Annie Carswell gets to see her son for two hours a week, if she's lucky.
But they don't meet at her home or at a coffee shop or restaurant - they meet in the Hamilton County Jail. And her son sits in handcuffs behind thick, scratched glass.
Each time, Carswell must check in at the jail about an hour before the visit is scheduled to start. She must present a state photo ID, submit to a search, meet a dress code - no skirts shorter than 3 inches above the knee, no sleeveless blouses, no jogging attire, no camouflage clothing, no extremely loose-fitting clothes.
And then it's first come, first served, and there are only 12 booths for each hour's visitation slot. Carswell sometimes shows up at 3 p.m. for a 5 p.m. visitation, just to ensure she gets a seat.
The visits are all Carswell can give her son, Ellis Thornhill, as he awaits trial on a first-degree murder charge.
But sometimes - and lately, often - after she is searched and cleared and waiting to go in, minutes before the visitation is scheduled to start, a jail employee will come out and tell the waiting families that visitation is canceled.
Someone will post a sign on the door. No visitation this hour. Or, no more visitations today.
And that's it. Everyone goes home without seeing their loved ones.
For Carswell, it's bitterly disappointing. But she feels worse for the people who don't live in Chattanooga, the people who rearranged their schedules to drive a half-hour or an hour or two hours to be at the jail that day.
"You have to plan your whole day around visitation," she said in June. "Then they just come out and say 'No visitation.' We are not criminals. They have no business mistreating me because I want to show love to my child."
In the last six months, jail employees have canceled 51 of 676 open visitation slots - only about 8 percent - but Hamilton County Sheriff Jim Hammond said he'd prefer not to cancel any.
"You're punishing the family if you don't let the family see their loved one," he said, then added, "But visitation has to be seen in light of risk."
Chief of Corrections Joe Fowler said every time a visitor arrives to see an inmate, a corrections officer must pull that inmate from the cell, frisk him and hand him off to another officer to be transported down to visitation. Someone must ensure inmates from rival gangs don't ride the elevator together and don't end up next to each other in visitation.
An officer must search and register the visitors, and another one must supervise the hour-long visits.
It's a labor-intensive process, Fowler said, in a jail that is overcrowded and understaffed - a 2013 analysis by the county found that the jail needs another 40 officers and clerks. At times, visitation must take a back seat to other priorities, Fowler said.
"Cooking the food, getting the laundry done, are a higher priority to me than visitors," Fowler said.
But, he added, canceling visitation is a last resort. It's usually only done when jail staff members are called unexpectedly away to other duties and there are not enough remaining employees to safely handle the process.
The jail is barely scraping by with its current number of employees, so if one or two people get called away, visitation is sometimes not possible, Fowler said. The shortage is especially noticeable in the summer, when officers must be absent to complete mandatory training.
The unexpected events could be anything. If an inmate is admitted to a local hospital, an officer must go and guard that room. Two weeks ago, an officer injured her arm on the job and was out of action for that shift. A door broke down and someone had to guard it 24/7 until it could be repaired.
"It's an unforeseen action, and that's why there is so little notice [to the visitors]," Fowler said. "We could have every intent to have [visitation] open until we realize we don't have enough people. Because of those unforeseens."
Hammond asked Hamilton County Mayor Jim Coppinger and county commissioners to fund the salaries of 10 new corrections officers and four new records clerks for the jail in this year's budget, but that didn't happen.
Those new positions could have provided a buffer for the unexpected events and helped the jail maintain all its extra programs, not just visitation, Hammond said.
"The commission did give me some more jailers last year; that helped," he said. "But we're still so far short of the number recommended to run a facility."
County Commissioner Greg Beck doesn't think the sheriff's office needs money for new hires, and he pointed out that the commission gave Hammond a significant boost in capital funding this year.
"We can't give everything you ask for," Beck said.
In the absence of new personnel, the jail is working to install video visitation equipment, Fowler said. Family members will be able to visit inmates either through a video console at the jail or from home via an Internet connection, he said.
The videos will eliminate the need to search and transport inmates and should make scheduling visits more flexible for family members, Fowler added. That system is expected to roll out later this year.
In the meantime, he's asked his staff to explain to families why visitation is canceled, instead of just putting a sign up and sending people away.
In the last couple of weeks, Carswell has already noticed a difference when she shows up to visit with her son, she said Thursday.
"It seems like they're trying to treat us a little better," she said. "And that's all I wanted."
Contact staff writer Shelly Bradbury at 423-757-6525 or sbradbury@timesfreepress.com with tips or story ideas.