Whitney Mallett delves into a thriving subculture:
It’s a three-hour drive from Mindy’s home to [Kern Valley State Prison in Delano, California] when there’s no traffic. When I talked to her on the phone, she’d already been in the car for four hours.
She makes this trek every Saturday; once a month she gets a hotel room in Delano and visits Cody on both Saturday and Sunday. Her relationship is documented on her Instagram account, where she posts pre-visit selfies and screenshots of her recent call history after phone calls with Cody, shares letter-writing campaigns in support of allowing lifers conjugal and family visits, and regrams the prison photobooth pictures you can print with tokens during visiting hours—often hashtagged #highschoolsweathearts or #kvsp, for Kern Valley State Prison.
When Instagram is used this way, it’s more than mere vanity for women like Mindy and Alex. Hashtags like #prisonwife, #visitday, and #freemybaby help women connect and share stories and experiences. Mindy told me Instagram is somewhere she can find support without judgment, adding that in the rest of the world “there are too many negative comments and ideas about why I’m with a prisoner.”
Caption for the instagram seen above:
#visit #mylove #111613 #weremean #wife #prisonwife #cdcrblues #element #wearemadeforeachother #fukwhatuthink
The Dish 