns is short of staff.
JOHNSON: That's Pam Bailey. She runs a nonprofit website called More Than Our Crimes and works closely with people in prison. Her co-founder is in Coleman Federal Prison in Florida, where he's been living through an extended lockdown this year.
BAILEY: They're staying in a cell the size of a bathroom. So try to picture this - two adult men in a cell the size of a bathroom, with the toilet in, you know?
JOHNSON: During lockdowns, inmates cannot go to classes or make phone calls home.
BAILEY: This might be hard for people to understand, but when you're in prison, having a reliable schedule is very important for mental health.
JOHNSON: Lockdowns have been used for years across federal and state prisons and jails in dangerous situations. But experts say now they're being used for extended periods, sometimes for weeks or months on end. Michele Deitch directs the Prison and Jail Innovation Lab at the University of Texas.
MICHELE DEITCH: One of the problems is that lockdowns really fly beneath the radar screen. They're not required to be reported, and we really don't have a good sense of how often they're happening.
JOHNSON: The Federal Bureau of Prisons did not answer a question about how often lockdowns occur. But a spokesman said wardens at each federal facility have authority to order temporary security procedures to ensure the safety of people who live and work there. Askia Afrika-Ber, the prisoner from D.C. who's incarcerated in West Virginia, says dozens of men in his unit share five phones and five computers. When they're released from lockdowns, there's a race to get there first.
AFRIKA-BER: Several days ago, we just had a vicious fistfight - three guys on one prisoner. Three prisoners attacked another prisoner because of an altercation over the phones.
JOHNSON: He says the lack of contact hurts families, especially during the holidays - families like Shawna Chandler's. She lives in Texas. Her husband is serving time in Florida, 17 hours away from home. Chandler's husband, in the Coleman Prison, has been on frequent lockdown this year.
SHAWNA CHANDLER: And I just feel like it makes it easier on the prison to not have to staff for visits or for phone calls. It's just easier on them, (crying) and it's harder on us.
JOHNSON: Chandler says, for the first time in a year, her husband was not under lockdown restrictions last weekend. So he got to call home and speak with their grandson for the first time in months.
Carrie Johnson, NPR News.
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