Post # 292
Word Count: 1092
By Emily Stewart, Associate Editor and a Lead Researcher with the University of Alberta Prison Project
Summary: As part of our Within the System series, this post explores the different ways people experience time in provincial custody.
While on the phone with Elijah one evening, he said: “I can’t see the clock from my cell, which I kind of like […] because in here, all I have is time, and the clock just reminds me of that.”
This struck me. On the outside, time shapes almost everything – alarms wake us, calendars and schedules direct us. Just stop for a minute and think about how much of your life is shaped by time.
But time often moves differently in custody. For many, it isn’t something to be managed but endured. For others, it is uncertain or disappears altogether. And for a few, time is marked not by clocks, but the rhythm of shift changes, meal trays, and the sounds of doors opening and closing.
Enduring Time
Whether it’s days, months, or years, time in custody becomes a reminder of how much someone has left or that has passed: the months and years behind them, the missed birthdays, holidays, and milestones, or the changing seasons they didn’t get to experience.
In a way, time isn’t something to be managed but endured, with many describing the constant effort to get through without becoming overwhelmed or withdrawn.
The Uncertainty of Time
For others – often those on remand – time is uncertain. With no set release date, days drag on as people wait for court, decisions, and movement. While some have told me that the absence of a release date can make time inside easier, for many this fact makes their situation feel unbearable.
Adam, for instance, called me from the remand facility in early-November. His lawyer had told him to turn himself in for missing court, assuring that the process would be quick: “You’ll be out in no time,” he was told.
But days turned into weeks, as each court date was adjourned to the next with little explanation. He struggled to contact his lawyer and rarely received clear answers about what was happening.
As December approached, Adam shared his growing anxieties: he couldn’t notify his employer of his whereabouts, couldn’t pay his rent, and Christmas was around the corner.
For him, time wasn’t something to count; it was something heavy, weighed down with uncertainty.
Disappearing Time
For a few, time seemed to disappear altogether.
During one of our interviews, I asked Sam to remind me when he was admitted. As he pulled out his address book and flipped through the pages, he sighed heavily and said, “Damn … it’s been ten months. I didn’t even realize.”
What stood out wasn’t that ten months had passed, but how easily it slipped by unmarked. For some, this might reflect how quickly institutional routines take over; for others, it can be a way to cope.
Passing Time
Others actively track time. Alec, for instance, eagerly shared, “I only have four months to go,” as we sat down to do his next interview. I remembered sitting across from Alec in the remand facility just six months earlier when he first told me about his sentence. Without thinking, I responded, “Oh wow, time flies!” Horrified by my own comment and how it might sound in that context, I quickly followed up with, “Well, I’m sure it hasn’t felt that way in here.”
Laughing, Alec said, “Yeah, there were moments it felt really slow, but lately I’ve been keeping busy. I’m working now, which is nice – time goes by a bit faster.”
This interaction made me realize just how differently time moves inside. What felt quick to me had been plodding and indeterminate for him. It also speaks to how having something meaningful to do can shape time inside.
Doing Different Time
Beyond simply passing the time, some described changing their relationship with time altogether.
For example, when I asked Miles about his daily routine, he explained that he generally sleeps: “It helps make my time go by quicker,” he told me.
Or Peter, who talked about using Suboxone (a prescription medication commonly used to treat opioid dependence) to help manage the negative emotions that came with doing time. As he said, “Being on Suboxone in jail is weird. It makes you feel like you are not in jail. […] If I was sad, then I did some suboxone and then it’s like, I’m not sad anymore. I don’t even get high; it just makes my time better.”
Here, the goal isn’t to fill the day but to avoid it.
Others find ways to do time differently. Like Caleb, who spent nearly 90 days on a unit that had highly structured programming and activities. But after being denied bail and learning he might face a two-year sentence, he chose to move to a general population unit.
“I just needed to do different time,” he told me.
On this new unit, Caleb could sleep more, draw, write, and escape the rigidly structured routine. Time wasn’t necessarily slower, but it felt different.
Marking Time Differently
And for a few, time is not measured by minutes, but moments.
After telling me earlier that all he had “in here is time,” Elijah explained how he keeps track of time through different unit routines. He knows it’s morning when his cell door clicks open, dinner when the trays arrive, evening when the ‘med lady comes’, and ‘count time’ when the lights flicker on and off – each a cue that structures his day.
Doing Your Own Time
This idea of “doing time” also carries its own meaning inside.
Whenever I ask people about the informal rules in custody – what you should and shouldn’t do – they almost always say the same thing: “do your own time.”
This typically means keeping to yourself, respecting others, and not interfering in how others move through their day, whether by avoiding unnecessary noise, staying out of other people’s business, or refraining from doing things that would create tension on the unit.
In this sense, “doing your own time” isn’t just about getting through the day, but allowing others to do the same.
Time as Control
As I hang up the phone with Elijah and return to my life suffused with alarms and calendars, I’m reminded that time inside is not just slower or heavier but constrained and unevenly experienced. It takes multiple forms, shaped by institutional practices and personal coping strategies.
Understanding how people experience time in custody may seem mundane, but it reveals how individuals adapt, cope, and create a sense of order within it. When time is all you have, how (or whether) you count it becomes one of the few ways to make sense of life inside.
This post is part of Within the System – a blog series sharing real experiences and reflections from people navigating the criminal justice system. Posts are based on fieldwork from the University of Alberta Prison Project’s re-entry study – research that is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC PGS2 895-2022-1011) and approved by the University of Alberta Research Ethics Board (Pro00128428). All names and identifying details have been changed to protect the identities of individuals.
About this blog: The John Howard Canada blog is intended to support greater public understanding of criminal justice issues. Blog content does not necessarily represent the views of the John Howard Society of Canada. All blog material may be reproduced freely for any non-profit purpose as long as the source is acknowledged. We welcome comments (moderated). Contact: blogeditor@johnhoward.ca.
Winner of 2025 Clawbies award for law blogs.
Back