Every Friday at three o’clock, I go to jail. To tutor, that is, as one of a group of Hopkins students that goes to the Baltimore City Detention Center to work with male juvenile inmates. One of the few things more messed up than these guys’ lives is the administration of the jail. On the first day we went in to tutor this semester, we waited at the security entrance for more than half an hour. Deprived of cell phones and iPods, there was nothing to do but watch the regulars pass through.

            I was convinced the first man to walk in was a pimp. Underneath a deep purple suit jacket, he wore a light purple dress shirt with a white collar. The shirt was tucked into purple pants that matched the jacket and were pulled up under his overhanging belly and held there with a purple leather belt. Below, he had on pointy shoes made from the skin of a purple crocodile, and to top it off,  he had a purple fedora with a white feather sticking up from the side.

            “Y’all boys are from John Hopkins? You take real good care of them boys you tutoring. They’ll be good to you; you just be good to them, please. I’m the jail’s minister”—well that settles that—“and I’ll be in to see them this evening.” And with that he greeted the guards by first name, took off his jacket and shoes, and walked through the metal detector in his dark purple socks.

            A plump woman with dark eyes came in next. She had two toddlers and a yellow visitor’s pass in her hands. She walked up to the counter to submit her pass. While talking furtively to the guard behind the counter, one of her kids, a small boy with baggy toddler jeans and tiny braids, tried to run across the room to the metal detector. He was caught by another guard, given back, and scolded by the mother. She took off her shoes and those of the children, who were patted down by the guard along with their mother.

            “You walk straight up to the wall, and you stay there,” the mother said firmly to her children. Both took turns walking to the wall and standing there, looking back anxiously. The mother then went through the detector.

            “Warning!” the computer blurted. A false alarm. The woman had nothing on her and the machine gets finicky, but if it says “warning” you can’t get into the jail, not even if you’re the minister. So she tried again. And again. And again. The detector went off every time, and the children’s eyes grew wider and more apprehensive each time. Another woman, with gray hair, big pink glasses, and a tall chin had walked in and was waiting. She was growing impatient. Everyone was. So one of the guards with a bit of sense took a bin and waved it through the detector until it stopped warning us every time something crossed its path. After about five waves, the mother tried going in again and finally there was no alarm. So she doesn’t have weapons on her after all. She and her children walked into the jail looking no less apprehensive.

            The impatient woman stepped up on the black rug that led up to and through the detector and said, “Y’all need to stand off the rug.” The other tutors and I obeyed, cramming 4 of ourselves into the corner. She walked right through without any hint of warning. None of us steps on the carpet while someone else is going through anymore.