I was in federal prison for years. One week from release, I got an email about a friend in poor health. I had to pay by the minute to access that email account at a prison kiosk, by the way. One minute of email access cost roughly the same as what I was paid for a hour's labor at my prison job as a GED instructor.
I called my friend as soon as I could get access to a phone. I had 5 minutes left of my monthly minutes budget because I'd spent nearly all of my 200 minute monthly allowance release planning with family. As we had only a few moments on the phone, they demanded I come see them the moment I was released. They had something very important they wanted to talk about.
I spent the next few days appealing to every prison official for extra phone minutes to speak with my dying friend. Several of them had phones on their desks as we spoke, and could have just picked up the phone and given me a few minutes right then and there. They all had the authority and ability to assist, and they all refused. From case manager, church chaplin to assistant warden. One said because the other person isn't direct family, they don't count as important enough to grant me an extra phone call. They took three days to consider my request before denying it. Another accused me of lying to manipulate them into giving me extra phone minutes because I'd "wasted" what I was given and they thought we all got way too many minutes anyway.
A few other prisoners offered to let me use their phone accounts to make calls, but if I had done that and been detected by prison staff who randomly monitored phone calls, I risked a disciplinary proceeding that could result in going to solitary confinement instead of going home, and throwing my release arrangements into disarray.
My friend died the day before I went home. I still don't know what they wanted to tell me.