Previously, for eight years, being outside meant being inside a fenced-in field beside the prison. At its closest point, the prison yard is within 30 feet of Route 114, a busy road where prisoners could readily see people passing in their cars if they were allowed to look. But they're not, for fear they will communicate with a would-be liberator. This is their great outdoors. This is where inmates go, for a couple of hours a day, to step out into the world, and turn their backs to it.
Life inside means a life completely controlled.
Incoming and outgoing mail is read. Movements are monitored by video camera. Conversations can be overheard through ceiling microphones. They are living under an authoritative structure. Now, after earning her high school equivalency diploma, completing classes in computers and in horticulture, and, generally, behaving herself for so many years, Reynolds is a minimum-security prisoner.