How Do Conjugal Visits Work?

conjugal visit

Maintaining close ties with loved ones while doing time can increase the chances of a successful reentry program. Although several studies back this conclusion, it’s widely logical.

While the conjugal visits concept sounds commendable, there’s an increasing call to scrap the scheme, particularly across US states. This campaign has frustrated many states out of the program, leaving only a handful. Back in 1993, 17 US states recognized conjugal visits. Today, in 2020, only four do.

The conjugal visit was first practiced in Mississippi. The state, then, brought in prostitutes for inmates. The program continued until 2014. The scrap provoked massive protests from different right groups and prisoners’ families. The protesters sought a continuance of the program, which they said had so far helped sustain family bonds and inmate’s general attitude to life-after-jail.

New Mexico, the last to scrap the concept, did so after a convicted murderer impregnated four different women in prison. If these visits look as cool as many theories postulate, why the anti-conjugal-visit campaigns in countries like the US?

This article provides an in-depth guide on how conjugal visits work, states that allow conjugal visits, its historical background, arguments for and against the scheme, and what a conjugal visit entails in reality.

What Is a Conjugal Visit?

A conjugal visit is a popular practice that allows inmates to spend time alone with their loved one(s), particularly a significant other, while incarcerated. By implication, and candidly, conjugal visits afford prisoners an opportunity to, among other things, engage their significant other sexually.

However, in actual content, such visits go beyond just sex. Most eligible prisoners do not even consider intimacy during such visits. In many cases, it’s all about ‘hosting’ family members and sustaining family bonds while they serve time. In fact, in some jurisdictions, New York, for example, spouses are not involved in more than half of such visits. But how did it all start?

Inside a prison

History of Conjugal Visits

Conjugal visits origin dates back to the early 20 th century, in the then Parchman Farm – presently, Mississippi State Penitentiary. Back then, ‘qualified’ male prisoners were allowed to enjoy intimacy with prostitutes, primarily as a reward for hard work.

While underperforming prisoners were beaten, the well-behaved were rewarded in different forms, including a sex worker’s company. On their off-days, Sunday, a vehicle-load of women were brought into the facility and offered to the best behaved. The policy was soon reviewed, substituting prostitutes for inmates’ wives or girlfriends, as they wished.

The handwork-for-sex concept recorded tremendous success, and over time, about a quarter of the entire US states had introduced the practice. In no time, many other countries copied the initiative for their prisons.

Although the United States is gradually phasing out conjugal visits, the practice still holds in many countries. In Canada, for instance, “extended family visits” – a newly branded phrase for conjugal visits – permits prisoners up to 72 hours alone with their loved ones, once in few months. Close family ties and, in a few cases, friends are allowed to time alone with a prisoner. Items, like foods, used during the visit are provided by the visitors or the host – the inmate.

Over to Asia, Saudi Arabia is, arguably, one of the most generous countries when it comes to conjugal visits. Over there, inmates are allowed intimacy once monthly. Convicts with multiple wives get access to all their wives – one wife, monthly. Even more, the government foots traveling experiences for the visitors.

Conjugal visits do not exist in Great Britain. However, in some instances, prisoners incarcerated for a long period may qualify to embark on a ‘family leave’ for a short duration. This is applicable mainly for inmates whose records suggest a low risk of committing crimes outside the facility.

This practice is designed to reconnect the inmates to the real world outside the prison walls before their release . Inmates leverage on this privilege not just to reconnect with friends and family, but to also search for jobs , accommodation, and more, setting the pace for their reintegration.

Back to US history, the family visit initiative soon began to decline from around the ’80s. Now, conjugal visits only exist in California, New York, Connecticut, and Washington.

Prison Yard

Is the Increasing Cancellation Justifiable?

The conjugal visit initiative cancellation, despite promising results, was reportedly tied around public opinion. Around the ’90s, increasing pressure mounted against the practice.

One of the arguments was that convicts are sent to jail as a punishment, not for pleasure. They fail to understand that certain convictions – such as convictions for violent crimes – do not qualify for conjugal visit programs.

The anti-conjugal visit campaigners claim the practice encouraged an increase in babies fathered by inmates. There are, however, no data to substantiate such claims. Besides, inmates are usually given free contraceptives during the family visits.

Another widely touted justification, which seems the strongest, is the high running cost. Until New Mexico recently scraped the conjugal visit scheme, they had spent an average of approximately $120,000 annually. While this may sound like a lot, what then can we say of the approximately $35,540 spent annually on each inmate in federal facilities?

If the total cost of running the state’s conjugal visit program was but equivalent to the cost of keeping three inmates behind bars, then, perhaps, the scrap had some political undertones, not entirely running cost, as purported.

Besides, an old study on the population of New York’s inmates postulates that prisoners who kept ties with loved ones were about 70 percent less likely – compared to their counterparts who had no such privilege – to become repeat offenders within three years after release.

Conjugal Visit State-by-State Rules

The activities surrounding conjugal visits are widely similar across jurisdictions. That said, the different states have individual requirements for family visitation:

California: If you’re visiting a loved one in a correctional facility in California, among other rules , be ready for a once-in-four-hours search.

Connecticut : To qualify, prisoners must not be below level 4 in close custody. Close custody levels – usually on a 1-to-5 scale – measures the extent to which correctional officers monitor inmates’ day-to-day activities.

Also, inmates should not be on restriction, must not be a gang member, and must have no records of disciplinary offenses in Classes A or B in the past year. Besides, spouse-only visits are prohibited; an eligible member of the family must be involved.

New York : Unlike Connecticut and Washington, New York’s conjugal visit rules –  as with California’s – allow same-sex partners, however, not without marriage proof.

Washington : Washington is comparatively strict about her conjugal visit requirements . It enlists several crimes as basis for disqualifying inmates from enjoying such privileges. Besides, inmates must proof active involvement in a reintegration/rehabilitation scheme and must have served a minimum time, among others, to qualify. 

However, the rule allows joint visits, where two relatives are in the same facility. Visit duration varies widely – between six hours to three days. The prison supervisor calls the shots on a case-to-case basis.

As with inmates, their visitors also have their share of eligibility requirements to satisfy for an extended family visit. For instance, visitors with pending criminal records may not qualify.

As complicated as the requirements seem, it can even get a bit more complex. For instance, there is usually a great deal of paperwork, background checks, and close supervision. Understandably, these are but to guide against anything implicating. Touchingly, the prisoners’ quests are simple. They only want to reconnect with those who give them happiness, love, and, importantly, hope for a good life outside the bars.

conjugal visit

Conjugal Visits: A Typical Experience

Perhaps you’ve watched pretty similar practices in movies. But it’s entirely a different ball game in the real world. Besides that movies make the romantic visits seem like a trend presently, those in-prison sex scenes are not exactly what it is in reality.

How, then, does it work there? As mentioned, jurisdictions that still allow “extended family visits” may not grant the same to the following:

  • Persons with questionable “prison behavior”
  • Sex crime-related convicts
  • Domestic violence convicts
  • Convicts with a life sentence

Depending on the state, the visit duration lasts from one hour to up to 72 hours. Such visits can happen as frequently as once monthly, once a couple of months, or once in a year. The ‘meetings’ happen in small apartments, trailers, and related facilities designed specifically for the program.

In Connecticut, for example, the MacDougall-Walker correctional facility features structures designed to mimic typical home designs. For instance, the apartments each feature a living room with games, television, and DVD player. Over at Washington, only G-rated videos, that’s one considered suitable for general viewers, are allowed for family view in the conjugal facilities.

The kitchens are usually in good shape, and they permit both fresh and pre-cooked items. During an extended family visit in California, prisoners and their visitors are inspected at four-hour intervals, both night and day, till the visit ends.

Before the program was scrapped in New Mexico, correctional institutions filed-in inmates, and their visitors went through a thorough search. Following a stripped search, inmates were compelled to take a urine drug/alcohol test.

Better Understanding Conjugal Visits

Conjugal visits are designed to keep family ties.

New York’s term for the scheme – Family Reunion Program (FRP) – seems to explain its purpose better. For emphasis, the “R” means reunion, not reproduction, as the movies make it seem.

While sexual activities may be partly allowed, it’s primarily meant to bring a semblance of a typical family setting to inmates. Besides reunion, such schemes are designed to act as incentives to encourage inmates to be on their best behavior and comply with prison regulations.

Don’t Expect So Much Comf ort

As mentioned, an extended family visit happens in specially constructed cabins, trailers, or apartments. Too often, these spaces are half-occupied with supplies like soap, linens, condoms, etc. Such accommodations usually feature two bedrooms and a living room with basic games. While these provisions try to mimic a typical home, you shouldn’t expect so much comfort, and of course, remember your cell room is just across your entrance door.

Inmates Are Strip-Searched

Typically, prisoners are stripped in and out and often tested for drugs . In New York, for example, inmates who come out dirty on alcohol and drug tests get banned from the conjugal visit scheme for a year. While visitors are not stripped, they go through a metal detector.

Inmates Do Not Have All-time Privacy

The prison personnel carries out routine checks, during which everyone in the room comes out for count and search. Again, the officer may obstruct the visit when they need to administer medications as necessary.

Conjugal Visits FAQ

Are conjugal visits allowed in the federal prison system?

No, currently, extended family visits are recognized in only four states across the United States –  Washington, New York, Connecticut, and California.

What are the eligibility criteria?

First, conjugal visits are only allowed in a medium or lesser-security correctional facility. While each state has unique rules, commonly, inmates apply for such visits. Prisoners with recent records of reoccurring infractions like swearing and fighting may be ineligible.

To qualify, inmates must undergo and pass screenings, as deemed appropriate by the prison authority. Again, for instance, California rules say only legally married prisoners’ requests are granted.

Are gay partners allowed for conjugal visits?

Yes, but it varies across states. California and New York allow same-sex partners on conjugal visits. However, couples must have proof of legal marriage.

Are conjugal visits only done in the US?

No, although the practice began in the US, Mississippi precisely, other countries have adopted similar practices. Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, and Canada, for example, are more lenient about extended family visits.

Brazil and Venezuela’s prison facilities, for example, allow weekly ‘rendezvous.’ In Columbia, such ‘visits’ are a routine, where as many as 3,500 women troop in weekly for intimacy with their spouses. However, Northern Ireland and Britain are entirely against any form of conjugal programs. Although Germany allows extended family visits, the protocols became unbearably tight after an inmate killed his supposed spouse during one of such visits in 2010.

conjugal visit

Benefits of Conjugal Visits

Once a normal aspect of the prison system, conjugal visits and the moments that prisoners have with their families are now an indulgence to only a few prisoners in the system. Many prison officials cite huge costs and no indications of reduced recidivism rates among reasons for its prohibition.

Documentations , on the other hand, say conjugal visits dramatically curb recidivism and sexual assaults in prisons. As mentioned earlier, only four states allow conjugal visits. However, research shows that these social calls could prove beneficial to correctional services.

A review by social scientists at the Florida International University in 2012 concludes that conjugal visits have several advantages. One of such reveals that prisons that allowed conjugal visits had lower rape cases and sexual assaults than those where conjugal visits were proscribed. They deduced that sex crime in the prison system is a means of sexual gratification and not a crime of power. To reduce these offenses, they advocated for conjugal visitation across state systems.

Secondly, they determined that these visits serve as a means of continuity for couples with a spouse is in prison. Conjugal visits can strengthen family ties and improve marriage functionality since it helps to maintain the intimacy between husband and wife.

Also, it helps to induce positive attitudes in the inmates, aid the rehabilitation process, and enable the prisoner to function appropriately when reintroduced back to society. Similarly, they add that since it encourages the one-person-one partner practice, it’ll help decrease the spread of HIV. These FIU researchers recommend that more states should allow conjugal visits.

Another study by Yale students in 2012 corroborated the findings of the FIU researchers, and the research suggests that conjugal visits decrease sexual violence in prisons and induces ethical conduct in inmates who desire to spend time with their families.

Expectedly, those allowed to enjoy extended family visits are a lot happier. Besides, they tend to maintain the best behaviors within the facility so that they don’t ruin their chances of the next meeting.

Also, according to experts, visitations can drop the rate of repeat prisoners, thus making the prison system cost-effective for state administrators. An academic with the UCLA explained that if prisoners continue to keep in touch with their families, they live daily with the knowledge that life exists outside the prison walls, and they can look forward to it. Therefore, these family ties keep them in line with society’s laws. It can be viewed as a law-breaking deterrence initiative.

For emphasis, conjugal visits, better termed extended family visits, are more than for sex, as it seems. It’s about maintaining family ties, primarily. The fact is, away from the movies, spouse-alone visits are surprisingly low, if at all allowed by most states’ regulations. Extended family visits create healthy relationships between prisoners and the world outside the bars. It builds a healthy start-point for an effective reentry process, helping inmates feel hope for a good life outside jail .

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Conjugal Visit Laws by State 2024

California refers to these visits as contact visits. Conjugal visits have had a notorious past recently in the United States , as they were often not allowed to see their family unless it was for brief contact or to speak with them on the phone. Conjugal visits began as a way for an incarcerated partner to spend private time with their domestic partner, spouse, or life partner. Historically, these were granted as a result of mental health as well as some rights that have since been argued in court. For example, cases have gone to the Supreme Court which have been filed as visits being considered privileges instead of rights.

The right to procreate, religious freedom, marital privacy and to abstain from cruel and unusual punishment has been brought up and observed by the court. Of course, married spouses can't procreate if one is incarcerated, and this has been a topic of hot debate in the legal community for years. Although the rules have since been relaxed to allow more private time with one's family, especially to incentivize good behavior and rehabilitation, it is still a controversy within social parameters.

In 1993, only 17 states had conjugal visit programs, which went down to 6 in 2000. By 2015, almost all states had eliminated the need for these programs in favor of more progressive values. California was one of the first to create a program based around contact visits, which allows the inmate time with their family instead of "private time" with their spouses as a means of forced love or procreation.

Washington and Connecticut

Connecticut and Washington have similar programs within their prison systems, referring to conjugal visits as extended family visits. Of course, the focus has been to take the stigma away from conjugal visits as a means of procreation, a short time, and a privilege as a result of good behavior. Extended family visits are much more wholesome and inclusive, giving relatively ample time to connect with one's family, regardless if they have a partner or not. Inmates can see their children, parents, cousins, or anyone who is deemed to have been, and still is, close to the prisoner.

Of course, there are proponents of this system that say this aids rehabilitation in favor of being good role models for their children or younger siblings. Others feel if someone has committed a heinous crime, their rights should be fully stripped away to severely punish their behavior.

On a cheerier note, New York has named its program the "family reunion program", which is an apt name for the state that holds the largest city in America by volume, New York City. NYC's finest have always had their handful of many different issues, including organized crime. The authorities are seeking a larger change in the incarceration system and want to adopt a stance that focuses more on the rehabilitation of the inmate that shows signs of regret, instead of severe punishment for punishment's sake.

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Reckoning with the South

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This couple wants you to know that conjugal visits are only legal in 4 states

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Editor's note: This story was co-written by inside-outside couple Steve Higginbotham and Jordana Rosenfeld, weaving together Jordana's personal experience and reporting with letters from Steve. Together, they examine popular myths around conjugal visits, their decreasing availability, and the punitive logic behind the state's policing of sex and intimacy that stifles relationships like theirs.   Jordana's words appear below in the orange boxes on the right; Steve's are in the purple on the left.

have conjugal visits

The other day, when I told my grandmother I was researching the history of conjugal visits for an essay, she said, "Oh, like in my stories?" 

You can't talk about conjugal visits without talking about television, because television is pretty much the only place where conjugal visits still exist. A wide variety of TV shows either joke about or dramatize conjugal visits, from popular sitcoms that have little to nothing to do with prison life, like The Simpsons , Family Guy , and Seinfeld, to prestige dramas like Prison Break and Oz that purport to offer "gritty" and "realistic" prison tales. Conjugals loom large in public imagination about life in prison, which leaves people under the unfortunate impression that they are in any kind of way widespread or accessible.

Their availability has been in steady decline for more than 25 years. The mid-to-late 1990s are the often-cited high point of conjugal visits , with 17 states offering some kind of program. (Federal and maximum security prisons do not allow conjugals.) This means that at their most widespread, conjugal visits were only ever permitted in one-third of all states. 

There are only four U.S. states that currently allow conjugal visits, often called "extended" or "family" visits: California, Connecticut, New York, and Washington. Some people say Connecticut's program doesn't count though, when it comes to conjugals—and the Connecticut Department of Corrections agrees. Their family visit program is explicitly intended for the benefit of children and requires that the incarcerated person receiving visitors be a parent. Their child must attend . 

My boyfriend has been in prison for 28 years. He was 18 during the high point of conjugal visit programs. That's when the state of Missouri decided to lock him up for the rest of his natural life, effectively sentencing him to a lifetime of deep loneliness and sexual repression, not just because Missouri doesn't offer conjugal visits, but because when you are incarcerated, your body belongs to the state in every possible way—from your labor to your sex life. 

Every prison riot ever could have been prevented with some properly organized fucking.

have conjugal visits

That's my boyfriend, Steve.

Not being able to physically express love—or even lust—builds frustration that boils over in unintended ways. 

Intimacy is policed rigidly in prison, and it has certainly worsened over the years. For most people with incarcerated lovers, intimacy happens not on a conjugal visit, but in the visiting room. Visits now may start and end with a brief embrace and chaste kiss. Open mouth kissing has been outlawed. These rules are enforced with terminated visits and even removing a person from the visiting list for a year or more.

Steve and I have kissed a total of six times.

We have also hugged six times, if you don't count us posing with his arm over my shoulder three times for pictures. The kisses were so brief that I'm not sure I remember what they felt like. He told me later on the phone that he knew he had to be the one to pull away from the kiss before we gave the COs in the bubble reason to intervene because I wouldn't. He knew this, somehow, before he ever kissed me. He was right. 

When I last visited him in Jefferson City Correctional Center, Steve told me about a real conjugal visit from '90s Missouri.

Years ago, people used to mess around in the visiting room at Potosi [Correctional Center]. Everyone knew to keep their sensitive visitors away from a certain area, because there was frequent sex behind a vending machine. I can neither confirm nor deny that cops were paid to turn a blind eye to it. I met a guy recently in my wing at JCCC who said he had heard of me, and that maybe I knew his father. I did know his father. I didn't have the heart to tell him that I probably saw his conception behind a Coke machine back in 1995.

The increasing restriction of physical touch—the expanded video surveillance of visiting spaces, the use of solitary confinement for the smallest infractions, and the withering of both in-person and conjugal visit programs—reflects the punitive logic that consensual human touch is a privilege that incarcerated people do not deserve.

This is an evil proposition, and it's one that is at the core of the ongoing dehumanization of millions of people in U.S. prisons, and the millions of people like me who love them. 

One woman with an incarcerated partner put it to researchers this way: "The prison system appears to be set up to break families up." And she's right. For the duration of his incarceration, I will never be closer to Steve than the state of Missouri is. I'm reminded during each of our timed kisses: His primary partner is the state. 

The most difficult part for me about a romantic relationship with a free woman is that I feel selfish. A lot of self-loathing thoughts creep in. I want the best for her and often question if I am that "best." However, an added benefit is that we can truly take things slowly and explore each other in ways that two free people don't often experience nowadays. We write emails daily. And these are important. We vent. And listen. We continue to build, whereas many free people stop building at consummation. 

But these are the realities rarely captured in media portrayals of romantic relationships between free world and incarcerated partners. Conjugals on TV are so disconnected from what it's actually like to be in a romantic relationship with an incarcerated person: Trying to schedule my life around precious 15 minute phone calls, paying 25 cents to send emails monitored by correctional officers, finding ways to symbolically include Steve in my life, like leaving open the seat next to me at the movies. Instead, television shows depict implausible scenarios of nefarious rendezvous that often parrot law enforcement lies. When they do so, they undermine the public's ability to conceptualize that love and commitment fuel relationships like ours. 

Although contraband typically enters prisons through staff , not visitors , television shows often present conjugal visits as a cover for smuggling, like in the earliest TV plot I could find involving a conjugal visit, from a 1986 Miami Vice episode. After his girlfriend is killed, Tubbs gets depressed enough to agree to go undercover at a state prison to bust some guards selling cocaine. In his briefing on the issue, Tubbs asks how the drugs are getting into the prison. Conjugal visits and family visits are the first two methods named by the prison commissioner, never mind that I have yet to find any evidence that Florida ever allowed those kinds of visits. 

Often, the excuse for policing visits so strictly is that drugs can be exchanged. But I know that lie is used for every type of control in prison. For over a year we had NO CONTACT visits because of the pandemic. During that time, dozens of inmates [at my facility] still overdosed and had drug-related episodes that caused them to need medical attention. Those drugs certainly didn't arrive through visits. They strip search and X-ray me going to and from visits anyway.

Everything in prison now is on camera. When a drug overdose occurs, the investigators track back over footage from visiting room cameras. One officer told me that while they were investigating drugs allegedly passing through the visiting room, they saw a guy covertly fingering his wife. This has happened on more than one occasion, but most guards will have enough of a heart not to bother with violations for some covert touching that wasn't caught until the camera review. Most. Sometimes, a rare asshole will just have to assert his power and write a CDV (conduct violation).

Write-ups or CDVs are given by staff at their discretion. The threat of solitary confinement is always looming in prison. It's another clever way of withholding physical interactions with other human beings as a form of torture. Solitary confinement for anywhere from 10 days to three months is a favorite punishment for "[nonviolent] sexual misconduct. " 

There's also a persistent media narrative that prison systems offer conjugal visit programs out of genuine concern for human welfare. A brief glance at the origins of conjugal visits in the U.S. prison system quickly disproves that theory, showing that conjugal visit programs were conceived as a tool of exploitation and social control. 

Conjugal visits originated in Mississippi at the infamous prison plantation, Mississippi State Penitentiary, or Parchman Farm. Mississippi state officials opened Parchman in the early 1900s, writes historian David Oshinsky in his book Worse than Slavery: Parchman Farm and the Ordeal of Jim Crow Justice, in order to ensnare free Black people into forced labor. Mississippi, like other Southern states during Reconstruction, passed "Black Codes" that assigned harsh criminal penalties to minor "offenses" such as vagrancy, loitering, living with white people, and not carrying proof of employment—behaviors that were not considered criminal when done by white people. Using the crime loophole in the relatively new 13th Amendment, Mississippi charged thousands of Black people with crimes and forced them to work on the state's plantation. 

Parchman officials started offering sex to Black prisoners as a productivity incentive, "because prison officials wanted as much work as possible from their Negro convicts, whom they believed to have greater sexual needs than whites," Oshinsky writes.

"I never saw it, but I heard tell of truckloads of whores bein' sent up from Cleveland at dusk," said a Parchman prison official quoted by Oshinsky. "The cons who had a good day got to get 'em right there between the rows. In my day, we got civilized—put 'em up in little houses and told everybody that them whores was wives. That kept the Baptists off our backs." 

A certain kind of sexual morality has been instilled in the minds of many people with conservative religious upbringings. They naturally force this morality on people they consider children. That is how many guards see prisoners: as children.

Many states did not begin to join Mississippi in offering conjugal visits until much later in the century, when conservative governors like California's Ronald Reagan would determine in 1968 that allowing some married men to have sex with their wives was the best way to reduce " instances of homosexuality " in prisons. 

Abolitionists who wrote the book Queer (In)Justice , consider how concerned prison administrations have historically been and continue to be about queer sex in prisons. The book exposes both the deep fear of the liberatory potential of queer sexuality, and a broader reality that prisons are inherently queer places since prisons' "denial of sexual intimacy and agency is a quintessential queer experience." 

Beyond behavioral control, the rules that determine conjugal visit eligibility are always also about enforcing criminality, since the state decides what kind of charges render someone ineligible to wed or to have an extended visit. Even in the four states that allow these visits, most people with "violent" charges are only allowed to hold their lover's hand and briefly embrace at the beginning and end of visits.

We don't even have enough privacy to masturbate. 

I can be written up if anyone sees my dick, especially in the act of masturbation. I could face solitary confinement, loss of job, visits, religious programs, treatment classes, recreation, canteen spend, and school for getting written up. Conversely, I can be strip-searched at any given time and be forced to show everything.  

Living in this fishbowl has taught me there is no hiding. Too many bored eyes in the same small area to miss anything. Guards may come knocking on the door at any moment. My cellmate is often inches away from me, and it takes coordination to manage time away from each other because we eat, sleep, go to yard, and do just about everything on the same schedule. 

I choose to skip a meal occasionally and embrace the hunger, because it is much less painful than persistent relentless desire. After years of self-release in showers, in a room with snoring cellmates, or as quickly as possible when a brief moment of privacy occurs, my sex drive is all shook up. Current turn-ons could be said to include faucets running and/or snoring men.

Ultimately, this article is not about the right to conjugal visits. It's about the ways that punitive isolation and deprivation of loving physical contact have always been tactics of the U.S. prison system. 

Regardless of the quality of the representations, the prevalence of conjugal visits in movies and TV allows people to avoid thinking too hard about what it's like to be deprived of your sexual autonomy, maybe the rest of your life.

I have been locked up since I was 18, and I am 47 now. To be horny in prison for decades is painful. To the body and soul. 

There is justice as well as pleasure at stake here, and the difference between the two is slight. 

People who love someone in prison live shorter and harder lives. That we do it anyway shows the significance, centrality, and life-affirming nature of intimate relationships to those on both sides of the wall. Maybe it even points to the abolitionist power of romantic and sexual love between incarcerated and "free" people.

So, I guess we start with that thought and work from there to find a way to tear down the system.

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As part of Scalawag's 3rd annual Abolition Week,  pop justice  is exclusively featuring perspectives from currently and formerly incarcerated folks and systems-impacted folks.

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Related stories:, steve higginbotham & jordana rosenfeld.

Steve Higginbotham is a writer who spent many years narrating and transcribing materials into braille for the Missouri Center for Braille & Narration Production . He is serving a death by incarceration sentence in Jefferson City, Missouri. Jordana Rosenfeld is a journalist in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. More of her work can be found at jordanarosenfeld.com .

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9 Arresting Facts About Conjugal Visits

By suzanne raga | sep 6, 2015.

iStock

They're not nearly as common as pop culture might lead you to believe.

1. ONLY FOUR STATES STILL ALLOW CONJUGAL VISITS.

In the United States, conjugal visits occur only in state prisons, not federal prisons. In the early 1990s, 17 states had active conjugal visit programs. As of 2015, though, California, New York, Connecticut, and Washington are the only states that still allow conjugal visits . Two other states that recently had conjugal visit policies in place— Mississippi and New Mexico—stopped allowing the visits as of February 1, 2014 and May 1, 2014, respectively.

2. THE PHRASE "CONJUGAL VISIT" IS ACTUALLY A MISNOMER.

Today, conjugal visits are called extended family visits (or, alternately, family reunion visits). The official reason for these extended family visits is three-fold: to maintain a connection between the prisoner and his family, to reduce recidivism , and to provide an incentive for good behavior. States no longer use the phrase “conjugal visit” to emphasize the program’s inclusion of all family members, rather than just the prisoner’s spouse/partner.

3. LIKE HOTELS, PRISONS THAT FACILITATE EXTENDED FAMILY VISITS PROVIDE TOILETRIES FOR THEIR GUESTS.

In the United States, prisons have special facilities (cabins, trailers, or apartment-style housing) dedicated just to extended family visits. Some prisons provide towels, sheets, toiletries, condoms, and lube to their inmates. Other prisons provide two-bedroom apartments with a living and dining room, DVD player, TV, and games like Jenga and dominoes. Depending on the state and the specific prison’s rules, visitors may be allowed to bring groceries and prepared food to the visit.

4. BOTH PRISONERS & THEIR VISITORS MUST FULFILL CERTAIN REQUIREMENTS TO GET PERMISSION FOR A VISIT.

The specific rules pertaining to extended family visits vary from state to state. Most visits in California, Connecticut, New York, and Washington occur only in minimum to medium security prisons, and inmates must have a record of good behavior and a record of clean health. A spouse who visits their husband/wife inmate must pass a background check, body search, and be registered with the prison’s visitor list.

5. CONJUGAL VISITS ORIGINATED IN MISSISSIPPI NEARLY 100 YEARS AGO.

In 1918, the first conjugal visits occurred at a labor camp called Parchman Farm (also called Mississippi State Penitentiary). The warden, James Parchman, wanted to encourage the African-American male prisoners to work harder, so he paid prostitutes to come and have sex with the inmates each Sunday. In the 1930s, Parchman Farm began letting white male prisoners engage in this program, and female inmates were invited to participate in 1972.

6. PRISONERS IN INDIA HAVE THE LEGAL RIGHT, NOT PRIVILEGE, TO BEAR CHILDREN.

In 2015, India’s government passed legislation stating that conjugal visits are a right , not a privilege, for married inmates. These inmates are also entitled, if they wish, to give their sperm to their spouse for artificial insemination. Interestingly, in 2014, prison officials in New Mexico cited the birth of children to fathers who were incarcerated as a big contributing factor (besides economic reasons) to end conjugal visits in the state.

7. PRISONS IN SAUDI ARABIA ARE SURPRISINGLY (ABSURDLY!) LIBERAL, LAX, & GENEROUS.

In Saudi Arabia, male inmates can have one conjugal visit each month. But that rule applies to each spouse, so men with multiple wives can have multiple visits each month! The Saudi government helps inmates’ families with money each month for housing, food, and education, and the government also pays for the travel (airfare and hotel) expenses that inmates’ family members incur to visit the prison. And, if the prisoner wants to attend a family wedding or funeral, he's given up to $2600 to give as a gift . The Washington Post reported that the Saudi government spent $35 million on these prisoner perks in 2014.

8. IN 2010, A GERMAN PRISONER USED HIS UNSUPERVISED CONJUGAL VISIT TO MURDER HIS VISITOR.

In April 2010, a 50-year-old inmate killed his 46-year-old girlfriend during a conjugal visit in a German prison. After sending him letters in prison, she became his girlfriend and participated regularly in six-hour unsupervised visits with him. The inmate, Klaus-Dieter H., had been imprisoned for nearly two decades for the rape and murder of a child. Unfortunately, he stabbed his girlfriend with a steak knife and strangled her during one of those visits. Because this incident came on the heels of a few other instances of slack security at German prisons (including prisoner beatings and escapes), many outraged Germans criticized prison authorities and the justice minister, Roswitha Müller-Piepenkötter. Ultimately, German prisons beefed up security and implemented stricter rules for conjugal visits, increasing the restrictions on which prisoners are allowed to have the visits.

9. BRAZIL'S CONJUGAL VISIT POLICY IS QUITE SEXIST.

In Brazil, both straight and gay male inmates can receive visitors , but female inmates rarely get the privilege of participating in conjugal visits. Unfortunately, discriminatory policies are probably the least of the female inmates’ worries: Brazil’s prison cells are overcrowded, filthy, unsanitary, and dangerous. Women in prison who are pregnant do not have access to medical care, and many female inmates are confined to isolation units without cause.

Controversy and Conjugal Visits

Conjugal visits were first allowed as incentives for the forced labor of incarcerated Black men, the practice expanding from there. Is human touch a right?

An illustration of a bedroom with a prison guard tower through the window

“The words ‘conjugal visit’ seem to have a dirty ring to them for a lot of people,” a man named John Stefanisko wrote for The Bridge, a quarterly at the Connecticut Correctional Institution at Somers, in December 1963 . This observation marked the beginning of a long campaign—far longer, perhaps, than the men at Somers could have anticipated—for conjugal visits in the state of Connecticut, a policy that would grant many incarcerated men the privilege of having sex with their wives. Conjugal visits, the editors of The Bridge wrote, are “a controversial issue, now quite in the spotlight,” thanks to their implementation at Parchman Farm in Mississippi in 1965. But the urgency of the mens’ plea, as chronicled in The Bridge and the Somers Weekly Scene , gives voice to the depth of their deprivation. “Perhaps we’re whistling in the wind,” they wrote, “but if the truth hits home to only a few, we’ll be satisfied.”

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The men at Somers wrote of conjugal visits as something new, but in fact, Parchman had adopted some version of the practice as early as 1918. Parchman, then a lucrative penal plantation , sought to incentivize Black prisoners, who picked and hoed cotton under the surveillance of armed white guards, by allowing them to bring women into their camp. The visits were unofficial, and stories from the decades that followed are varied, ranging from trysts between married couples to tales of sex workers, bussed in on weekends. The men built structures for these visits out of scrap lumber painted red, and the term “ red houses ” remained in use long after the original structures were gone. The policy was mostly limited to Black prisoners because white administrators believed that Black men had stronger sexual urges then white men, and could be made more pliable when those urges were satisfied.

This history set a precedent for conjugal visits as a policy of social control, shaped by prevailing ideas about race, sexual orientation, and gender. Prisoners embraced conjugal visits, and sometimes, the political reasonings behind them, but the writings of the men at Somers suggest a greater longing. Their desire for intimacy, privacy and, most basic of all, touch, reveals the profound lack of human contact in prison, including but also greater than sex itself.

Scholar Elizabeth Harvey paraphrases Aristotle, who described the flesh as the “medium of the tangible,” establishing one’s “sentient border with the world.” Touch is unique among the senses in that it is “dispersed throughout the body” and allows us to experience many sensations at once. Through touch we understand that we are alive. To touch an object is to know that we are separate from that object, but in touching another person, we are able to “form and express bonds” with one another. In this context, Harvey cites the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty, who described all touch as an exchange. “To touch is also always to be touched,” she writes.

An illustration from Volume 3, Issue 4 of The Bridge, 1963

When Parchman officially sanctioned conjugal visits in 1965 after the policy was unofficially in place for years, administrators saw it as an incentive for obedience, but also a solution to what was sometimes called the “ Sex Problem ,” a euphemism for prison rape . Criminologists of the era viewed rape in prison as a symptom of the larger “ problem of homosexuality ,” arguing that the physical deprivations of prison turned men into sexual deviants—i.e., men who wanted to have sex with other men. In this context, conjugal visits were meant to remind men of their natural roles, not merely as practitioners of “ normal sexuality ,” but as husbands. (Framing prison rape as a problem of ‘homosexuals’ was commonplace until Wilbert Rideau’s Angolite exposé Prison: The Sexual Jungle revealed the predation for what it was in 1979.)

Officials at Parchman, the sociologist Columbus B. Hopper wrote in 1962 , “consistently praise the conjugal visit as a highly important factor in reducing homosexuality, boosting inmate morale, and… comprising an important factor in preserving marriages.” Thus making the visits, by definition, conjugal, a word so widely associated with sex and prison that one can forget it simply refers to marriage. Men—and at the time, conjugal visits were only available to men—had to be legally married to be eligible for the program.

But for the men at Somers, the best argument for conjugal visitation was obvious—with one telling detail. The privacy afforded by the red houses at Parchman, Richard Brisson wrote “preserve some dignity to the affair,” creating “a feeling of being a part of a regular community rather than … participating in something that could be made to appear unclean.” For lovers secluded in bedrooms, “[t]here is no one about to mock them or to embarrass them,” he wrote. This observation suggests the ubiquity of surveillance in prison, as well as its character.

Carceral institutions are intended to operate at a bureaucratic remove; prisoners are referred to by number and were counted as “ bodies .” Guards must act as ambivalent custodians of these bodies, even when the nature of their job can be quite intimate. Prisoners are routinely strip-searched and frisked; they must ask permission to exercise any movement, to perform any bodily function. This is as true today as it was in Somers, where men frequently complained that they were treated like children. “You are constantly supervised, just as if you were a one-year-old child,” Ray Bosworth wrote in 1970 .

But guards are not parents, and the tension between dutiful ambivalence and intimate supervision often manifests as disgust. On a recent visit to Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, a maximum-security women’s prison in upstate New York, prisoners complained of being ridiculed during strip searches, and hearing guards discussing their bodies in the corridors.

Sad young woman and her husband sitting in prison visiting room.

This attitude extends to rules regulating touch between prisoners and visitors. Writing about San Quentin State Prison in California in the early 2000s, the ethnographer Megan L. Comfort described a common hierarchy of visits , each with its own allowable “degree of bodily contact.” Death Row cage visits allowed for hugs in greeting and parting, while a contact visit allowed for a hug and a kiss. The nature of the kiss, however, was subject to the discretion of individual guards. “We are allowed to kiss members of our families, hello and goodbye, but the amount of affection we may show is limited by the guard,” James Abney wrote for the Somers Weekly Scene in 1971.  “If he feels, for instance that a man is kissing his wife too much or too passionately, then he may be reprimanded for it or the visit may be ended on the spot.”

When Somers held its first “ Operation Dialogue ,” a “mediated discussion” among prisoners and staff in May 1971, conjugal visits were a primary concern. By then, California (under Governor Ronald Reagan) had embraced the policy—why hadn’t Connecticut? Administrators argued that furloughs, the practice of allowing prisoners to go home for up to several days, were a preferable alternative. This certainly would seem to be the case. In August 1971, the Scene quoted Connecticut Correction Commissioner John R. Manson, who criticized the skeezy, “tar-paper shacks” at Parchman, concluding that furloughs were “ a less artificial way for inmates to maintain ties with their families .” But to be eligible for furloughs, men were required to be within three or four months of completing their sentence. In the wake of George H.W. Bush’s infamous “ Willie Horton ” campaign ad in 1988, a racially-charged ad meant to stoke fear and anti-Black prejudice in which a violent attack was blamed on Liberal soft-on-crime policies (specifically scapegoating Michael Dukakis for a crime committed on a prison furlough that predated his tenure as governor), prison furloughs were mostly abolished. They remain rare today, still looming in the shadow of the Horton ad.

Conjugal visits are considered a rehabilitative program because, as Abney wrote, it is in “society’s best interest to make sure that [a prisoner’s] family remains intact for him to return to.” Unspoken is the disregard for people serving long sentences, or life, making conjugal visits unavailable to those who might need them the most.

The campaign for conjugal visits continued throughout the 1970s. Then, in 1980, in a sudden and “major policy reversal ,” the state of Connecticut announced that it would instate a “conjugal and family visit” program at several prisons, including Somers. Subsequent issues of the Scene outline the myriad rules for application, noting that applicants could be denied for a variety of reasons at the discretion of prison administrators.

The earliest conjugal visits at Somers lasted overnight but were less than 24 hours in total. Men could have multiple visitors, as long as they were members of his immediate family. This change signaled a new emphasis on domesticity over sex. Visits took place in trailers equipped with kitchens, where families cooked their own meals. Describing a similar set-up at San Quentin more than two decades later, Comfort wrote that the trailers were meant to encourage “people to simulate an ordinary living situation rather than fixate on a hurried physical congress.”

By the early 1990s, conjugal visitation, in some form, was official policy in 17 states. But a massive ideological shift in the way society viewed incarcerated people was already underway. In a seminal 1974 study called “What Works?”, sociologist Robert Martinson concluded that rehabilitation programs in prison “ had no appreciable effect on recidivism .” Thinkers on the left saw this as an argument for decarceration—perhaps these programs were ineffective because of the nature of prison itself. Thinkers on the right, and society more broadly, took a different view. As (ironically) the Washington Post observed, the findings were presented in “lengthy stories appearing in major newspapers, news magazines and journals, often under the headline, ‘ Nothing Works! ’”

Martinson’s work gave an air of scientific legitimacy to the growing “tough-on-crime” movement, but the former Freedom Rider, who once spent 40 days at Parchman, spawned punitive policies he couldn’t have predicted. In 1979, Martinson officially recanted his position. He died by suicide the following year.

In Mistretta v. United States (1989), the court ruled that a person’s demonstrated capacity for rehabilitation should not be a factor in federal sentencing guidelines because, they wrote, studies had proved that rehabilitation was “an unattainable goal for most cases.” It effectively enshrined “nothing works” into law.

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“Nothing works” gave rise to harsher sentencing, and more punitive policies in prisons themselves. In 1996, the state of California drastically reduced its conjugal visitation program . At San Quentin, this meant conjugal visits would no longer be available for people serving life sentences. To have benefitted from the program, and then have it taken away, was a particular blow to prisoners and partners alike. One woman told Comfort that she was in “mourning,” saying: “To me, I felt that it was like a death. ”

We don’t know how the men at Somers might have felt about this new era, or the heyday of conjugal visits that came before it. There are no issues of the Weekly Scene available after 1981 in the American Prison Newspapers collection, which is just after the visits began. But their writing, particularly their poetry, offers some insight into the deprivation that spurred their request. In 1968, James N. Teel writes, “Tell me please, do you ever cry, / have you ever tried to live while your insides die? ” While Frank Guiso , in 1970, said his existence was only an “illusion.” “I love and I don’t, / I hate and I don’t / I sing and I don’t / I live and I don’t,” he writes. But for others, disillusionment and loneliness take a specific shape.

“I wish you could always be close to me,” Luis A. Perez wrote in a poem called “ The Wait ” 1974:

I will hold your strong hand in my hand, As I stare in your eyes across the table. Trying to think of the best things to say, I then notice how I will not be able. I will long for your tender embraces, For your long and most desirable kiss. As I sleep cold for warmth of your body, You my love, are the one I will miss…

Today, only four states—California, Connecticut, Washington and New York—allow conjugal visits. (Mississippi, where Parchman is located, ended conjugal visitation in 2014 .) Some argue that Connecticut’s Extended Family Visit (EFV) program, as it is now called, doesn’t actually count , because it requires a prisoner’s child to be there along with another adult . There is also some suggestion that Connecticut’s program, while still officially on the books, has not been operational for some time.

The COVID-19 pandemic gave further cause to limit contact between prisoners and visitors, engendering changes that don’t appear to be going away anytime soon.

Somers was reorganized as a medium-security facility and renamed the Osborn Correctional Institution in 1994. A recent notice on the facility’s visitation website reads: “​​Masks must be worn at all times. A brief embrace will be permitted at the end of the visit .”

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Sex, Love, & Marriage Behind Bars

What are conjugal visits really like? Incarcerated journalist John J. Lennon takes Esquire inside one of the last bastions of prisoner intimacy in America: trailers of New York.

I first heard about the trailers, prison vernacular for conjugal visits, on Rikers Island. It was 2002, I was twenty-four, and I was awaiting trial on murder charges. The guy the next bunk over in the communal dorm knew I was facing a lot of time, even if I didn’t know that. I was delusional in the beginning. We all are.

The bunkmate had just finished a dime—a ten-year sentence—for assault and was now in on a parole violation for breaking curfew, caught on a tip called in by his wife. Still, he loved her, and he loved telling me about going on conjugals with her up in Auburn, a maximum-security prison. It wasn’t just about the sex, he said. It was forty-eight hours of freedom, or close to it. Most of New York’s maximum-security prisons had them. They weren’t trailers, not anymore, but modular homes. He described the units: two, sometimes three bedrooms—the prison supplied pillows, bed linens, towels, and washcloths—a living room, a bathroom, and a full kitchen stocked with pots and pans, a coffee maker, a blender, and utensils. A wire bolted to the counter next to the sink was connected to the handle of the kitchen knife. His wife would bring clothes, cosmetics, and groceries: milk, eggs, pork chops, shelled shrimp. Glass containers weren’t allowed; neither was alcohol, not even as a makeup ingredient. Outside there was a picnic table, a barbecue pit, and a children’s play area.

conjugal visits in prison love in new york correctional facility john j lennon

It was, the fella in the next bunk told me, an opportunity for good times, good eating, and good sex. An incentive to stay out of trouble in the hope of experiencing a touch of love.

There was a hitch: Your partner had to be your legal spouse. Close family members were also eligible, of course, and this was really the objective of these visits: to build and maintain better family ties. But that was beside my bunkmate’s point. If I was convicted, he said, he recommended I put an ad on one of those prisoner dating websites (Prison Pen Pals, Write a Prisoner), find a woman, fall in love, make it official, then head for the trailers.

In 2004, I was sentenced to twenty-eight years to life. The minimum was longer than I’d been alive. Early on, I didn’t think much about the implications for my love life. At twenty-four, I’d had plenty of sex but never a real relationship, or even healthy intimacy. Besides, there were more pressing concerns: appealing my conviction, learning how to survive in this place.

I first saw the trailers at Clinton Correctional, a maximum-security prison a few miles south of the Canadian border, in Dannemora. By then I’d learned that New York’s Department of Corrections and Community Supervision didn’t actually call them conjugal visits. Only Mississippi did. While the word conjugal simply means “related to marriage,” these visits began to carry lewd implications, and other states opted to rebrand: In California, it was known as “family visiting.” In Connecticut and Washington, they were referred to as “extended family visits.” In New York, it was, and still is, called the Family Reunion Program, or FRP.

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In 2005, I had my first FRP visit—with my mother and my aunt. My aunt cooked bacon and eggs in the morning, grilled porterhouse steaks and tossed salads for dinner. We sank into the soft couches, ate, and watched Law & Order reruns, oddly Mom’s favorite show. We talked until interrupted by the muffled screams of a couple through the wall of the attached unit. We laughed awkwardly, avoiding eye contact, and I felt kind of jealous. Three times a day, a phone in the unit rang. I picked up, spat my last name and identification number into the receiver, then stepped outside and waved to the watchtower guard. That count was one of the only reminders of prison.

When I returned to my block, guys asked how the conjugal had gone. Great, I said. When I mentioned it was with my mother and my aunt, they sort of nodded, like, Oh, that’s cool, too. I loved visiting with my family. But I did start to think about what it would be like to be with a woman again.

.css-f6drgc:before{margin:-0.99rem auto 0 -1.33rem;left:50%;width:2.1875rem;border:0.3125rem solid #FF3A30;height:2.1875rem;content:'';display:block;position:absolute;border-radius:100%;} .css-1aglugu{font-family:Lausanne,Lausanne-fallback,Lausanne-roboto,Lausanne-local,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:1.625rem;line-height:1.2;margin:0rem;}@media(max-width: 48rem){.css-1aglugu{font-size:1.75rem;line-height:1.2;}}@media(min-width: 64rem){.css-1aglugu{font-size:2.375rem;line-height:1.2;}}.css-1aglugu b,.css-1aglugu strong{font-family:inherit;font-weight:bold;}.css-1aglugu em,.css-1aglugu i{font-style:italic;font-family:inherit;}.css-1aglugu:before{content:'"';display:block;padding:0.3125rem 0.875rem 0 0;font-size:3.5rem;line-height:0.8;font-style:italic;font-family:Lausanne,Lausanne-fallback,Lausanne-styleitalic-roboto,Lausanne-styleitalic-local,Arial,sans-serif;} Trailer visits were never perfect. Sometimes they were hard. But in many ways, they felt like rehearsals for life on the outside.

I got by with my hand and my memories, with the occasional assist from Buttman or High Society. Many of us who’ve been locked up all these years try idiosyncratic methods to pleasure ourselves. Some use a Fifi—a rolled towel with a plastic bag stuffed in the crevice; inside the bag is a rubber glove lubed with Vaseline that can be warmed in a hot pot of water, if one prefers. The crevice can be tightened or loosened by a strap wrapped around the rolled towel, creating different sensations. Fucking Fifis was an intimate ritual for one of my neighbors. At night he hung a curtain across his cell bars, prepped his Fifi, rolled the whole thing up in his mattress—he said it was more like a big-booty girl that way—laid out a few porno mags, and started thrusting.

But I wasn’t looking to hump a Fifi for the next twenty-five years.

Married men in the joint who went on conjugals seemed to have the most meaningful lives: They worked out, they went on visits, they sported crispy new sneakers and polo shirts with the horse, as if to say to the rest of us, I got a lady who loves me, and I got more status than you. At least, that’s how I took it. Every few months, they disappeared—most men kept their conjugal dates to themselves to avoid attracting envy—but we all knew where they’d gone. They came back to the cellblock with hickey-covered necks, looking pleasantly tired. I decided that was how I wanted to serve my sentence.

Mississippi State Penitentiary, of all places, was the first facility in the U. S. to offer conjugal visits, in the early 1900s. Also known as Parchman Farm, the segregated prison functioned as a revenue-generating plantation that produced cotton, cattle, pork, and more; its prisoners performed all the hard labor. To incentivize their work, administrators began arranging for prostitutes to visit on Sundays, and prisoners slept with them wherever they could—tool sheds, storage areas, the barracks. At first, only Black prisoners were allowed to participate, and for deeply racist notions “about Black men’s allegedly voracious sexual natures and appetites,” says Heather Ann Thompson, author of the Pulitzer-prize-winning history of the Attica uprising, Blood in the Water, “that Black prisoners could be forced to work even harder not just under threat of the lash but also, due to their savage nature, the promise of sex.”

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Starting around 1940, all of Parchman’s prisoners were able to participate, regardless of race. By the late fifties, prostitutes were banned, replaced by prisoners’ spouses, common-law wives, and female friends. In 1972, the program opened to the facility’s female prisoners. Still, the system was marked by prejudice. “The most important question concerning a program of conjugal visiting,” wrote Columbus Hopper in his 1969 study of Parchman, Sex in Prison, “is whether it helps to reduce the problem of homosexuality in prison.” Hopper was the leading conjugals researcher of his time, and the “problem of homosexuality” seems to have been one of the main forces behind his advocacy. Truth is, in my twenty-one years of incarceration, I’ve never been sexually assaulted or witnessed that kind of assault.

New York’s first FRP began in 1976, with five 12-foot-by-70-foot trailers in a former cow pasture at Wallkill Correctional. Attica got its trailers in 1977, six years after the prisoner uprising for more humane treatment that, when law enforcement took back the prison, left thirty-nine dead. In the first eighteen months of Attica’s FRP, 1,179 prisoners participated.

By 1993, seventeen states allowed some version of extended family visits. That year in New York, 12,401 family members attended FRPs across the state. “The effectiveness of the program is beyond dispute,” the prison commissioner wrote in an op-ed around that time.

Data supports the former commissioner’s claims. According to a recent literature review, prisons that allow conjugal visits have better disciplinary records than those that do not. What’s more, studies have determined that released prisoners with an established relationship have a much better chance of not returning to prison. (In 1980, New York’s corrections department published findings suggesting that participation in the program decreased recidivism rates by as much as 67 percent.)

Yet since the start of such programs, fierce resistance has followed. By the early nineties, the era of mass incarceration was fully under way, and across the country, prison programs that incentivized good behavior—furloughs, work release, college, conjugals—were on the chopping block. Why, the thinking went, should we coddle criminals with taxpayer money? (It’s worth noting that FRP upkeep is paid for in part by prisoner fundraisers.) And don’t conjugals present one more way to introduce contraband?

As early as 1969, when Hopper published his findings on Parchman, conjugal visits were available in Chile, Ecuador, Japan, Mexico, Costa Rica, and the Philippines. Today, that list includes Qatar, Argentina, Brazil, Belgium, Sweden, Spain, France, Russia, and Saudi Arabia.

The United States has shifted in the opposite direction. In the eyes of the law, conjugal visits are a privilege, not a right. The Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld prison administrators’ latitude to limit prisoners’ rights, including visitation, writing in 2003 that “freedom of association is among the rights least compatible with incarceration.” In 2014, Mississippi did away with its program. “There are costs associated with the staff’s time,” the state’s prison commissioner said at the time. “Then, even though we provide contraception, we have no idea how many women are getting pregnant only for the child to be raised by one parent”—as if such family planning were his call to make.

Today, only four states allow conjugal visits—New York, California, Washington, and Connecticut—though when Covid came, Connecticut’s program was suspended, and it has yet to return. Federal prisons don’t offer the privilege. New York’s program has been a success: FRP is offered at twelve of its fifteen maximum-security prisons and eleven of its twenty-six medium-security prisons. Since 2011, same-sex couples have been able to participate. Yet each year over the past decade or so, Republican state senators have introduced a bill to eliminate FRP. Conservatives preach the importance of a solid family structure. Why would they want to sabotage prisoners who are trying to build and maintain theirs?

By 2009, I was in Attica; my appeals had been denied. I was thirty-two and lonely. I’d spend hours each day watching the tiny TV in my cell. The Bachelor was my favorite show—a glimpse of intimacy, however stage-managed, and a break from my bleak reality. I felt like I was squandering an opportunity by not putting myself out there. I told Mom what the guy on Rikers Island had suggested, and she put an ad on the prison dating website Friends Beyond the Wall.

Danielly was a year younger than me and lived with her teenage son in a housing project on the Lower East Side. “I’m Dominican, and brown. Do you like that?” she wrote. Yes, yes, I loved it! In an early letter, I brought up the trailers, told her to imagine an uninterrupted weekend together in a sort of cabin, no cell phones, no distractions—just us. She didn’t need to be sold. Her mom had married a guy who’d done time, she told me, and she remembered visiting those little homes in the prison as a young girl.

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Danielly started visiting me at Attica. She was my type—curvy, full of attitude and affection. We had the kind of chemistry that made my stomach flutter. But I soon learned that my type was much harder to handle on the inside than it had been when I was on the outside. The guy she’d described as her ex-boyfriend was more like her current boyfriend. When I called her, she sometimes wouldn’t answer. I was left lovesick, and that’s no way to live in prison. So I let her go.

In January 2011, I started corresponding with Raina, a California blonde, thirty-nine, who’d never been married and had no kids, and it wasn’t a dealbreaker that I’d killed a man. She had a great sense of humor, and while she’d known darkness in her own life, she’d needle anyone who took theirs too seriously. I was hooked. She was emotionally intelligent, we spoke the language of recovery, and our relationship felt safe. She moved across the country for me. One day in 2012, in Attica’s visiting room, I proposed to her, and she said yes. Six months later, we joined a few other couples in a small room with a Goofy mural painted on the wall and Attica’s town clerk seated at a table, and we got married.

By 2014—after a series of applications, denials, appeals, and interviews, including one in which Raina was told I didn’t carry any sexually transmitted diseases—we had our first FRP date.

Two days beforehand, I had to piss in a cup under a guard’s gaze for my drug screen. Then again the day of, and again after I came off the trailer. Most of the work was on Raina: shopping, traveling, then getting processed, food pushed through an X-ray machine, gloved fingers sifting through her panties and K-Y jelly.

The corrections officer escorted a handful of us through the Attica lobby, a part of the prison I had never seen before. Gates opened and closed, and we walked to the FRP compound. A fence enclosed the five red-sided homes, situated so that the rest of the prison couldn’t see in. Though the watchtower guard kept a close eye.

Sitting on the couch, looking around, I felt . . . joy. In the system, you’re always waiting, and never for anything good: trial, sentencing, transfers, getting cuffed and shackled, always in a cell or a bullpen or on a bus eating bologna sandwiches. Now I didn’t know what to do with myself, and I loved it. I got up from the couch, turned on the stereo, then walked outside on the grass, sat on the children’s swing, went back inside. I grabbed the remote, turned on the flat-screen television, flipped through the stations. To do whatever I wanted, and to be waiting for my wife so we could do whatever we wanted—I felt giddy. Through the window I watched my neighbor in his kitchen as he boiled the silverware—forks, (butter) knives, a spatula, a ladle, all metal and engraved with tracking numbers—in one pot of water, and added a few drops of scented oil to another, to perfume the place. Finally, I heard one of the guys yell, “They’re here!”

A corrections van with blue-tinted windows pulled up, and the family members got out. A little boy ran to his father and jumped in his arms. And there was Raina. The CO let me help her with her luggage, which was in a container marked with our unit number.

As soon as the door of our unit closed, we threw the groceries—including cuts of filet mignon and A.1. sauce—on the table and started awkwardly kissing. As we began to undress, there was a knock on the door. Raina put on a shirt and I cracked the door. It was the CO, who just needed our container. It was like that, the conjugals; they were such a departure from regular prison life. Even the staff interactions were all good.

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Raina and I got back to it. It was my first time in eleven years, so I figured I’d finish fast. But it was the opposite. We went at it for a while—soft, hard, slow, fast, this way, that way—and nothing seemed to bring either of us closer to climax. It was like I’d never touched a woman before. It felt weird that nobody else was watching us. I eventually pulled out and brought myself to ejaculation.

On some level, we hadn’t expected the first time to be amazing. Though it’s hard to make bad sex better, we had to try. We loved each other. We went on six more FRP visits, but the situation didn’t improve. Our issues were less about friction and more about fantasy, or the lack thereof.

Danielly had sent me letters over the years since we’d first met, none of which I’d replied to. But in 2015, as my relationship with Raina was coming to an end, I finally wrote back, explaining my marital woes. Danielly replied that I never should have gotten married in the first place, that she was my soulmate. She said she was still on and off with her boyfriend, but he didn’t matter. If I got divorced and married her instead, she’d come to Attica and fulfill all my fantasies.

I divorced Raina and proposed to Danielly.

In October, we got married by the same Attica town clerk who’d officiated the last time. The Goofy mural was gone. We posed for our wedding picture in front of a seascape of sea lions and colorful fish. Danielly looks sad in the photo, barely smiling. She’d wanted this day to be so much more special than it was.

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Afterward, I bribed a CO with a few packs of Newports to let the cellblock’s tattoo artist come into my cell, and with a needle made from an uncoiled lighter spring powered by a repurposed beard-trimmer motor, he inked danielly on the inside of my upper arm in looping script. Once she ditched the boyfriend for good, she had my name inked on her forearm. We craved each other. Our kisses, deep and long and wet, always felt like good sex.

I wanted to transfer to Sing Sing, forty miles north of New York City—among other reasons, it would take Danielly an hour by train, as opposed to the eleven-hour bus trip she took both ways to visit me at Attica. But Attica was a disciplinary prison, rife with violence; the number of prisoners on good behavior was low, the FRP waitlist short. You could book a spot every forty or fifty days. At Sing Sing, the wait was closer to ninety days. I weighed the pros and cons. Con: waiting twice as long to be together. Pro: saving Danielly the hassle of a big trip to the middle of nowhere, which would probably mean I’d see her more often.

I submitted my paperwork, got approved, and transferred in November 2016.

In February, we had our first FRP date. The compound was pretty much the same as the one at Attica, but at Sing Sing we got a Polaroid camera and twelve blank photos. Some couples went into the units and did not come out for the allotted forty-eight hours. Others were more social. Me and my friend Andy Gargiulo—convicted in 2006 of killing his reputed mobster brother-in-law; we’d had the same lawyer—would sometimes coordinate our FRP visits. He was a lot older than me, around eighty, but we got along. So did our better halves. His wife brought the best Italian food in Brooklyn—cannolis, fresh mozzarella, and tender veal—and when the weather was nice, the four of us would sit outside and barbecue.

Danielly was provocative, and that turned me on. We argued; we canceled visits on each other. We often had angry, shit-talking sex. Sometimes we played nice, but she’d never let it get to my head. “Boy,” she’d say, “you have so much to learn about women.” We couldn’t have sex for the entire forty-eight hours, but it sometimes felt like we were trying.

Intimacy came in other forms. She introduced me to ASMR; I brewed Bustelo for her and microwaved the half-and-half so it wouldn’t cool off the coffee too much. “Coffee,” by Miguel, became our song. We watched The Notebook, and she recited her favorite lines. We watched Warrior, and when Tom Hardy’s character hugs his drunk father, played by Nick Nolte, Danielly comforted me as I cried.

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I know now that our relationship wasn’t healthy. My moments of joy were outweighed by my jealousy and anxiety. I’d get annoyed if she didn’t read my latest article. “You’re all into yourself and your career,” she’d say. “Women don’t like that, bro!” Or “I fell in love with the guy at Attica, before he became the writer.” That one hurt. But it’s not like I’d ask about her job as a nurse at a Bronx clinic. She’d want to talk about our future, and I’d urge her to stay in the present. She’d storm off into the bedroom, slam the door, and curse me out in rapid-fire Spanish. Well, I’d think, this is life.

By March 2020, our relationship was rocky. But for the first twenty-four hours of our first FRP in more than a year, we were getting along. As we prepped lunch, a knock came at the door. It was the security captain. Because of Covid, our visit was over, along with our last shot at rekindling.

By the time FRP visits were restored, a year and a half later, I’d been transferred to Sullivan Correctional, in the southern Catskills. Danielly came up twice. But too much time had passed, and other relationships had formed: hers with somebody else, mine with my career. Becoming a journalist in the joint brought its own stress, and my anxiety worsened; things like pissing in a cup with a guard peeking seemed impossible. Recently, we divorced.

Would I have been better off not having experienced intimacy for the past twenty-one years? Would Raina and Danielly have been better off never having met me? I’ve since realized that in both relationships, I focused more on the affection I was getting than the affection I was giving. All this time spent living in my head, confined to a six-foot-by-nine-foot cell, has rendered me less expressive and more emotionally stuck. My thoughts would bounce around my brain but never make it out of my mouth, which left Raina, then Danielly, feeling neglected. The time I used to spend writing love letters I now spend writing articles. Sometimes I feel like I took the two of them for granted. There’s an immense effort, this leap toward love in which the only physical manifestation comes in the form of conjugal visits. And it’s exerted not by the prisoners but by our partners. They wait, they shop, they lug, they travel, they get gossiped about by friends and family and insulted by COs.

Trailer visits were never perfect. Sometimes they were hard, especially at the end—me returning to prison, my woman going home alone. But in many ways, they felt like rehearsals for life on the outside. I believe that because of my experiences with conjugals, when I do get out, I’ll be more sensitive to the feelings of those closest to me. “It remains utterly and inescapably true that to be a human being is to need to be connected to, to bond with, and to be nurtured by other human beings,” Heather Ann Thompson told me. “Serving one’s sentence does not change that.”

So I’m single now. Middle-aged, too. Sometimes I imagine the kind of woman I’ll attract when I’m on the outside, and I wonder if I’ll resent her because she didn’t fall for me when I was on the inside. Which is absurd, and I know I need to work that shit out. But it also feels like a nod to the women who’ve loved me, a thank-you to all the partners who’ve sacrificed so much to share their love with those of us who are locked up.

I think about a moment Danielly and I shared with Andy and his wife, who was wearing Prada glasses and a perfume called La Vie Est Belle. The sun was bright; we sat at the picnic table, eating the best of both kitchens. Andy was talking about a TV show he watched in his cell—maybe it was America’s Got Talent —and Danielly told him how she also loved that show. While recalling the final performance of a child singer who’d recently won, Andy choked up. Right there at the wooden table, surrounded by the thirty-foot concrete wall and the guard with the AR-15 perched in the tower. Danielly teared up, too. “He gets emotional on these visits,” Andy’s wife said in a tough Brooklyn accent, smiling. More than the sex, it’s moments like these—simple, safe, and endearing—that have provided me with what prison has stripped away: a taste of intimacy.

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Conjugal Visits Are Real and They’re Great for Society

May 28, 2021 Written by Jill Harness and Edited by Peter Liss

conjugal visits in california prisons

Conjugal visits are regularly referenced in movies and TV shows but they almost seem unreal. After all, why should people serving time for crimes be allowed to have sex when they’re supposed to be punished? But that’s one of the big misconceptions about what the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation calls “Family Visits.” The official name isn’t just bureaucratic code for conjugal visits -the real reason the state allows these visits is to provide inmates to stay close to their families. And studies show this kind of visitation program has some profound benefits.

How did Conjugal Visits Get Started?

Conjugal visits were originally introduced in Mississippi state in the early 1900s. At the time, inmates were essentially just used as slaves, even physically beaten if they broke the rules or failed to work hard enough. To provide positive encouragement for those who worked hard and followed the rules, the prison brought prostitutes for the best inmates every Sunday. Eventually, the prison started allowing prisoners’ wives and girlfriends to visit as well.

The idea eventually caught on, and over the years, many other states adopted the idea of letting wives spend time with their inmate husbands, with over 1/3 of states in the United States eventually enacting some type of conjugal visit program. Unfortunately, with the push to “get tough on crime” that took place in the 90s, many states got rid of these types of programs, which were seen as “being soft on crime” by giving prisoners “sex visits” when they should be being punished. Nowadays, the only four states that offer conjugal visits are California, Connecticut, New York and Washington.

What is a Conjugal Visit?

A conjugal visit is where an inmate gets to see their family with some slight level of privacy and intimacy. One of the big misconceptions about these visits is that they are purely designed to allow prisoners to have sex. While that may be how the program started and may be part of the experience for married couples, the true purpose of the visits is to allow prisoners the opportunity to spend time with their families. Notably, in New York, where inmates are allowed to visit with extended family members, only 48% of these meetings were with a spouse.

Even when the visit is with a spouse, most inmates say that while the chance to have sex with their partners was nice, the family visit was more about being intimate with the person they love for anywhere from 30 to 40 hours. Considering that standard prison visits require all conversations be monitored by guards, and partners are only permitted to kiss at the start and end of the visit, the chance to have private discussions for 24 hours and spend the night in bed together is a welcome change.

How do the Visits Work?

Inmates who qualify for family visits can spend up to 40 hours in an apartment located on prison grounds with their spouses, domestic partners, or other immediate family members, including children, siblings or parents. These apartments are equipped with toiletries, sheets and condoms.

Prisoners are allowed no more than four visits per year. Unfortunately, because of the program’s popularity and the limited number of prison apartment spaces, it’s more likely prisoners will only be able to participate twice a year.

Not all prisoners are eligible for the program. Anyone on death row, who is serving a life sentence, or who was convicted of a sex offense is ineligible. Additionally, inmates must have a record of good behavior, and anyone on disciplinary restrictions cannot participate. Those eligible must apply through their correctional counselor.

Visiting family members will not be strip-searched, though the prisoner will. While the visit is mostly unsupervised, the area will be searched as often as every four hours.

Visitors must follow many rules , including what they wear. For example, no one can wear blue jeans, and women cannot wear short dresses, short skirts, strapless tops or form-fitting clothing.

Why do States Allow for Family Visits?

There are many benefits, but the biggest one is a dramatic reduction in recidivism rates . One study in New Mexico (which recently discontinued conjugal visits) showed that prisoners who participated in extended family visits had 70% less chance of ending up in prison than those who did not participate.

Family visits are, therefore, more effective than education in keeping former felons out of prison. The effectiveness of these programs makes sense, considering they help maintain relationships between inmates and their loved ones. These relationships are critical in helping convicts readjust to life outside prison after release.

Though many people consider these programs to be a waste of taxpayer money, it’s been shown that every $1 spent on education in prisons saves taxpayers $5 annually due to the reduced cost of housing prisoners. Given that visits with family members cost less and are even more effective at reducing crime rates, maintaining these programs seems to be a no-brainer.

Reducing recidivism rates is not the only benefit of conjugal visits. By encouraging prisoners to be good to earn time with their loved ones, prisons can reduce violence and dangers to other inmates and guards -which could further reduce the tax rates associated with incarceration. More savings can be realized as well, because the more prisoners are model citizens, the more likely they are to be eligible for early release programs, where they can enjoy a complete family reunion outside of the prison.

There is also evidence that conjugal visits reduce prison rape . One study found that sexual violence in prison occurred at a rate of 226 per 100,000 prisoners in states without these programs while occurring at a rate of 57 per 100.000 prisoners in states with family visits.

Conjugal Visits During Covid-19

Unsurprisingly, these programs were temporarily discontinued as a result of the ongoing pandemic, but they have since been reinstated. To participate in visits , all guests over 2 must be vaccinated or show proof of a negative covid test taken within 72 and 96 hours of the visit. Following the visit, inmates must take a covid test within 72 and 96 hours. Those who test positive, are unvaccinated, or refuse to take the test will be placed in quarantine after the visit.

Alternative Sentences are Still Preferable

Of course, being allowed to continue living with your family is better than any conjugal visit. Maintaining your family life is possible if you prove your innocence or are given an alternative sentence  such as probation. Your choice of criminal lawyer makes such a drastic difference in the outcome of your case. If you have been accused of any crime, please call (760) 643-4050 to schedule a free initial consultation with Peter M. Liss.

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I rely on my experience as a top defense lawyer in my area to personally review all information on this site; however the information offered here should not substitute as legal advice. If you have been arrested or charged with a crime in Vista, please contact a qualified defense attorney.

So What are the Actual Rules with Conjugal Visits and How Did They Get Their Start?

To begin with, in Britain, conjugal visits aren’t a thing, though in some cases when prisoners who have been locked up for a long period are getting close to their release date, if they are considered particularly low risk for committing crimes or going off on their merry way, they may be allowed to have family leave time for brief periods. This is time meant to help re-acclimate them to the world outside of prison and get their affairs in order, including re-connecting with family and friends, looking for work, etc.- all as a way to try to help said person hit the ground running once fully released.

Moving across the pond to the United States, first, it’s important to note that prisoners in federal custody and maximum security prisons are not allowed conjugal visits. Further, in the handful of states that do allow conjugal visits, prisoners and their guests must meet a stringent set of guidelines including full background checks for any visitors. On the prisoner’s side, anyone who committed a violent crime, has a life sentence, is a sex offender, and other such serious crimes are also not eligible. Further, in Connecticut, if an inmate is a member of a gang or even thought to be so, they are also banned from conjugal visits. On top of that, pretty much everywhere, any inmate who does anything wrong whatsoever while in prison also finds themselves either temporarily or permanently banned from such visits.

This brings us to how the whole conjugal visit thing got its start in the United States; the earliest official-ish policy with regards to allowing, in this case male, prisoners to enjoy the company of the fairer sex started in the Mississippi State Penitentiary (Parchman Farm) in the early 20th century. This was instituted as a way to get its black prisoner populace, who were used pretty literally as slave labor, to work harder while working the 20,000 acres of land at this institution. In fact, the superintendent of the prison at the time was actually a farmer himself, which is why he was hired to oversee things. As historian David M. Oshinsky, author of Worse Than Slavery: Parchman Farm and the Ordeal of Jim Crow Justice , notes, “[The Administrator’s] annual report to the legislature is not of salvaged lives. It is a profit and loss statement, with the accent on the profit.”

Prisoners who didn’t work hard could be beaten and other such “stick”-type incentives leveraged. On the other hand, prisoners who worked hard, were willing to help keep their fellow prisoners in line, etc. etc. were given various rewards. In fact, in the extreme, a prisoner who managed to kill another prisoner attempting to escape could even be rewarded with a full pardon for that and whatever crime they’d previously committed to get locked up in the first place.

Most pertinent to the topic at hand, for those prisoners who were particularly well behaved and worked the hardest, one reward they could be given was the company of a prostitute on their Sunday off-day. To help facilitate this, every Sunday a literal truck load of women would be brought in to tend to the best behaved prisoners. Later, the policy was expanded to include girlfriends and wives for the men who preferred their company.

To illustrate the thinking of the prison officials in perhaps the most offensive way possible, we have this time-capsule of a quote from one contemporary prison guard from Mississippi- “You gotta understand that back in them days n***ers were pretty simple creatures. Give ‘em pork, some greens, some cornbread, and some poontang every now and then and they would work for you.”

Moving very swiftly on from there, the effectiveness of promised sex for a male prisoner, regardless of race, if they toed the line caught on and, as the century progressed, around 1/3 of the states in the U.S. eventually adopted the practice, as well as many other countries through the 20th century also instituting similar programs.

As for that effectiveness, former warden of Great Meadow Correctional Facility in New York State, Arthur Leonardo, explains, “We don’t have much to give to people in prison. If you don’t have anything to take away from someone, you don’t have anything to take away to urge them to do the right thing.”

Illustrating the effectiveness on the prisoner’s side, one Ray Coles, whose temper resulted in an assault that saw him given a nine year prison sentence, states of the incentive the conjugal visits give him to never step out of line, “Every action or choice I make is made with my wife in mind.”

As for what actually goes on during a conjugal visit, the Hollywood idea and reality, as ever, are somewhat different. While in film and TV shows, a conjugal visit is a time to get hot and sweaty with your partner, the reality is that, while sex may or may not be involved, much of the time is spent just doing normal things with not just a partner, but kids and other family members. In fact, in New York, it’s reported that around 40% of conjugal visits don’t include a spouse or the like, rather often just children and other loved ones. For this reason, these visits are usually officially called things like “Extended Family Visits” or, in New York, the “Family Reunion Program”.

As one California inmate summed up of his extended family visit with his partner, “I got to spend 2 1/2 days one-on-one with my partner, my best friend, my confidant, my life partner. It wasn’t about the sex.”

For further context here, in the United States for most prisoners, at best during normal visitation they might be allowed a brief 2 second hug with their partner and a peck on the cheek, if the latter is allowed at all. On top of that, everything you say or do is being watched, and the time together is relatively brief.

As you can imagine from this, for many prisoners, regardless of their crime, whatever prison sentence was doled out often comes with a generally unmentioned punishment of the finishing of a relationship with their partner. Combined with limited access to phones and the extreme expense of prison and jail phone calls, this also often sees a near complete disconnect from their kids, friends, etc. while in prison.

Thus, for prisoners, while sex may or may not be involved, the reality of the extended family visit is just that- depending on the exact rules for a given prison, 6-72 hours where you can spend time with your partner, kids, and sometimes other family members or friends in a somewhat normal setting, doing normal things.

As for frequency, while in movies it’s a regular thing, and little lead up time, in reality in the United States, this may be granted at best once per month all the way up to once per year, or not at all.

Towards the end of facilitating family bonding, many prisons that allow this provide a couple bedrooms to accommodate a couple and their kids, as well as things like board games, a TV, and potentially food, though costs of things like food are footed by the inmate or their loved ones. For reference, the wife of the aforementioned Ray Coles, Vanessa, states she pays around $100 per extended family visit for things like food, which is then provided by the prison.

As for regions outside the United States, places like Canada allow for extended family visits up to 72 hours in length once every couple months, including allowing anyone with a close familial bond to take part, even friends if the authorities deem the bond strong enough. As in the United States, food and other such items are paid for by the inmate or their family or friends.

Interestingly one of the most generous of the nations when it comes to family visits is Saudi Arabia, which allows a once a month visit; but if you have multiple wives, you get once per month per wife! On top of that, beyond allowing such frequent visits, the government actually pays for the travel of those coming to see you.

Back over in the United States, at its peak in the late 20th century, extended family visits were allowed in about 1/3 of states, but began dropping precipitously starting around the 1980s and 1990s to just four states today- California, Washington, New York, and Connecticut.

This was around the same time a number of such programs designed to keep people from being repeat jailbirds were given the axe across the nation, unsurprisingly directly corresponding to the prison population in the United States absolutely exploding, in the four decades since rising an astounding 500%! For reference, before the 1980s, the growth was relatively slow and steady, more or less tied to population growth. More on this in the Bonus Fact in a bit.

As for the impetus for cutting the extended family visit programs, this is generally tied to increased public sentiment starting around the 1980s and 1990s that prisoners are there to be punished, not to be coddled, and that the program costs too much. For example, in New Mexico, who relatively recently killed the extended family visit program, it was costing taxpayers about $120,000 per year.

Now, this might sound like a lot, and if you go read the news reports, this was certainly used as the driving political rhetoric to get the program nixed by the politicians involved. However, it’s noteworthy that New Mexico reports an average cost per inmate annually is a whopping $35,540, which is pretty close to the national average of about $31,000…. Meaning the entire extended family visit program was costing about what it costs to house just over 3 of their approximately 16,000 inmates per year.

Of course this is still costing taxpayers something… except when you consider, for example, a 1982 study done on New York’s prison populace which found that prisoners who were allowed extended family visits were almost 70% less likely than other prisoners to end up back in prison within three years. This makes it potentially the single most effective recidivism program known, even soundly stomping on the second king of recidivism programs- education, which we’ll talk a bit more about in the Bonus Facts.

As to why family visits seem so effective at reducing recidivism, as the aforementioned warden Arthur Leonardo, notes, those who are able to maintain family bonds while in prison, when they get out, have “someone who loves you and will help you, and in the case of children, people who depend on you…”

Going back to the reality of an extended family visit, it’s usually required that partners and the inmates be tested for STDs and come out clean before being allowed to have their little rendezvous. Further, the prisoners themselves are strip searched both before the extended family visit and after. Should they test positive for drug or alcohol use after, they are then banned from future visits indefinitely, and those who brought in the contraband may also be banned from taking part again.

On top of that, those that are visiting the prisoners must be cleared as well, though strip searches, at least in the United States, are not allowed on the visitors, so contraband may occasionally be smuggled in in certain orifices or the like. To try to get around this in, for instance California, inmates and their families are searched regularly during the extended family visits, usually at a rate of about once every four hours.

This brings us to what you can bring for an extended family visit. Well, not much- mostly just things like clean linens, certain toiletries, strictly regulated clothing, and the like. No cell phones, no electronic devices, and really not much of anything else. Even things like family pictures are pretty strictly regulated in number, type, and size. Going back to clothing, one Myesha Paul, wife of California inmate Marcello Paul who is in prison for robbery, states, “They don’t want you to have anything that’s form fitting… although we come with hips and all that, so it’s kinda hard to find what don’t fit around, you know? I just buy some men’s sweat pants and make it work.”

If you go look at the California regulations on this, they also have strict regulations when it comes to colors of clothing, for example no blue denim or forest green pants, no tan shirts, no camouflage, nothing strapless, no skirts or dresses or non-capri shorts- the list goes on and on.

Myesha also helpfully describes what a real extended family visit is like, stating, “We sat outside and played dominoes on Saturday. After that we went in and watched TV, watched movies.” And while she states her and her husband do have sex during the visit, as is almost universally noted by every other inmate and their partner we looked it, it’s more about the closeness and little things like getting to hold your partner’s hand or just hold them in general, as well as waking up next to them. She states, “It feels good… because I don’t get that at home. Ya know. At home I’m sleeping by myself, unless my grandbaby or one of my kids wanna sleep with me. But they’re grown. But they still do sleep with me sometimes. But other than that, you know, I’m waking myself up in the morning, or the alarm clock is waking me up, or my grandson comes and wakes me up. It’s good to have my husband waking me up. It’s the nicest thing about being married. Isn’t it? Waking up?”

She also states of her husband, “He watches me through the night… I know he does ’cause sometimes I wake up and he’s looking at me. And I do the same to him. Sometimes he’s sleeping and he wakes up and I’m watching him.”

Similarly summed up by the aforementioned Vanessa Coles, the value of extended family visits is about keeping her family together- “It keeps our bond going, keeps our marriage strong and keeps him on track.” As for the couple’s young kids, “The little one needs it because that’s all he knows. The older one needs it to remember what he knows.” And as for those arguing against allowing such visits, she states, “[The prisoners] are being punished. I get it. [But] destroying your marriage and family should not be a part of your sentence.”

If you liked this article, you might also enjoy our new popular podcast, The BrainFood Show ( iTunes , Spotify , Google Play Music , Feed ), as well as:

  • What Happens to Your Stuff When You Get Sent to Prison for Life?
  • When Did Having a Prisoner’s Last Meal Be Anything They Want Start?
  • From a Life of Crime to One of the Most Prolific Actors of All Time- Danny Trejo’s Prison Break
  • Are You Really Entitled to a Phone Call When Arrested?
  • What Happens if You Commit a Crime in Space?

Bonus Facts:

Going back to what caused the massive spike in U.S. incarcerations starting in the 1980s that has more or less continued unabated since, one thing often pointed to is that this was around the time the war on drugs was ramped up, generally considering to account for about 25%-50% of the increase in inmate population. This still leaves the rest, which is the majority. And unless you just think U.S. citizens are far more likely to commit crimes than, for example, our European brethren, obviously there is something weird going on. As to what, a variety of factors are pointed to including the cutting of many programs designed to keep people from being repeat offenders, marked increase in sentence length, especially compared to the rest of the world for similar crimes, and perhaps the catch-all which has driven a lot of this to the extreme- the privatization of prisons that occurred at this time, making many prisons for-profit institutions.

In the decades since, these entities have heavily lobbied for things that seem pretty directly tied to doing everything possible to make prison sentences longer and keep people coming back for more- most pertinent to the topic at hand, cutting costs wherever possible for themselves, including any and all recidivism programs. After all, they get paid per inmate, so aren’t too concerned with what the total cost is to the state, other than the greater that cost, the more they make.

Naturally, the longer sentences and increased likelihood of repeat offenders, at a rate of about 45% within 3 years and 76% within five, has seen prison populations skyrocket in the United States since the 1980s. The net result of all of this being that, at present, the land of the free currently houses almost one quarter of all inmates imprisoned in the entire world! The cost of housing these inmates comes to about $50-$70 billion annually. This does not include the police and judicial costs that get the prisoners put there in the first place- all summing up to massive sums of money being spent and many more crimes being committed while proven recidivism programs that see massive reductions in repeat offenders going largely unused. And noteworthy here is that about 95% of prisoners do get out at some point.

And speaking of recidivism programs like extended family visits, a study done by the United States Department of Justice noted that prisoners given access to educational programs were, for vocational certificates 14.6% less likely to find their way back in prison within 3 years vs. the general prison populace. For those achieving a GED while in prison, they were 25% less likely to end up back in the slammer. And those who attained an Associates degree were the highest of all in their study at about 70% less likely, approximately the same benefit as those given access to extended family visits.

Averaging it all out, the net effect of the educational programs was about a 43% reduction in rate of returning to prison within 3 years. From this, crunching the numbers, the study showed that this meant for every $1 spent by the states towards educating prisoners, it saved $5 annually thanks to the reduction of prison population, let alone other cost savings in court and police expenditures and, of course, a reduction in crime rate. Given each year about 700,000 inmates are released in the United States, that amounts to a massive reduction in crime, while a rather large increase in a better educated and more skilled populace.

Finally, one more bonus fact- while violent criminals are almost always seen as the most dangerous and most likely to re-offend by the general public, the data does not back that up at all- not even close. According to the United States Department of Justice, the highest rate of re-offenders within 3 years after being released were those stealing motor vehicles at 78.8%! Next up are those in prison for selling stolen property at 77.4%. The list goes on and on, but essentially, those who steal are generally about 70%+ likely to re-offend within 3 years and are the highest at-risk re-offenders. In stark contrast, violent crime convicts are massively less likely to re-offend. For example, rapists and murderers are only 2.5% and 1.2% likely to re-offend respectively. Of course, the latter is much more news worthy and traumatic, leading to the skewed public perception.

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I can’t comment on everything in the bonus facts, but I think the low (1.2%) re-offending rate for murder can be put down to two things: (1) they receive very long sentences (if not actually executed!), and so leave prison in their old age, and (2) they were more likely to have committed a crime of passion, rather than be career criminals. For that matter, I read that, at Devil’s Island, the murderers looked down on the thieves. Murder might be a worse crime, but it was usually the only one they committed, while the thieves were habitual criminals. (That might be a reason behind the high re-offending rate for stealing cars and receiving stolen goods.)

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You might want to look that up because it is actually not correct. Depending on the severity of the crime murder can carry as little as a 5 year sentence, and remember it is not uncommon to serve as little as one quarter of the issues sentence. Also, execution is remarkably rare with many US states banning it or in moratorium. For a detailed state by state list of murder recommended sentences see this wiki:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_punishments_for_murder_in_the_United_States

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The Ethicist

Does Everyone Have the Right to Conjugal Visits?

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By Chuck Klosterman

  • April 18, 2014

Earlier this year, the Mississippi Department of Corrections decided to stop offering hourlong conjugal visits, depriving about 155 inmates (out of more than 22,000 statewide) the opportunity to cozy up with their husbands or wives. Officials cited budgetary constraints and prison pregnancies as the reasons for ending conjugal visits. Is it ethical to suddenly deny prisoners conjugal visits when they’ve been offered them before? Relatedly, is it ethical for taxpayers to carry the costs associated with the incarcerated mother’s pregnancy and delivery? Would it be ethical to allow only conjugal visits for those who agreed to use birth control? R.J.W. , WYNNEWOOD, PA.

The rationale behind conjugal visits is that they help keep separated families from disintegrating and also decrease tension inside the prison itself. I concede that such programs probably do have that impact (and, on balance, are probably more positive than negative), but the ability to have sex with your spouse is not a fundamental human right for someone in prison. It’s a privilege dependent on a variety of factors, and it’s a reasonable freedom for a prisoner to lose. As such, it’s not unethical to deny this right to inmates, assuming a reasonable explanation is provided. It might be a bad decision on behalf of the penal institution, but mostly for practical reasons (as opposed to moral ones).

In response to your second query: It is absolutely necessary that a pregnant inmate and her unborn child receive proper medical care. It would be unethical to ignore the needs of a child based on bad decisions made by its parents. We live in a society in which certain problems are shared.

In response to your third question: If the main reason behind the ban on conjugal visits is fear of jailhouse pregnancy, it might seem logical to argue that a prisoner’s willingness to use birth control should be enough to reinstitute this right. But that would generate many other problems. How would the use of birth control be regulated and enforced? What about prisoners who refuse to use birth control on religious grounds? What about male prisoners who could (quite easily) argue they were never at risk of becoming pregnant to begin with? A unilateral ban generates fewer ethical contradictions than a partial ban.

DOUBLING DOWN

I’m a salaried employee, but my company asks employees to bill all our time in the office to specific projects, so it may properly bill its clients. We often have large phone-conference meetings where only a few people are actively presenting something. I can easily listen to the meeting on my headset and simultaneously work on another project at my desk. I am expected to account for the hour I spend listening to the meeting. Is it ethical to bill for the two tasks concurrently, one for the meeting and the other for the hour of project work, if both the meeting organizer and project manager are satisfied with my work during that hour? CHRISTOPHER RYAN , BLOOMINGTON, IND.

Unless your company has outlined concrete rules about how billing is supposed to be conducted, it sounds as if you’re working on a self-constructed honor system. That being the case, the framework is up to you to define (with the assumption that you will do so reasonably).

My question is this: When you do both tasks simultaneously, are you still doing both tasks completely ? You’re obviously able to complete the work well enough to avoid criticism — but is the expectation of the conference call that you will be intellectually engaged with the conversation and that the call will receive your undivided attention? If so, you’re not really giving your client that full hour of work (I would assume none of your co-workers are, either — but you’re doing so willfully). The same equation applies to whatever else you’re doing while listening to the call: Is that hour of work less focused and effective than an hour applied with no distractions? These are questions that can really only be answered by you. If your gut tells you that you’re inadvertently ripping people off, you are probably doing just that.

That said, it’s entirely possible that the practical expectation of the phone conference is simply that a) you remain on the line, and b) you retain a rudimentary awareness of whatever is being discussed. If this is the case — and if your project work is straightforward and uncreative, unaffected by the fact that you’re listening to other people chatter through a pair of headphones — then you’re doing everything that’s required of you. You’re doing two hours of work in 60 minutes, and you and your employer should be allowed to account for that efficiency.

EMAIL queries to [email protected], or send them to the Ethicist, The New York Times Magazine, 620 Eighth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10018, and include a daytime phone number.

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What States Allow Conjugal Visits?

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A 2012 research conducted by the Southern Criminal Justice Association indicated that state prison systems prohibiting conjugal visits experienced sexual violence at an average rate of 226 cases per 100,000 prisoners. 

Meanwhile, states permitting similar visits had a less frequent occurrence of such violence: 57 per 100,000 inmates.

These findings may suggest support for conjugal visits. However, decision-makers may need to look at more than the numbers to determine whether such visits are practical and beneficial in the long term.

How do conjugal visits work, and what states permit these visits? Are conjugal visits a right or privilege? How about same-sex couples? Should individuals still call it a “conjugal visit” today?

lookupinmate.org addresses these questions and many more. This article also covers the requirements for inmates to be allowed conjugal visits and the arguments regarding such visits.

Which U.S. Prisons Allow Conjugal Visits? Which States Have Them?

During the 2000s, only California, New Mexico, Mississippi, Connecticut, Washington, and New York allowed such visits. By 2015, Mississippi and New Mexico discontinued their programs.

In 1993, conjugal visitation programs existed in 17 U.S. states. However, no existing records mention what these states were. One survey mentioned that in 2013, there were at least nine states with such programs, namely:

  • Connecticut
  • Mississippi
  • South Dakota

What Is a Conjugal Visit?

A conjugal visit is when a prisoner is allowed to receive a visit, usually from a husband or wife, to spend private time together.

The idea behind such visits is to let inmates have the time for intimate contact with their partners.

Depending on the state’s conjugal visit program, sometimes called the extended family visitation program, a visit may last for several hours or overnight.

What Everyone Gets Wrong

Conjugal visits are not entirely only about physical intimacy or sex. Officially, such visits are called family visits, and kids are permitted to stay overnight.

In Connecticut, the inmate’s spouse or partner cannot visit alone: the inmate’s child must be present.

Meanwhile, Washington allows two related inmates in the same facility, like siblings or a parent and child, to be visited jointly by immediate family members from outside. About one-third of extended visits occur between spouses alone in the state.

Conjugal Visits to Help Preserve Families

Conjugal visits can help preserve family units. In New York, conjugal visits are referred to as family reunion programs (FRP).

Since conjugal visits are also called extended family visits, the concept of such visits should not be limited to physical intimacy only.

How Conjugal Visits Work

In states offering extended prison visits, inmates must have a record of good behavior to be permitted conjugal visits. However, prisoners with life sentences , criminals convicted of domestic violence, or sex offenders charged with crimes like sexual assault are usually excluded.

If you want to fully understand how conjugal visits work, here are a few questions to consider:

Is There a Long Waiting List?

Prisons allowing conjugal visits keep a schedule and inform inmates of the next visit date. A facility with a large number of inmates may have a long waiting list depending on how many visits the facility can accommodate.

Who Is Eligible?

Although conjugal visit rules vary between states, prisoners, in general, must apply for that privilege. Before being granted visitation, the prisoner must undergo and pass a health screening.

In California, an inmate must be married to a legal spouse to qualify for conjugal visits.

Prisoners who committed several infractions, like fighting and swearing during the past six months, are not eligible.

How Often Can Prisoners Have Visitors ?

Extended family visits usually have three schedules: 6, 12, and 24 hours. The facility allows these visits to eligible convicts an average of once or twice a year.

Where Do Conjugal Visits Take Place?

Correctional facilities allowing conjugal visits typically have private, apartment-style accommodations where inmates and their visiting loved ones or significant others can stay. These rooms come with sheets, towels, soap, and condoms.

Can Same-Sex Couples Take Part?

In 2007, California allowed conjugal visits to married same-sex couples or those in a civil union. New York permitted the same privilege in 2011.

Conjugal Visitation Is a Privilege, Not a Right

The United States Supreme Court and several federal courts believe prisoners have no constitutional right to conjugal visits. So such visits are considered a privilege, especially for inmates exhibiting good behavior while serving their time in prison.

Still, some prisoners and their spouses have filed lawsuits in federal and state courts, claiming that denying conjugal visits violates these rights :

  • The marital privacy rights of the prisoner and spouse
  • The right to procreate
  • The constitutional prohibition against unusual and cruel punishment
  • Religious freedom rights provided by the First Amendment

Despite these arguments, courts found no constitutional right to a conjugal visit and rejected these claims.

Are Conjugal Visits Free of Charge?

Conjugal visits are free for prisoners except in Washington. As of 2013, the state’s participation fee for such visits was $10 per night.

Are Conjugal and Extended Visitation Privileges Highly Regulated?

States regulate and determine who a family member is. Inmates and visitors must submit applications to be allowed conjugal visits.

All prison visitors are subjected to a physical search for contraband or weapons, whether for a conjugal or different type of visit. Facilities do not allow drugs or alcohol and prohibit cell phones or other electronic devices.

Prison staff ensures that visitors bring only a few highly regulated items into the facility and prohibit certain foods or gifts. The staff can also turn away visitors who are not wearing appropriate clothing.

Why Have Visitation Programs Been Discontinued?

There are claims that the discontinuation of conjugal visits in many states is due to public opinion. There are individuals who believe criminals should not have access to anything, including time with family members. Others complain when they learn inmates have health care access.

Another reason is reports of contraband getting snuck into prison and babies being conceived during conjugal visits. However, there are no figures to back up these claims, leading to conclusions that these reports are unfounded.

Still, states mention that the actual reason for the discontinuation of such programs is budget cuts.

In New Mexico, the program costs taxpayers $120,000 every year. Though the state’s budget in 2016 was $6.2 billion and the median household income was $43,782, the state did not seem to see the benefits outweighing the cost.

Why Should Visitation Programs Continue?

Initial claims suggested that visitation programs help lower parole violations by 25%. However, one study involving New York’s family reunion program showed that extended family visits might lower recidivism (tendency to reoffend) among prisoners by 67%.

There are also claims that one potential benefit of conjugal visits is lowering the rate of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) among prisoners. However, studies have not conclusively established a correlation between conjugal visits and lower STD levels.

Because there is more than only intimacy involved in these visits, prisons in states allowing conjugal visits have renamed such programs “family visits.”

Correctional officers claim that prisoners with visitation access are generally happier and are encouraged to maintain good behavior to earn visitation privileges or even early release .

If you or your family members are planning to visit a loved one in prison, you need a platform to search for records about that inmate. lookupinmate.org is a nationwide online inmate records checker that can help you locate prisoners detained in any correctional facility.

10 Arresting Realities Regarding Conjugal Visits     

Despite not having many states implementing conjugal visits, individuals who may have relatives or spouses in prison need to understand the following facts about this program:

Prisoners and Their Visitors Must Meet Certain Requirements to Get Permission for a Visit

Rules on extended family visits typically vary from one state to another. However, one common rule in California, Connecticut, New York, and Washington is that conjugal visits occur only in prisons with medium security or lower . Inmates must also have a record of good behavior and clean health.

Another requirement is that spouses who visit their incarcerated husband or wife must pass a body search and background check and be registered on the prison’s visitor list.

The “ Conjugal Visit ” Phrase Is a Misnomer

Conjugal visits today are called extended family visits or family reunion visits. The reasons for these visits include:

  • Maintaining the connection between inmates and their families
  • Reducing recidivism (or an inmate’s tendency to reoffend)
  • Motivating good behavior

Renaming the program to “extended family visit” helps emphasize the inclusion of all family members instead of only the inmate’s spouse or partner.

Like Hotels, Prisons Facilitating Extended Family Visits Have Toiletries for Guests

U.S. prisons have special facilities like trailers, cabins, or apartment-style housing for extended family visits. Some prisons provide inmates with sheets, toiletries, towels, condoms, and lube.

Other prisons have two-bedroom apartments featuring a living and dining room and amenities like TVs, DVD players, and games like dominoes and Jenga.

Visitors may be permitted to bring prepared food or groceries during the visit, depending on the state prison’s rules.

Mississippi Was the First State That Allowed Conjugal Visits Nearly 100 Years Ago

Mississippi was the first state to allow conjugal visits in the early 1900s. The state even provided the prostitutes who charged 50 cents for their services. 

The first conjugal visits occurred at Parchman Farm, also called Mississippi State Penitentiary , in 1918. James Parchman, the warden, used conjugal visits as an incentive for male prisoners (who were mostly African-American) to work harder in the prison’s farming industry.

However, the state later canceled the costly program despite protests from prisoners’ families and rights groups who believed that even infrequent visitations promote family bonds and boost prisoner morale.

Only Four States Still Allow Conjugal Visits

As of 2015, the only states allowing conjugal visits are California, New York, Washington, and Connecticut.

Mississippi and New Mexico also had conjugal visit policies before. However, Mississippi halted allowing these visits on February 1, 2014, and New Mexico did the same on May 1, 2014.

Connecticut Prisoners Cannot Be Level 4 or Above to Be Eligible for Conjugal Visit

In Connecticut’s prison system, levels on a scale of 1 to 5 refer to how much guards monitor inmates daily.

Prisoners also cannot be gang members, on restrictive status, or convicted of a class A or class B disciplinary offense within the last 12 months before requesting eligibility.

In India, Married Prisoners Have the Legal Right to Conjugal Visits and Bear Children

In 2015, India’s government passed legislation declaring that married inmates have the right to conjugal visits. These inmates are also entitled to provide sperm to their spouses for artificial insemination if the inmate so wishes.

Saudi Arabian Prisons Are Surprisingly Liberal and Generous

In Saudi Arabia, male inmates are allowed one conjugal visit per month, and the rule applies to each spouse. So, men with multiple wives can have numerous visits every month.

The Saudi government provides inmates’ families monthly allowance for food, housing, and education. The government also pays for airfare and hotel expenses family members incur when visiting a relative in prison.

A prisoner who wishes to attend a family wedding or funeral is provided $2,600 to give as a gift. In 2014, the Saudi government spent $35 million on these prisoner privileges.

A German Prisoner Used Their Unsupervised Conjugal Visit to Murder Their Visitor

In April 2010, a 50-year-old prisoner killed his 46-year-old girlfriend during an unsupervised conjugal visit in a German prison. During one of those visits, the prisoner stabbed his girlfriend using a steak knife and strangled her.

Outraged Germans criticized the justice minister and prison authorities for this incident and questioned a few other instances of relaxed security at German prisons, including prisoner escapes and beatings.

Eventually, German prisons increased security and implemented stricter rules for conjugal visits.

Brazil Has a Sexist Conjugal Visit Policy

In Brazil, straight and gay male prisoners can receive visitors. However, female inmates rarely receive the same privilege.

Though such differences in conjugal visit policies appear discriminatory, female prisoners in Brazil may have to worry more about overcrowded and unsanitary prison cells. Pregnant inmates do not have sufficient access to proper medical care, and many female prisoners can be unjustly confined in isolation units.

The Checkered History: How Did the Conjugal Visit Program Start? When Did Conjugal Visits Start?

Conjugal visits started in 1918 at Parchman Farm, a labor camp in Mississippi.

At first, the camp allowed visits for Black prisoners only. The visitors were local prostitutes who arrived every Sunday and were paid to service single and married inmates.

Historian David Oshinsky said Jim Crow-era prison officials perceived African-American men as having stronger sex drives than whites and would not work hard in the cotton fields until they were sexually sated.

In the 1940s, the government expanded the conjugal visit program to include white male prisoners and their wives. Finally, in the 1970s, the program included female inmates.

  • Do prisoners in South Carolina get conjugal visits ?

A journal dated 1981 mentioned that South Carolina was among the states allowing conjugal visits at that time. Today, the state no longer implements that program. Additionally, federal prisons also do not allow conjugal visits.

  • Do death row inmates get conjugal visits?

Death row prisoners are not eligible for conjugal visits, even in states that permit conjugal visits for other inmates. Also, no state officially allows conjugal visits for death row inmates.

  • Do other countries have conjugal visits ?

The U.S. is not the only country allowing conjugal visits despite having only four states implementing this program.

In Brazil, Venezuela, and Columbia, prisons allow unmarried inmates to have such visits. India and Saudi Arabia also have conjugal visit programs.

While Germany permits prisoners to apply for conjugal visits, the screening is strict, and security is tight, especially since an inmate murdered his girlfriend during one such visit in 2010.

Searching for an inmate in the U.S., not knowing where your loved ones are detained? lookupinmate.org lets you search for a prisoner by state or prison type . This one-stop inmate lookup site has access to more than 7,000 correctional facilities across the United States.

  • The Effect of Conjugal Visitation on Sexual Violence in Prison https://www.prearesourcecenter.org/sites/default/files/library/theeffectofconjugalvisitation.pdf
  • Prison Visitation Policies: A Fifty-State Survey https://law.yale.edu/sites/default/files/area/center/liman/document/prison_visitation_policies.pdf
  • Conjugal Visits https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/02/11/conjugal-visits
  • Heaven https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/02/11/heaven#.ybmNK2evz
  • Conjugal Visitation in American Prisons Today https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/conjugal-visitation-american-prisons-today

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  • legal questions
  • 11 Min Read
  • 15th April 2016

Conjugal Visits: Rules and History

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The phrase is well known in popular culture – conjugal visits means private alone time with a significant other while in prison. We all understand the connotation of conjugal visits, but allow me to spell it out. Yes, inmates are permitted to engage in sexual relations with their spouse during conjugal visits . However, many times these visitations are not used for intimacy at all. A lot of prisoners who earn this right choose to have family members come to see them, in an effort to remain close with those who matter most. In New York, 52 percent of these visits did not involve spouses.

Where Are Conjugal Visits Allowed?

States That Allow Conjugal Visits

States That Allow Conjugal Visits

As recently as 1995, 17 states had conjugal visit programs, although federal prisons never allowed it.

Today, only four states still allow conjugal visits:  California, Connecticut, New York and Washington. 

New Mexico and Mississippi cancelled their programs within the past two years.

How Did the Conjugal Visit Program Start?

Origin of Conjugal Visits

Parchman Farm

The very first prison to allow conjugal visits was  Parchman Farm (now  Mississippi State Penitentiary ).  Parchman farm began as a labor prison camp for black men in Mississippi which was a blatant attempt to keep slavery alive 50 years after the end of the Civil War.

Prison authorities believed that if black men were allowed to have sexual intercourse, they would be more productive. 

They also believed that black men had stronger sex drives. Therefore, every weekend, women would be driven in by the bus load to fraternize with the prisoners. There was no state control or legal status, the visits were simply thought to encourage surviving a six day work week of harsh labor and conditions, not to mention racist guards.

Over the years, conjugal visits evolved to spending more time with family. Even the aforementioned Parchman Farm had cleaned up the act by the 1960s; visits were sanctioned, furlough programs had begun, and cabins were built so inmates could spend time alone with their significant other. The prison would even provide toys for the family.

Following their model, conjugal visit programs saw a steady and fast rise in use. It was touted as a model of rehabilitation after a reporter paid a visit to Parchman Farm and declared it, “the wave of the future.”

Conjugal Visit Rules

Good behavior is an obvious requirement for earning family and conjugal visitation rights, but there’s a bit more to it than that. For the most part, the rules surrounding family visits are the same; they must be in medium security or lower prisons, and they must not have been convicted of sexual assault . However, each state has their own protocol for selecting which inmates have earned the privilege of family visitation:

  • Connecticut : Inmates cannot be level 4 or above in close custody (levels are on a scale of 1-5 and refers to how much they are monitored by guards on a day-to-day basis). They cannot be a member of a gang, be on restrictive status, or class A or class B disciplinary offenses within the past 12 months prior to requesting involvement. The spouse cannot come alone ; other eligible family members must participate.
  • New York : This state and California are the only ones that allow visitation for same-sex couples. Proof of marriage must also exist. Here are the guidelines for New York’s Extended Family Visit Program .
  • California : Inmates and visiting family members are subject to a search every four hours . See: California Extended Family Visit guidelines. 
  • Washington : There are a long list of requirements that inmates and visitors alike must meet before being allowed to participate in the visitation program. There are a slew of disallowed crimes, along with minimum time served, active participation in a reentry program, and housing status rules to qualify. If there are two family members in the same prison, joint visits can be arranged pending approval.

The length of the visit varies from six hours to an entire weekend, which is determined by the supervisor of the prison on a case by case basis. And just as there are eligibility requirements for prisoners, the same can be said for those who wish to visit them. Apart from the verification of the relationship, visitors must also be free of crime.

  • If a family member other than a spouse, such as brother or sister, wishes to visit, it will be scrutinized closely.
  • If a child is participating, a birth certificate showing that the inmate is their biological father is required.
  • If the inmate is a step-father, he must have been present during the child’s formative years (ages 7-12). There must also be consent from the child’s legal guardian.
  • The visitor cannot be on parole, or subject to criminal drug charges.

On top of these requirements is a good deal of paperwork which needs to be filled out. With all of the supervision and background checks, it would be extremely difficult for anything sinister to happen. To inmates and their family, visitation is purely about spending time with the one’s they love. So why are so many states stopping it?

Why Have Visitation Programs Been Discontinued?

As previously stated, there were 17 states with visitation programs 20 short years ago; today there are only four. The reasons for this have varied slightly, one of which being public opinion. People just don’t think criminals should have access to anything, much less time with family members. Some even get upset when they learn inmates have access to health care . Most of these people probably fail to realize that those convicted of violent crimes are not allowed to participate in family visitation programs.

Another reason is claims of contraband being snuck in and babies being conceived during these visits. But no numbers are given to back up these claims, and they appear unfounded at best as a result. The Corrections Commissioner for Mississippi even stated that they provide inmates with contraception during their visits. While there are no numbers to back up these claims, they try to use others to convince everyone that it’s too expensive.

The main reason widely given is budget cuts. That was the fallback for Mississippi and New Mexico when they cancelled their programs. In New Mexico, the program cost $120,000 a year . Their 2016 budget totals $6.2 billion . The cost of keeping the program active amounts to less than one-five hundredth of one percent of the state budget. The median household income in New Mexico is $43,782, which means that, divided evenly amongst the average taxpayer, everyone would only contribute about two cents each to a family visitation program. Yet somehow, the benefits don’t outweigh the cost.

Why Should Visitation Programs Continue?

At a rate of approximately $32,000 per year for each inmate, it’s been well documented how much it costs to keep someone in prison. Overcrowding is also a huge problem, which has many causes. But where family visitation comes into the picture is its documented ability to reduce recidivism, which show that 76 percent of those released from state prisons are arrested again within five years. Initial studies have found that visitation programs are responsible for lowering parole violations by 25 percent , but it could be higher than that according to an older study, which suggests recidivism was decreased by 67 percent because of visitation programs.

Conjugal and family visits also reduce occurrences of sexual violence in prisons by 75 percent .

This is a number too large to ignore, because the snowball effect here is that it also drastically lowers the rate of sexually transmitted diseases between prisoners. Then there is evidence that is hard to quantify. Prison guards have stated that prisoners who have access to visitation are generally happier, and are encouraged to keep up their good behavior in order to keep earning visitation privileges, or perhaps even early release. This is why prisons in the four states that still allow it have changed the name from “conjugal visits” to “family visits.” There is more to it than just intimacy; there is connection that these families are trying to maintain. If the prisoner is able to interact with the person or people for whom he will be responsible upon release, it will only motivate them to work harder to never put them through it again.

Phavy

Lifers in state of California eligible for conjugal visits as well? due gov. Jerry brown recent signed off?

Claudia

To Phavy do we know what disqualifies a lifer from getting conjugal visits besides being a sex offender and/or domestic violence. I have my husband in a state prison in CA and he has been in prison for 20 years but we needed to find out what qualifies him or disqualifies him from getting visits. Please advise, thank you in advance

The program is allowed for those who have a release date. Unfortunately it is not available for inmates serving life sentences.

Janey

If the offender has two non-sexual violent felony strikes in Ca but he has a release date and the visitor was a co defendant on an old case, can the offender get conjugal visits with the visitor if they get married?

Christiane

Very great article! As much as I advocate conjugal visitation, early justifications are shocking to me. I still hope that in future, the trend will go back to the use of extended visits in more than just 4 states. It also does not appear too expensive, particular since some prisons even charge visitors a fee per night.

Saprina

Do lifers get conjugal visits if they are in prison for non violence on woman???

It would depend on where they are sentenced and what exactly the offense is, along with how they have conducted themselves while in prison.

Tina

I pray they go back to the old way,, but with different intentions I have a question my husband was convicted of corporal punishment on a spouse does he qualify for conjugal visit yes he has a release date

Amber

Is there any way a state like FL could reconsider “family visits” I mean my boys miss their father and he was only sentenced 10 years. I was thinking of a petition but I doubt people will view it how you and I do. Just being able to watch a movie together and hang out like we use to would mean so much I can wait for sex but the joy it brings to my boys is much more fulfilling. I mean it’s so backed up in FL they could be making more money if they charged family visits.

Marilyn Wiggins

Marilyn Wiggins

Amber I will sign a petition if it’s started. The sanctity of family is important.

karen lea pollard-mills

karen lea pollard-mills

I WOULD SIGN A PETITION ALSO! LETS START ONE NATIONWIDE! NOT JUST FOR EACH STATE!

Ashley

I believe this would be great. Even if there was a price tag many people would pay it. That would help lower the cost of prisons.

Emily

Does anyone know what prisons in New York allow conjugal visits?

In the post, there is a link to the guidelines for New York’s Extended family visit program. Click it to see all the guidelines and how to apply for them. Good luck.

Leslie L Miller

Leslie L Miller

My husband is serving life without! He was convicted at 19, you know they are taking every form of human contact away from human beings and expecting them to just lay down be good and wither away slowly! Why? My husband is now 37, he is not the same person he was , we have been married 12 years together 15, never consummated our marriage! To some of us it’s a religious right if only one time! Changes need to be made in our system! It’s broken if we don’t rethink alot of things all we are going to create is detached MONSTERS, with no concept of real feelings or emotions!

Suz

I couldn’t agree more! The love of my life is serving life w/o parole and was 19 also. He’s served 15 years now and has changed, grown up and matured. Have you read about the science that states teens are not fully matured until their mid 20’s and should not be given life w/o parole at such a young age? 11 men were released on this science and more states need to follow suit and parole those who have changed and matured and will not repeat their mistakes! They deserve a 2nd chance. There is a video on this called second chance kids also! Good Luck with your husband!

Jacquelyne Garza

Jacquelyne Garza

What year where the conjugal visits taken away in California, I think it was 1994 or 1995 or 1996 which one was it ??? Please tell me.

GP

The article plainly states that CA is one of the remaining states allowing such visitation. I’ve also seen them taking place on MSNBC’s Lock Up.

bob

Will inmates who have prior rules violations for drug smuggling into the prison be permitted conjugal visits?

candi

does anyone know the list of things you can take into your conjugal visit?

C.J.

Go to the prison website

Mahlia

So inmates who have life without the possibility of parole can’t have conjugal visits at all? My guy has been transferred to a level 3 prison now. Does that mean anything?

lizy vicent

lizy vicent

I believe anybody that owns 100% of your heart is worth fighting for. Yes, I am boasting because I never adhered to some negative advice from my parents when I was about getting married. There was a war between our two family then my husband was his mothers puppy, his family members used him a lot that he cant make any decision without consulting them. What surprised me most was the moment a 36-year-old man seeks his parent and some family members consent before dating anyone, the worst happened when he was instructed to bring me along to their country home in Rampart, New Orleans, it was risky to accept such invitation.The war between our families started when he finally proposed (that was about 4 years ago), his family gave some conditions if he must wife me (we have to live with them), I was in shock when my husband accepted and was happy with their conditions (so crazy). My family wagged and demanded I should breakup with him immediately.I decided to give him the last shot as a man whom has already taken over 100% of my heart, I took a risk to go spiritual with them by consulting Priest Udene via [email protected] , I dont know how but the spiritual father already knew I was going to consult him. He first of all told me the danger I was into and how my husband has been enslaved since birth, how they keep brain washing him to do their wills.Like the quote that says a person sees clearly only with the heart, I realized that nobody saw what I saw in my husband and thats why I used the help of PRIEST UDENE to put him out of his misery. His eyes where opened by PRIEST UDENE for the first time, his family fell in love with me and granted every of our request, our families have known peace since after the love spell.It is over 2 years after the love spell and my husband has continued to improve every day without interference from his family. I have waited too long to share this amazing piece. Thanks for your time and also to PRIEST UDENE. I knew him through reading some amazing testimonies on blogs.

Tracey Duffy

Tracey Duffy

Are the visits during the weekend or weekdays, usually?

Patricia Monteiro

Patricia Monteiro

Me and my fuance plan to marry soon. He is serving a 15 to life sentence and has been in nearly 4 years now. He does not have a release date. He is single celled in a level 4 prison. He has a history of violence. Will he be eligible for conjucal visits upon marriage ?

Kat

does patton state hospital allow family visits?

mariah clifton

mariah clifton

hi…me and boyfriend are trying to get married in the california state prison but he has a prior domestic abuse charge on him from years ago with his babymomma does that stop us from conjugal visits once we are married?

jackie larbi

jackie larbi

Thank god that we do not allow this to happen in are prisons.

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One Conjugal Visit

By nancy mullane.

How long could your relationship last without a kiss? Without more than a kiss? Could you last a year? Two? What about ten? Twenty? In prison, couples are forced to keep their relationships alive in visiting rooms, with 2 second hugs. One two. Let go. So they write letters and make phone calls. Many break up.

But there’s another option. If you’re married or in a domestic partnership, you might be eligible for something called a family visit, also known as a conjugal visit, or on the inside, a booty call. It means a couple can be together, inside prison, alone or with their children for extended visits. They can have privacy and they can have sex.

Back in the 90’s, 17 states allowed prisoners to have these conjugal visits. But things have changed. Earlier this year, Mississippi and New Mexico both ended conjugal visits in their prisons and today only three states, New York, Washington and California allow inmates to have this kind of intimacy.

I’m standing with Myesha Paul at the gate at San Quentin, the prison just north of San Francisco. Because her husband, Marcello Paul is locked up in a California prison, they still qualify for a conjugal visit and she’s letting me tag along.

Myesha is middle aged with short, bleached blond hair and a no-nonsense look in her eye. She’s wearing baggy red sweatpants and a sweatshirt that’s too big. She knows the spoken and unspoken rules to one of these visits. The officers guarding the prison have told another woman who’s come for a visit she has to go back to her car and change before she’ll be allowed inside.

“Her t-shirt is fitting real tight, so yeah, they’re gonna make her change all that,” Myesha says watching the woman walk away. “You go through a lot comin’ up her. It got to the point where I just come up in sweat pants. Baggy sweat pants. Too much of a hassle. I’m not puttin’ on anybody else’s clothes. Leggings are comfortable but they’re not for up in here.”

“Why not,” I ask.

“They’re a little too revealing. They don’t want you to have anything that’s form fitting and although we come with hips and all that, so it’s kinda hard to find that don’t fit around, you know?” Myesha laughs, looking down at her full body. “I just buy some men’s sweat pants and make it work.”

“So when you’re inside, do you bring different clothes to wear for when you’re alone?” I ask.

“Mostly just shorts or comfortable pajamas,” Myesha says. “I don’t usually get dressed.”

Even in California not all prisoners qualify for these intimate visits. Prisoners convicted of a sexual crime or a violent crime against a minor or a member of their family and those serving life sentences are denied conjugal visits. Except for what happens behind closed doors during these officially sanctioned private visits, sex is totally illegal in prison.  That means tens of thousands men and women locked up in prisons throughout in America may never be able to sleep next to their partner or have sex, ever again.

As Myesha waits outside the gate, I ask her to describe the process for going inside the prison for a conjugal visit. Looking at the door stamped VISITOR, Myesha says, “I’m waiting for the family visit coordinator to come. (Officer) Foster. He’ll come and he’ll take me in there,” she says looking past the door into a space where officers will check her belongings. “He’ll get my bags and go through them instead of the metal detector. Then I go through the metal detector. I also go inside and pick out some movies, dominoes, that type of thing. Then he’ll grab my stuff, put it in the trunk, and take me down to see my husband.”

Watching Myesha pass through security, I imagine this prison approved sex will happen someplace prison-like, in a tiny room with a bare mattress. They’ll give them an hour.

Turns out, it’s not like that at all.

After passing through a metal detector Officer Foster helps Myesha carry her duffle bag and personal things to the car. It’s his job to escort the previous visitor out, and turn right back around and drive Myesha, in. One in, one out.

It’s a long drive around the edge of the prison, through a big gated checkpoint and up to a small one-story building surrounded by chain-link fence that’s topped with razor wire. An officer looks down from a watchtower nearby.

Marcello Paul, a big man with dreadlocks, gold capped teeth and a beaming smile walks to the opposite side of the locked gate and waits.

When it’s opened, Marcello and Myesha give each other a quick hug, and help carry the bags and pre-ordered food into the apartment.

While Myesha puts the food into the refrigerator, Marcello gives me a tour of the two-bedroom apartment.

There are cabinets with dishes, cups, bowls and plates, a microwave, sink and stove. There’s a table where Marcello says they say grace and play games. In the living room is a puffy black couch and chair. Marcello says it’s black leather. It’s not really leather, but it’s nice.

There are two bedrooms. The first has a worn double mattress on a metal frame. Marcello says he does a pre-clean to make sure everything is intact and washed, and then two days later, when it’s time to go, he cleans everything again, so it’s just the same as when they came in.

Turning from the first bedroom, is a bathroom with a door on it. That’s no small thing inside prison where toilets are public.

Looking into the spare room, a portable baby crib leans against the wall. Some couples bring their children along on a family visit. Myseha and Marcello don’t have any shared children so they spend their weekends alone.

In the middle of the room is a double bed, metal springs sticking out the edge of the mattress. But it’s the large round wet spot in the middle of the mattress we’re both looking at. Marcello says he’ll turn the mattress over and lay down a lot of blankets on top of the mattress.

Standing with Marcello, looking around, if it weren’t for the two officers standing in the middle of the room, it’d seem like a pretty normal apartment.

The officer tells me it’s time to go. Marcello and Myesha get just 48 hours together in the apartment. Once a month.

Myesha says they’ve been together 14 years. They met and fell in love while Myesha, a home health care worker, was taking care of Marcello’s mom. Marcello had committed a robbery before they met and gotten away with it. But eventually, it caught up with him and he was sentenced to 10 years. He’s done five of them.

I think about them all weekend.

Monday morning, I go back and meet up with Myesha as she’s coming out. We sit in her car and talk. She says the weekend with Marcello, “was good. It’s always good. Just don’t like going home.”

“Why?” I ask.

“I’m leaving my husband behind,” Myesha says. “We sat outside and played dominoes on Saturday. After that we went in and watched TV, watched movies.” She says they started with The Wire.

She tells me they pulled the bed into the living room so they could lie together while they watched. They cooked burgers and tacos. They listened to music. And sure, she says, they had sex. I ask if they ever have a conjugal visit when they don’t have sex. Myesha pauses, then says, “No. I mean we might have a conjugal visit where we don’t have as much sex as the one before. But no.”

But she says, for her a conjugal visit really isn’t about the sex. It’s about the smaller, quieter things, like Marcello waking her up in the morning, “It feels good,” she says, “because I don’t get that at home. Ya know. At home I’m sleeping by myself, unless my grandbaby or one of my kids wanna sleep with me. But they’re grown. But they still do sleep with me sometimes. But other than that, ya know, I’m waking myself up in the morning, or the alarm clock is waking me up, or my grandson comes and wakes me up. It’s good to have my husband waking me up.

“It’s the nicest thing about being married,” I say, “isn’t it? Waking up?”

“Yeah,” Myesha says, “Together.”

“Not alone,” I say, “You look up and there’s that person.”

“Yeah. I think he watches me through the night,” Myesha says, “ I know he do cause sometimes I wake up and he’s looking at me. And I do the same to him. Sometimes he’s sleeping and he wakes up and I’m watching him.”

While we’re sitting in her car, talking, her cell phone rings. It’s Marcello calling to make sure Myesha gets home safe.

Even though conjugal visits aren’t allowed in most US prisons, in many countries they’re common. Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Israel, Russia, Spain, and Saudi Arabia all allow inmates and their partners to have conjugal visits. Mexico considers them a universal privilege and even allows families to move into prisons and live with their imprisoned relative.

All photos courtesy Nancy Mullane.

Edited By: Sally Herships

Produced By: Kaitlin Prest

Advisory Panel Scholar: Hadar Aviram

Music Composed by: Lawrence English

  • Categories: Courts ,
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  • Tagged As: can i have sex in prison , conjugal visit , conjugal visits , episodes and events , families in prison , family and the law , family law , family visits , Get on the Bus , Inside San Quentin , Kaitlin Prest , life of the law , Nancy Mullane , prison , prison and family , Sally Herships , San Quentin , San Quentin State Prison , sex , sex in prison , visitation

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Federal Bureau of Prisons

General visiting information.

Make sure your visit will be a success by carefully following these four steps.

Discover or confirm the whereabouts of the inmate you would like to visit.

Before you can visit you must be placed on the inmate's approved visiting list.

Review all visiting rules, regulations, and procedures before your visit.

Find out when you can visit and get directions to the facility.

Locate the inmate

Sometimes an inmate may be moved to a different facility so that they can benefit from unique programs offered at that location. They might also be moved to receive treatment for a medical condition or for security concerns. Therefore, the first step in planning your visit should be to determine where the inmate is currently housed.

Please verify you are a human by entering the words you see in the textbox below.

To visit, you must be pre-approved.

You can only visit an inmate if they have placed you on their visiting list and you have been cleared by the BOP.

  • An inmate is given a Visitor Information Form when he/she arrives at a new facility.
  • Inmate completes their portion of the form and mails a copy to each potential visitor.
  • Potential visitor completes all remaining form fields.
  • Potential visitor sends the completed form back to the inmate's address (listed on the form).
  • We may request more background information and possibly contact other law enforcement agencies or the NCIC
  • The inmate is told when a person is not approved to visit and it is the inmate's responsibility to notify that person.

Who can an inmate add to their visiting list?

  • Step-parent(s)
  • Foster parent(s)
  • Grandparents
  • No more than 10 friends/associates
  • Foreign officials
  • Members of religious groups including clergy
  • Members of civic groups
  • Employers (former or prospective)
  • Parole advisors

In certain circumstances such as when an inmate first enters prison or is transferred to a new prison, a visiting list might not exist yet. In this case, immediate family members who can be verified by the information contained in the inmate's Pre-Sentence Report, may be allowed to visit. However, if there is little or no information available about a person, visiting may be denied. You should always call the prison ahead of time to ensure your visit will be permitted.

Be Prepared

You should be familiar with all visiting rules, regulations, and procedures before your visit.

The following clothing items are generally not permitted but please consult the visiting policy for the specific facility as to what attire and items are permitted in the visiting room:

  • revealing shorts
  • halter tops
  • bathing suits
  • see-through garments of any type
  • low-cut blouses or dresses
  • backless tops
  • hats or caps
  • sleeveless garments
  • skirts two inches or more above the knee
  • dresses or skirts with a high-cut split in the back, front, or side
  • clothing that looks like inmate clothing (khaki or green military-type clothing)

Plan your trip

  • the prison location
  • the prison type
  • inmate visiting needs
  • availability of visiting space

The inmate you plan to visit should tell you what the visiting schedule is for that prison; however, if you have any questions please contact that particular facility .

General Visiting Hours

Camp general visiting hours, fsl general visiting hours.

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Conjugal Visits | Criminal Defense |

Are Conjugal Visits Really Allowed in MN?

In movies and on television, the idea of conjugal visits in prison seems universal, but it’s actually not a reality in a good number of states, including Minnesota.

A petition made the rounds recently online to try to change this fact. A woman requested the state’s Senator, Amy Klobuchar, to help make conjugal visits a right for inmates in Minnesota.

The petition closed and the laws have not been changed, but it does highlight the importance of knowing what types of activities are allowed and not allowed when visiting an inmate in a Minnesota correctional institution.

Here’s what you need to know about Minnesota’s prison visitation policies and procedures and what can happen if they are violated.

Rules of Visitation for MN Corrections Facilities

Visitation is an important part of an inmate’s life. Not only does it serve to help them get through serving their time by seeing people they care about, but it also helps them to maintain and build their support networks outside of prison.

This is an incredibly important endeavor for ensuring a successful transition once they are released. In fact, positive interactions with family and friends during incarceration is believed to lead to lower rates of recidivism as well.

However, there are rules when you visit an inmate in Minnesota . The most important is the fact that you must apply to visit an inmate. You can obtain an application to become a visitor in one of three ways:

  • Download it through the prison’s website
  • Pick one up at a Department of Corrections Facility
  • Have the inmate send you an application

Once you’ve submitted your application and have been approved, then the inmate will be notified and they will communicate the information to you.

How Long Do Visitations Last?

In general, if you travel less than 100 miles for the visit, then you will be allowed to register for a visit that lasts one to two hours. If you travel more than 100 miles one way, then you may be granted an extended visit – but this is up to the discretion of the prison.

The inmate must petition the prison for a longer visit at least 7 to 10 days before the visit is to take place. On weekends, due to crowding, visits may be restricted to one hour.

Are There Different Rules for Minors?

If you wish for a minor to visit the inmate, then an adult applicant must complete the application and list the minor in the space provided on it. You will need to submit a copy of the certified birth certificate of each minor along with the application.

What Items Can You Bring as a Visitor?

You must empty your pockets before visiting with an inmate. A locker will be provided. You can carry the locker key along with your identification with you, but all personal items must be secured. Every visitor is required to pass through a metal detector prior to visiting time.

No one may bring gum, candy, food, or drinks into the visitation rooms under any circumstances.

What If the Rules Are Broken?

If a visitor breaks the rules of visitation while visiting an inmate, then the incident is recorded by prison staff and the visitor will be advised they have violated the rules and sanctions of visitation.

Rule violations can lead to a visitor being barred from future visits as well. Depending on the infraction, a visitor may even face criminal charges.

To be reinstated, they would have to appeal in writing to the administrator of the prison to regain their visitation privileges.

Duluth Criminal Lawyer

If you have questions about visiting your loved one or about accusations of visitation violations in a Minnesota prison or if are seeking special permission for any activity (besides conjugal visits, of course) during visitation, reach out to an experienced criminal defense attorney for help.

About the Author:

Andrew T. Poole is a Minnesota native who has served in the Army for more than 18 years and is currently a JAG lawyer in the Army Reserves in addition to serving as a partner at LaCourse, Poole & Envall . He has handled thousands of criminal and family law cases over the course of his career and has a firm belief that all hardworking Minnesotans should be entitled to the best possible legal counsel. Mr. Poole boasts a 10/10 Superb rating on Avvo , is Lead Counsel rated, and has been recognized multiple times by SuperLawyers , National Trial Lawyers , and others for his work.

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Whenever a couple with children separates, whether they’ve been married or not, [...]

What Are Aggravating Factors in a MN Drug Crimes Case?

In Minnesota, drug charges can be quite serious. If you are accused of something such as criminal drug possession, it’s a crime that, if convicted, can impact you for the rest of your life.

What can make drug possession charges [...]

These Mistakes Could Land You Arson Charges in Minnesota

Arson is a crime of intent. That means that a fire was set on purpose – which is a crime that many states, such as Minnesota, take very seriously since it can lead to major property damage and even the [...]

The Line Between Romantic Relationships and Statutory Rape in MN

When people think of statutory rape, they often think of young children being lured into unsafe situations by adults. That isn’t always the case.

It doesn’t happen with great frequency, but some high school teachers in Minnesota may be having [...]

Even the Lowest-Level MN Assault Can Result in a Felony Charge

Assault is a charge that can happen almost anywhere and be perpetrated by almost anyone. In fact, under Minnesota law, you may be surprised to find out what type of actions can be charged as assault.

Recently, a Duluth firefighter [...]

Why Are MN DUI Cases Dismissed?

When you are arrested for driving while intoxicated in Minnesota, the first thing you may want to do is panic. However, if you understand DWI/DUI law in Minnesota, you know that there’s no reason to panic just yet – there [...]

Protective Order Violations During a Divorce

To say that a time leading up to a divorce may be contentious or even violent can be an understatement. After all, when a relationship has reached the point where a couple wants a divorce, chances are things are not [...]

Minnesota Domestic Assault: Misdemeanor or Felony?

Domestic assault is a crime taken very seriously in Minnesota, but there isn’t simply one way it can be committed nor one way it is punished. In fact, the state has a wide range of charges and penalties that can [...]

“Who’s Responsible for My MN Slip and Fall?” and Other Questions

Minnesotans are accustomed to their fair share of slippery conditions. That doesn’t mean that injuries from slip and fall accidents are ever something you should simply shrug off.

There are laws surrounding slip and falls, and the damages you can [...]

Minnesota Answers: Will My Wife Continue to Receive My Disability When I’m Gone?

It’s a given that the death of a spouse is emotionally shattering, but it can leave a family financially devastated as well. This rings especially true if the deceased was receiving disability benefits through Social Security.

One of the most [...]

Bothered By What You Saw at Grandma’s MN Nursing Home?

Millions of Americans live in long-term care facilities. Unfortunately, abuse and neglect aren’t as uncommon as we wish in these situations.

That’s why it vital that if you have a loved one living in a nursing home, you familiarize yourself [...]

MN’s No-Fault Law Doesn’t Mean You Can’t Recover Damages

When you are injured due to the negligence of another person, you may think that a personal injury case against them is fairly open and shut. After all, you can show they were at fault for your damages, right? Not [...]

Minnesota Drug Crimes: Everything You Should Know

Like many other states, Minnesota has strict laws regarding controlled substances. Those who violate these laws can face serious, life-altering penalties.

It’s important for every citizen of Minnesota to understand drug laws and the crimes that can stem from them [...]

Sometimes It’s Necessary to Change Your MN Child Custody Agreement

Child custody arrangements in Minnesota can be difficult to navigate, but only because they are complex matters with a lot of requirements through the courts.

Even if your child custody arrangement was designed amicably, making changes is a process where [...]

Minnesota Senate Still Stands Against Recreational Weed Reform

It seems as if states all around Minnesota are making recreational marijuana legal. However, Minnesota doesn’t seem quite ready to make the leap – though some lawmakers are trying.

Last year, Democratic leaders in the legislature introduced a bill that [...]

How to Execute a Simple Divorce in Minnesota

Getting a divorce is a complicated matter. Just as no two relationships are alike, no two divorces are alike either.

That’s why the state of Minnesota provides several routes for couples to execute a divorce. There are requirements that must [...]

How to Ensure Your Family Members Are Safe in a MN Nursing Home

It’s never an easy choice to move someone you love into a nursing home, but when you make that choice you’re putting a lot of trust in the people who run the facility.

The good news is that nursing homes [...]

What Is a Controlled Substance in Minnesota?

Minnesota is no different from every other state in the U.S. in that it has laws surrounding the possession, manufacture, and sale of controlled substances. The laws in Minnesota break these substances up into different schedules. They base penalties on [...]

How Do I Know What Type of MN Auto Coverage I Need?

The sprawling greenery and beautiful waters of the “Land of Lakes” might inspire scenic weekend drives, but most Minnesotans own a car simply to get where they’re going. No matter where you drive, you need insurance to protect yourself, as [...]

Is a DUI a Misdemeanor or Felony in Minnesota? It Depends

In Minnesota, getting a DWI or DUI can lead to serious consequences. The fact is that a DWI in Minnesota can be charged as a misdemeanor or as a felony – the facts surrounding the case as well as any [...]

Got a Minnesota DWI? It Could Have Been Worse

Drinking and driving is never a good idea, but it becomes an even worse situation when an accident is involved, as one Minnesota man recently found out.

A 22-year-old man was convicted of killing three people in a car accident [...]

The Various Ways You Can Be Accused of Shoplifting in MN

When people think of shoplifting, they typically imagine someone shoving something into their purse or backpack to conceal merchandise without paying for it. While this is example of shoplifting, it isn’t the only way to commit the crime.

Shoplifting is [...]

Can You Get Compensation for Dog Bite If Owner Denies Responsibility?

Police dogs should be shining examples of a well-trained dog. But even these highly-behaved working dogs act like untrained animals sometimes.

In Duluth, the city awarded a woman $50,000 after she was bitten during a police dog encounter. The victim [...]

How Does a MN Order of Protection Restrict Your Rights?

In Minnesota domestic violence cases, orders of protection are typically used to protect the victim from the person accused of committing the domestic violence against them. If the victim feels they are being threatened or may suffer actual abuse, they [...]

You Just Suffered a Slip and Fall in Minnesota — What Now?

Slip and fall accidents in Minnesota can happen any time and anywhere. The streets don’t have to be filled with snow and ice, which is why it’s important to understand the steps you should take if you do take a [...]

What You Should Know About Labor Day DUIs in MN

Labor Day weekend is about saying goodbye to summer for another year, but it can have one lasting impact you may not have planned for – a DUI.

Driving under the influence is a very serious crime in Minnesota that [...]

What Motorcycle Riders Can Do to Help Stay Safe

As sunny summer days take the reins, drivers might notice more motorcycles on the road.

If you’re a motorcycle enthusiast, you already know it’s the perfect time of year to cruise. Even if you appreciate your bike more for gas [...]

What Happens When a Robbery Becomes a Homicide in Minnesota?

When you hear the terms “homicide” and “murder”, you probably think they are contrasting words for the same act. While both signal the death of another person, the law regards them in quite different lights.

In the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, a [...]

Suspect Nursing Home Abuse? Here’s What Minnesotans Can Do

Many older people live in care facilities across Minnesota. Unfortunately, along with the number of people who live in these environments, neglect and abuse occur more frequently than one may hope.

According to the federal government and Minnesota state government, [...]

License Suspended? Defense Strategies to Fight Your DWI Charges

DWI charges can turn your life upside-down. A one-night mistake could lead to thousands of dollars in fines and legal fees, plus jail time.

For some, it can initiate a downward spiral: you lose your license, which keeps you from [...]

The Best Defenses Against Minnesota Drug Crimes

In Minnesota, drug laws are strictly enforced. If convicted of drug crimes in the state, you can face severe penalties that will alter the course of your life forever.

That’s why if you’re charged with a drug crime in Minnesota, [...]

Should Minnesota Workers’ Compensation Cover Medical Marijuana?

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed many things in Minnesota and around the world. Of course, it impacts the daily lives of many Minnesotans, but there are a few stand-out issues still impacted by the pandemic – issues like workers’ compensation.[...]

How Does Minnesota Divide Assets in a Divorce?

Sometimes, divorce must happen. Coming to the end of your marriage can be a painful process. Not only are their emotions to handle, but the assets you and your spouse have gathered over your marriage that must now be divided [...]

Did You Get a DWI in Minnesota? Here’s How to Beat It

If you are found operating a vehicle while intoxicated in North Carolina, then you will face a DWI charge – and that can come with significant penalties.

A Minnesota DWI can send you to jail, make you responsible for steep [...]

The Importance of Having the Right Car Seat in a MN Crash

Something harmful happening to your child is a parent’s worst nightmare. There are some things parents can’t control when it comes to security, but some parental decisions have a huge impact on their child’s safety. One of those choices is [...]

Minnesota Package Theft Charges Are Common This Time of Year

With the holidays in full swing, chances are many people are getting package deliveries on their doorstep. It may seem funny or thrilling to be a part of the “porch pirate” package theft trend, but in Minnesota, there are serious [...]

Bitten By Someone Else’s Dog? Here Are Your Options

Dogs are known as man’s best friend. While it is true they can bring happiness to the lives of many people, being bitten by a dog can cause a lot of pain and distress.

Dog bites impact the lives of [...]

What Everyone Needs to Know about Minnesota DWIs

It’s the moment everyone dreads. You were just headed home after a night out having fun with your friends, but then it happens: lights. Sirens. And the next thing you know the police officer is asking you to take a [...]

Common Myths About Child Support

Child support: There’s plenty of information out there from many different sources – and not all of them are exactly trustworthy. You’ve likely heard the term “child support” or even seen it as a factor in your own separation and [...]

Mediators: What To Look for in your MN Divorce

Many people fear that divorce will be a long, contentious, drawn-out process in the courts. Fortunately, that is simply not true in many cases. Why? Because many of those going through a divorce choose a mediator to help them settle [...]

Get Swept Up in the Moment? You Could Still Face Arson Charges

There are many reasons fires can occur. In fact, many fires are caused by accidents or circumstances out of the control of people. In those cases, it’s often dismissed as an unfortunate accident. However, when a fire is purposefully set, [...]

MN Domestic Violence Protective Orders: Common Conditions

Just as in other states, Minnesota takes threats and violence between members of the same household very seriously – and they take action to protect those who are vulnerable.

Minnesota provides victims of domestic violence with a form of legal [...]

Does Stalking Count as Domestic Violence in MN?

When people think about stalking, they imagine dark alleys and scared young women being followed by strangers, eventually leading to something terrible occurring. While that Hollywood version of stalking has probably happened somewhere at some time, most stalking crimes are [...]

MN Parents: Don’t Let Your Kids Fall Victim to These Holiday Dangers

The holidays are a wonderful time of the year that many people, especially kids, look forward to all year long. Unfortunately, there are some serious hazards that come along with all that joy and excitement – hazards that many parents [...]

Assets Easily Overlooked in a MN Divorce

Often, one of the most tedious and difficult things about Minnesota divorce is dividing up assets from the marriage. Many people don’t want to fully undertake this time-consuming process, but it’s to their detriment if they don’t.

Why? Because there [...]

Compensation for Daycare Injuries: Legal Options for Parents in Minnesota

Leaving your child in the care of a daycare facility is a decision made with trust and hope for their safety and well-being. Unfortunately, accidents can happen, and when a child sustains injuries while under daycare supervision, it can be [...]

Is Stalking Domestic Violence in MN?

You might imagine stalking as an act that requires someone to skulk in the shadows, obsessively watching unsuspecting victims go about their daily lives – so people have been led to believe. The truth is that stalking doesn’t always happen [...]

How to Fight a Minnesota Drug Charge

Drugs are considered by the law to be a threat to society, which is why drug crimes are punished so harshly in this country. In Minnesota, someone caught with even a small amount of drugs can face serious charges that [...]

Minnesota Dog Bites: Who Is Responsible?

There are few things scarier than being attacked by a dog, and dog bites can be far more severe than many expect. Dog bites can cause lasting physical injuries and mental distress for victims, which is why Minnesota has specific [...]

The Best Defenses Against MN Drug Crimes

The possession of drugs in Minnesota is a serious crime, but your sentence if found guilty can range quite a bit.

Drug crimes can be misdemeanors or felonies, depending on how much of a controlled substance you are found with [...]

Can You Share a Divorce Attorney With Your Spouse in MN?

Going through a divorce can be a long, expensive, and arduous process, but it’s not always that way. In some situations, there may be agreement on all aspects of the divorce between the parties involved. That can make things a [...]

MN Custody Laws Every Parent Should Know

Child custody is rarely a straightforward issue in family court. Often, parents don’t agree on what is best for the child – and when you throw in the legal complexities, cases can easily become confusing and complicated.

Anyone who is [...]

Want to Make a Liability Claim for Your MN Car Crash? Prove These 4 Elements

Accidents happen. And when you’re driving a car on Minnesota roads, the chances of an accident happening are fair – so it’s important to be prepared for incidents on the road.

Most people prepare for car accidents by buying vehicles [...]

Involved in a MN Crash over the Holidays? Get Compensation

In Minnesota, car accidents are unfortunately one of the most common types of personal injury claims. So, if you were involved in a car accident over the holidays, rest assured you’re not alone.

In fact, there have been many accidents [...]

When Does a Case Become Medical Malpractice in MN?

Medical malpractice is something that occurs everywhere, and each state has its own laws surrounding medical malpractice claims, including Minnesota.

Many people struggle with understanding whether or not their case falls under the umbrella of medical malpractice. What is important [...]

Steps to Take After a MN DWI Arrest

No matter how you got there, when you get pulled over and arrested for a DUI, you’re probably going to be worried. Most people don’t have a lot of experience interacting with police, much less being arrested by them.

However, [...]

What If Your Ex Doesn’t Follow the Divorce Decree?

When you get a divorce, you expect your ex-spouse to follow the obligations outlined in your divorce decree. But sometimes, the person to whom you were married falls short.

If your ex doesn’t follow the specifics in your divorce decree, [...]

Be Careful Your Holiday Partying Doesn’t Result in a MN Drug Charge

The holidays are celebrated in a variety of ways. For some, it’s about getting together with friends and family. For others, it’s about exchanging gifts. And then some also enjoy celebrating through wild parties with others, which can lead to [...]

Tips Before Seeking a Divorce

Sometimes, despite your best efforts, getting a divorce from your spouse is the only option you have. But it’s a big decision – not something you should just jump into feet first.

The truth is, there is a lot to [...]

When Do You Need a MN Child Support Modification?

When it comes to raising kids there are two certainties: It’s expensive, and it’s going to continually change.

Between the cost of food, childcare, education, extracurriculars, and housing, a lot of parents struggle to meet their children’s needs. Most parents [...]

MN Divorce Discovery: Do You Have to Say It All?

A divorce may mean the end of your marriage, but it also means an end to your joint venture as a married couple. All your assets are to be split, meaning you’ll have to identify all the assets you have [...]

The Worst Habits of Minnesota Distracted Drivers

In Minnesota, there are tens of thousands of car accidents each year. While the reasons behind these accidents vary, one of the most preventable reasons these accidents occur is distracted driving.

That is why one of the most important things [...]

Did Your Memorial Day Weekend Lead to a BWI?

Being out on a boat the first weekend of summer is a time to cherish. You can have fun with friends and family as the whole of summer stretches out before you. One complication you may not have counted on: [...]

How Strong are MN Prenups?

Prenuptial agreements are becoming more and more commonplace. People sign them as a way to protect their assets when they enter a marriage, in case of divorce or death. However, these prenuptial agreements aren’t always as ironclad as many would [...]

How Well Do You Know the Retail Theft Laws in Minnesota?

You probably know that taking an item from a store without paying for is shoplifting – or retail theft. What if you put something into your purse, bag, or pocket, but haven’t left the store yet? Is that theft? Or [...]

Surprising Charges That Can Make You a MN Sex Offender

In general, those who are convicted as sex offenders face many obstacles in society. They are seen as the worst of the worst, and people assume a lot about a person simply because their name is on a sex offender [...]

MN Spousal Maintenance: What You Need to Know

Divorce can be a process that is difficult for many. Not only are emotions often running high as a marriage comes to an end, but ironing out the details regarding finances can add a layer of stress that neither party [...]

MN Bad Samaritan Law: You Have a Duty to Report

Most people are familiar with the idea of a Good Samaritan. You know, a person who helps another when they’re in trouble, like someone who stops to help after a car wreck or helps a stranded mother to change her [...]

Does Your Spouse Have to Agree to a MN Divorce?

Divorce is a process that is rooted in conflict. It’s rare for two parties to agree on everything during the divorce process.

In some situations, one spouse may not even want a divorce at all while the other spouse very [...]

Wrongful Death in MN: What You Need to Know

There are few things in life as painful as losing someone you love – especially unexpectedly and prematurely. When that death occurs due to the negligence of another party, the grief and stress can feel overwhelming.

Even when the negligent [...]

When Do Legal Drugs Become Illegal in MN?

Every state has its own specific laws and penalties when it comes to controlled substances. In Minnesota, substances such as marijuana that are legal in other states become illegal once you cross the Minnesota state line.

It’s valuable for citizens [...]

Is There a Statute of Limitations on MN Sex Crimes?

In Minnesota, prosecutors aggressively pursue sex crime cases to bring those who commit them to justice. Their work was aided last year by the lifting of the statute of limitations on sex crimes in the state.

As of September 2021, [...]

MN Black Friday Crimes: Did You Get Swept Up?

Black Friday is an interesting day. On the one hand, there’s a lot of excitement generated about sales that can save you a lot of money on high-priced items. Black Friday sales are incredibly tantalizing. On the other hand, there’s [...]

MN Non-Physical Acts That Can Lead to DV Charges

The term domestic violence conjures images in the minds of one person physically abusing another, but that’s not always the case. While physical harm can be done in domestic violence situations, there are other non-physical acts that can lead to [...]

Why Do So Many MN Car Crashes Result in Back Injuries?

Back injuries can shift the trajectory of a person’s life forever. It’s a shame that these types of life-altering injuries are so common in car accidents, but there are some very logical reasons why they are.

Cars travel at high [...]

MN Car Accidents: Steps of a Personal Injury Claim

When you’re in a car accident and become injured, it can cast a lot of uncertainty on your future. The accident itself can be emotionally traumatic, and if you’ve been seriously hurt then you’re likely experiencing physical pain on top [...]

Tips To Help You Find the Right MN Divorce Attorney

Going through a divorce is not a fun process. For many people, it’s not only a personal and emotional process but also a process that can have big implications on their financial future. That’s why it’s vital to choose the [...]

Understanding Your Miranda Rights in Minnesota: What You Need to Know

Miranda rights are an essential component of the criminal justice system, ensuring that individuals in custody are aware of their constitutional rights during police interrogations. Understanding your Miranda rights is crucial if you face criminal charges in Minnesota. 

The 48-Hour Rule and MN Domestic Violence

Domestic violence happens in Minnesota as it does in other parts of the country. To help deal with domestic violence issues, Minnesota has created laws on how to intervene in these situations in order to help keep people safe.

Understanding [...]

The Importance of a Prenuptial Agreement in Minnesota

A prenuptial agreement is a legal document that partners sign before getting married, outlining how their assets will be divided in the event of a divorce. While some people may view prenuptial agreements as unromantic or unnecessary, they can provide [...]

Should You Sell Your MN Property Before Your Divorce?

The law surrounding divorce in Minnesota can be complex, particularly when property is involved. Many wonder if a house purchased during marriage should be sold before divorce. It’s a good question, but the answer isn’t that simple.

In a divorce, [...]

St. Paddy’s PSA: Drunkeness Isn’t a MN Crime, But Disorderly Conduct Is

Saint Patrick’s Day, also known as St. Paddy’s Day, is a festive day that many people look forward to celebrating. It’s a day when people of all ages gather together to enjoy parades, drink green beer, and eat corned beef [...]

Staying Safe on a Snowmobile in MN: What You Should Know

Minnesotans love to snowmobile, as do many people in surrounding states. Each winter, they go thousands of miles on trails across the state, proving that Minnesota is a great place to indulge in this exhilarating pastime.

However, snowmobiling isn’t all [...]

MN Drug Possession: Are Car Passengers At Risk of Arrest?

Everyone has been a passenger in another person’s car. When you get a ride from someone or accompany a friend or family member somewhere, the last thing you expect is that it could end in criminal charges for you – [...]

Who’s Responsible for an Injury That Occurs in a MN School?

A school is supposed to be a place where your child is safe. But just as with everywhere else you can go, accidents happen – especially when children are around.

When kids get hurt at school, whether in the classroom, [...]

MN Record Sealing: What You Need to Know

A criminal record is something that can add a lot of complications to your life. It can impact your reputation, your ability to find work, or even your capacity to find a place to live.

However, Minnesota offers something to [...]

Ride Share Accidents in Minnesota: Protecting Your Legal Rights

With the rise of ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft, getting around town has become more convenient than ever. However, the risk of being involved in a ride-share accident comes with convenience. If you or a loved one have been [...]

Personal Injury Attorney: Red Flags to Look For

Most people don’t have a lot of experience with attorneys. So, when something terrible happens to you, such as a personal injury, and you want to bring a lawsuit against the at-fault party, you may not be sure what to [...]

Is It Possible To Expunge A Juvenile Record In Minnesota?

As an attorney in Minnesota, you may receive inquiries from clients seeking to expunge their juvenile records. Expungement is the process of sealing or erasing a criminal record from the public view. Juvenile records are typically sealed to protect the [...]

The Hidden Costs of a Minnesota DUI

It’s not hard to imagine that when you get a DUI in Minnesota, you pay your fines, serve your time, and then move on from the incident. However, driving under the influence in Minnesota is a crime that isn’t that [...]

Avoid These Common Mistakes After a MN Car Crash

Car accidents can be unsettling experiences. It’s hard to think at that moment, let alone process everything happening around you and what you should and should not do. That’s why people tend to make mistakes after a car accident.

MN Sex Crimes: How To Beat the Charges

The charge for sex crimes are some of the most serious you can have in Minnesota. Not only do you face time in prison, but also the requirement to register as a sex offender in some cases. This factor can [...]

What Defense Strategies Can Help with MN Domestic Violence Charges?

Domestic violence is a crime that the state of Minnesota treats with the utmost seriousness. In fact, our state has a zero-tolerance policy towards any form of violence within the household. 

Domestic violence can take many forms, including physical, emotional, [...]

How to Modify Your MN Child Custody or Support Agreement

A divorce or separation can be a difficult and emotionally challenging experience, especially when children are involved. One of the most critical aspects of divorce proceedings involving children is establishing child custody and support agreements. These agreements determine how parents [...]

The Importance of Pre-Trial Investigations in Minnesota Criminal Defense

Pre-trial investigations are crucial in building a strong defense strategy for individuals facing criminal charges in Minnesota. Pre-trial investigations provide an essential foundation for achieving favorable outcomes in Minnesota’s criminal justice system by uncovering key evidence, identifying potential defenses, and [...]

The Role of Expert Witnesses in Brain Injury Cases

Brain injury cases can be complex and challenging, requiring a deep understanding of the medical and legal aspects. The consequences of brain injuries can be profound, affecting individuals physically, cognitively, emotionally, and financially. In such cases, expert witnesses play a [...]

How Are Illegal Prescriptions Handled in MN?

Regarding drug crimes in Minnesota, even prescribed drugs can lead to severe penalties.

When the police are examining drug trafficking or possession crimes, they look at the type of drug involved in the case and the amount in possession at [...]

Your Kid Got Hurt at a Minnesota Daycare — What Now?

Child injury at daycare is a frightening and stressful experience for any parent. The well-being of your child is of the utmost importance, and it is unacceptable for a daycare to neglect the safety and care of the children in [...]

The Legal Implications of Minnesota’s Increasing Opioid Crisis for Criminal Defense

Like many other states in the United States, Minnesota has been grappling with a surge in opioid use and overdose deaths in recent years. This crisis has been fueled by overprescribing opioid painkillers, the rise of synthetic opioids like fentanyl, [...]

The Legal and Financial Consequences of Minnesota Paternity Claims

In Minnesota, paternity claims are legal actions brought by individuals seeking to establish the biological father of a child. These claims can have significant legal and financial consequences for all parties involved. Minnesota paternity claims’ legal and financial consequences.

The Impact of Minnesota’s Alimony Laws on Your Divorce

When a couple decides to divorce, one of the most complex and often contentious issues that arise is alimony or spousal support. Alimony refers to court-ordered payments made by one spouse to the other to provide financial support after the [...]

Building a Strong Defense for Juveniles Accused of Serious Crimes in Minnesota

Facing criminal charges is a daunting experience for anyone, but it is particularly challenging when the accused is a juvenile. In Minnesota, when minors are charged with serious crimes, it is crucial to understand the unique legal considerations that apply [...]

What to Do If You Get Hurt While on Vacation in the Northland

Getting injured while on vacation in the Northland can be a stressful and overwhelming experience. Knowing what steps to take to protect your health and legal rights is important. Whether the accident is a slip and fall, a car accident, [...]

The Pros and Cons of Mediation in Minnesota Family Law Cases

Family law cases like divorce, child custody, and support can be complex and emotionally challenging. There are often multiple issues to be resolved, and the parties involved may have strong feelings and opinions on how those issues should be addressed. [...]

MN Rideshare Accident: What You Should Do

Maybe you were out drinking with friends and wanted to be responsible. Or your car broke down and you needed quick transportation. Perhaps you don’t even have a vehicle.

Whatever the situation, you called a rideshare service like you’ve done [...]

Brain Injuries in Minnesota: The Legal Rights of Victims and Pursuing Compensation

Brain injuries can have a profound and lasting impact on individuals and their families. Whether caused by a car accident, medical malpractice, a workplace incident, or other forms of negligence, these injuries often result in physical, cognitive, and emotional challenges [...]

Burn Injury Victims in MN: Legal Options and Rehabilitation Support

Suffering from a burn injury can be a life-altering experience, leaving victims with physical pain, emotional trauma, and substantial medical expenses. In Minnesota, burn injury victims face unique challenges in their journey to recovery. However, they are not alone in [...]

What To Do If You Are Injured During a Holiday Vacation

This time of the year a lot of people choose to travel. Whether it’s to warmer places to soak up some sun or colder areas to hit the slopes, the one thing that every place you can choose to go [...]

Defending Against Kidnapping and Stalking Charges in Minnesota

Kidnapping and stalking are serious criminal offenses that can have severe legal consequences in Minnesota. Being accused of these charges can turn your life upside down, affecting your personal relationships, reputation, and future opportunities. However, it is important to remember [...]

Defending Students Accused of Crimes in Minnesota

Being accused of a crime can be a frightening and overwhelming experience, particularly for students who are also focused on their education and prospects. If you or a student you know is facing criminal charges in Minnesota, it’s essential to [...]

Recognizing the Signs of Nursing Home Abuse in Minnesota

Ensuring the safety and well-being of our elderly loved ones residing in nursing homes is paramount. Unfortunately, nursing home abuse is a distressing reality that can affect vulnerable individuals. Recognizing the signs of nursing home abuse is crucial to protect [...]

Seeking Justice for Eye Injuries in Minnesota

Eye injuries can have devastating and life-altering consequences for victims, impacting their vision, daily activities, and overall quality of life. If you or a loved one has suffered an eye injury in Minnesota due to the negligence or wrongdoing of [...]

Title IX Defense: Advocating for Fair Treatment in Minnesota Schools

Being charged with Title IX crimes in Minnesota can be an overwhelming and unsettling experience. Under Title IX, a federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in federally funded educational institutions, certain offenses such as sexual harassment, sexual assault, domestic violence, dating [...]

Protecting Your Interests in an Uncontested Divorce in Minnesota

Divorce can be challenging and emotionally charged, but an uncontested divorce offers a more amicable and efficient resolution for couples seeking to end their marriage. In Minnesota, an uncontested divorce occurs when spouses agree on key issues, including child custody, [...]

Who’s Responsible If You Slip and Fall on Ice in MN?

Winter weather in Minnesota can be beautiful, but it can also be treacherous. Slippery sidewalks and icy parking lots can make it difficult to get around safely, and they can also increase the risk of slip and fall accidents.

Gaining Full Custody as a MN Father Is Tough but Not Impossible

When a child is born, a special bond forms between a baby and their parents. Children rely on both of them for care, to meet their basic needs, and to teach them about the world.

The state of Minnesota recognizes [...]

It’s Not the MN Business Owner Paying That Slip and Fall Claim

Minnesota is known for many things – and one of them is long snowy winters. For many Minnesotans, pulling out their parks, donning their boots, and shoveling some snow is simply par for the winter course.

Unfortunately, it’s also the [...]

I’m Being Ordered to Pay Restitution in MN — What Does That Mean?

When people say that “crime doesn’t pay,” they’re not exactly being truthful. While it is true that crime won’t end well for anyone involved, it can end in expenses for both the perpetrator and the victim.

Courts in Minnesota often [...]

MN Government Employees Have Rights Under ADA Laws

The Americans with Disability Act (ADA) was groundbreaking legislation that sought to help those with disabilities reduce instances of discrimination in the workplace.

Just as with most legislation, though, it’s a law that not every employer observes at all times [...]

MN Orders for Protection Can Get Sticky Around the Holidays

Most people are familiar, thanks to television and movies, with the idea of a restraining order. Still, orders for protection can be difficult to understand for those involved in personal situations of domestic violence.

In Minnesota, there are three different [...]

MN Legislators Still Side with Feds on Recreational Marijuana

Even though many Minnesota voters want to see the blanket legalization of marijuana in the state, the recreational use of marijuana is still illegal. Minnesota statutes still very much align with federal laws on marijuana being used recreationally.

That doesn’t [...]

Heading into MN Winter, Get the Right Snowmobile Coverage

Minnesota has already seen snow this fall – and it’s only going to keep on coming. In fact, according to the National Weather Service, Duluth averages below freezing temperatures in November and 9 days of snow.

The weather is only [...]

MN Courts Want to Help Parents Battling Opioid Addiction

While opioid addiction continues to ravage families across the United States, Minnesota is working hard to help keep drug offenders from prison.

They do so by helping them into treatment programs through specialized Drug Courts. They’ve even created a sub-court [...]

Duluth Police More Focused on Property Crimes Than Violence

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Inmate Search & General Jail Guide

Inmate Search | Inmate Mail | Inmate Phones | Orca Lookup & More

How To Visit An Inmate In Prison | All Your Questions Answered

Table of Contents

Visiting an inmate for the first time is one that is filled with mixed feelings of what to wear, what form of identification to present to the guards, what to bring along as a gift, if kids are allowed in, and other random thoughts like that.

With all these thoughts popping up in your head at the same time, you may end up more confused and frustrated. Not to worry!

This guide contains what you need to know when visiting an inmate for the first time, and perhaps will provide answers to all your confusions.

Types Of Prison Visitations

There are several types of visitation for inmates. Visitation ranges from video visitation, non-contact/telephone visitation, and contact visitation.

Prison Video Visitation

Video visitation is the one that’s mostly being used today. Just like the way you’d use Skye, video visitation can be done even from the comfort of your home.

No Contact Jail Visitation

Non-contact/ telephone visitation is one that involves sitting behind a glass barricade while talking with your inmate on the telephone.

Full Contact Prison Inmate Visitation

Contact visitation is the most common and often preferred by visitors. Here, you are able to sit with the inmate and talk for a short period of time. It even gives you the opportunity to even make contact with your ok inmate, however there’s a limitation to that.

Forms of contact usually allowed include a brief hug, hello, and goodbye. Holding of hands is often frowned at by prison officials.

inmate conjugal visits

What To Do Before You Visit A Prison

It is important that before you are granted access to visit your inmate, you must have previously been in contact with him/her. The prison has a visitors list that contains the friends and family members that are allowed to visit.

Some facilities provide inmates a list containing slots for 10 visitors that they wish to include. As such, the inmates must have all the details of the visitors he intends to include In the list, which include: the visitor’s full name, the visitor’s address, the phone number, and at times more other information about the visitor.

So if your inmate does not know all this information, you can send him a mail containing a letter that stipulates your information. 

Other facilities may request all prospective visitors of the inmate to fill out a visiting application (some only give out this form based on the wish of the inmate).

How To Apply For A Visitation At The Prison

The visiting application is given to visitors who intend to pay a visit to inmates, however not all facilities will request that you fill a visitors application (most facilities do anyway).

The visiting application is more like a questionnaire that contains a portion in which you are required to fill out your name, address, and questions that seeks to find out if you are a convicted felon, or if you’ve been incarcerated or worked in the department of corrections.

Proceed to answer, fill in your names and answer the questions as truthful as you can because the information provided will be used to perform a background check up on you.

The findings will determine if your visit will be approved or denied.

What Can Make You Denied From Visiting A Friend In Jail?

  • If the information provided in the visiting application is false.
  • If you’re a convicted felon.
  • If you’ve previously served time in a correctional facility, or have worked in the department of corrections.
  • If you have outstanding warrants.
  • If there’s a protective order against you or the inmate.
  • If you are seen as a threat to security at the facility.
  • If you are on PTI, probation, or parole (although some exceptions can be made to this).
  • If you’ve already filled a visiting application to another inmate at the facility.

You will only know if your visiting application is approved or denied when your inmate tells you, most institutions will not inform you. Therefore, you must ensure a constant communication with your inmate to ascertain the status of your application.

However, if you’re denied visiting privileges, you have a choice to appeal the decision. Only make sure you file for appeal within the stated time frame.

How To Prepare For A Prison Visitation

If your visiting application is approved by the facility, check the schedule of the visitation hours specified by the institution.

You check visiting hours for some facilities on their website, and be sure to double check if possible, as visiting hours may be changed at any time or even cancelled without notifying you.

A correctional facility may cancel visiting if the facility goes on a lockdown, if an inmate has escaped, or due to reasons known to the facility. An inmate may also be denied visiting privileges if they’re confined in solitary.

Once you are sure of the visiting hours, ensure to take along every needed form of identification on the day you intend visiting your inmate.

Although in most cases you only need your valid state issued identification card or drivers license, some facilities however vary in the type of identification they accept.

Visiting A Jail As A Minor Or With A Minor

If you’re visiting with a child or minor, the facility will require you to first fill out a special visiting with minors authorization form.

When such a minor is above 14, he/she would have to come along with a school issued photo ID or birth certificate before they’re allowed to visit.

Also, minors are not allowed to visit inmates alone, as it is required that they must be always accompanied by a parent or guardian. Inmates who were incarcerated for crimes against a child cannot have access to visits by minors.

Small children or babies may also need to come along with their birth certificate to be allowed to visit, but it is not a must in all cases. When visiting with children, try as much to control them because they’re found causing a nuisance, you can get kicked out from the visiting area.

How To Dress For A Prison Visitation

Every correctional facility has a dress code for visitors thus, if you’re visiting any, ensure to put on the specified dress code else you’ll be refused from visiting. 

Here are some things to keep in mind when selecting a dress for visiting inmates:

  • Do not put on a dress that resembles the inmate’s clothes in design or color, and that of the staff.
  • Do not visit in medical scrubs or any sort of uniform, as this may pose a threat to the facility’s security.
  • You must dress in shirts and put on shoes.
  • Clothes that expose sensitive parts of the body are prohibited.
  • See through fabrics are not allowed.
  • Sleeveless shirts are prohibited.
  • Shorts and skirts that are above the knee or those with slits are prohibited.
  • Offensive imprints or languages on clothing is prohibited.
  • Tight clothing which include spandex, leggings, tights are prohibited.
  • Jewelries are also prohibited, so keep that in mind when dressing.

Sometimes, it is up to the prison guard to scrutinize which kind of dressing is allowed into the prison. To avoid being sent back because of a violation in dress code, you can come with a change of clothing just in case.

Getting Searched At A Prison During Visitation

It is advisable to arrive a few minutes early to the facility when visiting, as you may be required to fill out more paperwork (you may get into trouble if you arrive too early though).

Keep in mind that you’ll be searched from your arrival at the parking lot, your car will also be searched by the prison guards or even security dogs for any incriminating item or one that violates the rules of the facility.

Even when you enter the facility, expect to be searched again usually by pat down or with a metal detector. And If you refuse to be searched, you’ll be banned from visiting.

There are even cases where visitors must consent to strip search before they’re allowed in, but if you’re not comfortable with this, it doesn’t mean you’ll be refused visitation. 

Strip searching was mainly done to detect drugs hidden in the body that scanners couldn’t pick. However, it is now a thing of the past as security dogs are used by facilities instead.

What To Take With You On A Prison Visitation

This varies from one facility to another. Some facilities may provide lockers that can be rented for about a quarter to store your belongings in, others do not.

You’re only allowed to bring in your ID, single car key, eyeglasses (if any), some change for use at the vending machine, as you may need it to buy snacks for your inmate while you talk.

If you’re visiting with a baby, you may be allowed to come with a feeding bottle and a change of diaper. Items such as medications, cigarettes are considered illegal, as you can be banned if found in possession of any of these, and possibly charged.

Questions About Visiting A Friend In Jail

If you have about visiting an inmate that was not answered in this article, you can post in the comment section below and we’ll do our best to provide answers to such questions.

Can you kiss on prison visits?

You can kiss during prison visitation at a low risk community prison, however, in many other centres, the case is different. Kissing on a prison visit depends on the type of prison facility where your loved one is incarcerated.

These days, most facilities do their best to prevent direct contact in order to avoid smuggling of drugs and other prohibited substances. If you intend to kiss your loved one, then make sure the rules in the facility permit you to do so.

How long does it take to get approved for prison visitation?

Most prison visitations are approved on a first-come first-served basis. Your request for a prison visit can be approved in less than a week, however the visitation date may vary.

You need to put in every prison visitation request on time so as to factor in the time it may take to process other requests submitted before you, and to give the prison operations director enough time to make adequate preparations for the security and safety of you and other visitors.

What is the process of visiting someone in prison?

For most prisons, you will need to fill out a visitation request online, and submit it for them to get started on processing your visitation request. FOr many others, you will need to schedule a visit through the visitation centre.

How do I visit someone in jail in Canada?

Most prisons in Canada accommodate visits through a visitation centre. You will need to schedule an appointment through the visitation centre for your request to be processed.

Can you wear jeans to visit an inmate?

Members of the public are allowed to wear jeans or any form of clothing to a prison visitation. Notwithstanding the type of clothe you put on, highly sophisticated infra-red sensors will always be at major entry points to scan you for prohibited items.

How many visits do prisoners get a week?

Prisoners are allowed to get as much visits as the prison can accommodate. Most prisons tailor their activities to only accept a number of visitors per day and once this number is reached, other visitation requests are pushed on to the next available day.

Are conjugal visits monitored?

Conjugal visits are usually monitored for the safety of both the inmate and the visitor. A highly trained staff will monitor the activities that happen during the visit to make sure that the visitation conforms with acceptable practices.

Conjugal visits were designed as a means to preserve families and give incarcerated people the opportunity to procreate even while in prison. These days, there are not many prison facilities around the world that still allow conjugal visits from an inmate’s registered spouse.

Can you swear in a letter to an inmate?

If a letter to an inmate contains a swear word, it will be given a second review to determine what to do with it. The level and context of the swearing in a letter will determine if it will be handed over to the inmate, or confiscated for vulgarity.

What happens to your clothes when you go to jail?

When you go to jail, your clothes are locked up in your property. This is a little lock box assigned to all inmates where clothes, keys, wallets, shoes and received books/letters are kept.

How should I dress for a prison visit?

While preparing for a prison visitation, wear something that you feel very comfortable in. Do not put on very oversized clothes that may put you on the spotlight and have the guards second-guessing if you;re hiding something underneath.

Do Death row inmates get visitors?

Yes. Death row inmates are allowed to receive visitors just like any other inmate. Friends and family, loved ones, lawyers, human rights organisations and other religious societies are allowed to visit inmates on death row.

Can you wear a bra in jail?

Inmates are given adequately sized bras in jail to put on. While these bras are issued, it is however the responsibility of the inmate to put them on.

Can you hug an inmate during visitation?

Hugging an inmate can be allowed in certain incarceration facilities, but in some others, a no contact law is usually enforced and must be adhered to.

Your ability to hug a loved one during a prison visitation will depend on the laws guiding that particular institution. Make sure you check in with the regulations before you attempt to hug an inmate.

Can you wear your wedding ring in jail?

A wedding ring is usually considered a sentimental item and thus, inmates are allowed to wear their wedding rings after they are vetted by the security department.

If an inmate poses some degree of threat, or is seen capable of inflicting bodily harm or injury through a ring, then they are denied the ability to wear their wedding ring while in prison.

Can you FaceTime inmates?

It is not possible to facetime with inmates. Electronic gadgets are prohibited in prisons and any inmate found with a mobile phone will face very serious charges which could increase their sentence.

What can you bring to a conjugal visit?

If you’re approved for a conjugal visit, you will be given a list of items that are permitted, and a list of items that are prohibited.

Breaking the law during a conjugal visit may lead to very serious consequences for both the visitor and the inmate.

What is a conjugal visit in jail?

A conjugal visit is a visitation that allows an inmate have some private time for intercourse with a listed spouse. This type of visitation is allowed to help families cope with their intimate desires.

Why are conjugal visits not allowed?

For most facilities, conjugal visits are denied because they pose a great risk to the operations of the prison facility. Most times, prisoners use conjugal visits as an opportunity to smuggle prohibited items like drugs and weapons into the prison facility.

Can you get sperm from an inmate for artificial insemination?

It is impossible to get a sperm from an inmate for artificial insemination. This is a practice that has not been approved in any prison facility. If you intend to conceive, you can request for a conjugal visit if it is allowed, or have intercourse with your partner if they are ever released to attend a funeral or family event.

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Prisons Insight

What Prisons in New York Have Conjugal Visits?

March 27, 2023

As of 2022, only four states in the US permit conjugal visits in their prisons, and New York is one of them. The New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervisions (DOCCS) still supports these visits through their Family Reunion Program (FRP). DOCCS recommends conjugal visits for several reasons, primarily to promote positive relationships between inmates and their families, and to enable inmates to stay up-to-date on their families’ situations before their release.

However, conjugal visits have been a contentious issue in the United States, and several states have discontinued their programs. In 1993, conjugal visits were permitted in 17 states, and the last state to close its program was New Mexico in 2016.

Despite the controversy, DOCCS continues to encourage conjugal visits as a means of maintaining family bonds and reducing recidivism rates. These visits are closely monitored and have specific eligibility criteria. Inmates must have exhibited good behavior, and their visitors must undergo background checks and adhere to strict rules during their visits.

Overview of conjugal visits in the New York State:

What to expect in a conjugal visit to new york, criteria of prisons in new york state to allow conjugal visits to happen:.

  • List of prisons in New York state that allows conjugal visits:

Family criteria for Conjugal Visits In New York State

The DOCCS’s Family Reunion Program, which permits conjugal visits, maintains that these visits are essential as they enable inmates to spend intimate time with their spouse or domestic partner.

According to the Family Reunion Program, conjugal visits serve several purposes, including fostering positive relationships between inmates and their families, reducing recidivism rates, and promoting responsible behavior among inmates. The program’s goals are achieved by facilitating visits in a controlled environment, providing counseling services to inmates and their families, and ensuring that all visitors undergo background checks and comply with the program’s guidelines.

The Family Reunion Program implemented by DOCCS recognizes the importance of preserving and strengthening family ties that have been disrupted due to incarceration, and conjugal visits are a key component in achieving this goal.

  • Research has shown that conjugal programs foster positive and responsible conduct in inmates.
  • These visits provide inmates with an opportunity to maintain intimate relationships with their partners, which helps to reduce stress and promote mental well-being.
  • Additionally, conjugal visits have been found to have positive effects on inmates’ behavior, including reducing disciplinary infractions and promoting rehabilitation.

The DOCCS Family Reunion Program enforces strict guidelines regarding the location of conjugal visits. The majority of these visits occur within the confines of 23 correctional facilities that allow for such visits to take place. These visits typically occur within well-furnished rooms, trailers, or cabins, which are equipped with board games and cards to pass the time.

Each facility has two rooms available for conjugal visits, with most visits lasting no longer than 24 hours. However, exceptional cases may be entertained, extending the duration to up to 48 hours.

Before entering the cabin or room, family members must undergo extreme scrutiny, and the DOCCS Family Reunion Program provides a list of approved items that can be brought in. As a result, visitors usually bring only essential items such as food, basic clothing, and an itinerary. Occasionally, visitors may bring a gaming machine to help pass the time.

The DOCCS Family Reunion Program has stringent guidelines regarding the location of conjugal visits, with visits taking place within designated rooms in 23 correctional facilities. Despite these restrictions, visitors are provided with basic amenities to make their stay as comfortable as possible, and the program permits some personal items while maintaining a high level of security.

To understand the criteria for conjugal visits in New York State prisons, it is important to consider the rulings of the US Supreme Court and Federal Courts on the matter.

Both courts have established that conjugal visits are a privilege rather than a constitutional right, granted only to prisoners who have demonstrated good behavior during their time in prison. Additionally, the courts have emphasized the need for strict regulation and have limited conjugal visits to the inmate’s blood relations.

The visits must take place within an enclosed cabin on prison grounds, though exceptionally well-behaved prisoners may be allowed to have visits in a public park. However, prisoners convicted of child or domestic abuse are ineligible for conjugal visits.

The DOCCS Family Reunion Program reflects these court rulings in establishing the eligibility criteria for conjugal visits in New York State prisons.

In order to be eligible for a conjugal visit through the DOCCS Family Reunion Program, certain criteria must be met.

  • Firstly, inmates must have served at least six months of their prison sentence before they can file an appeal for a conjugal visit to proceed. However, if the prisoner is transferred to a low-security prison, they may apply for a visit after waiting for 30 days. If the request is not accepted within 90 days, the inmate may reapply.
  • Secondly, the DOCCS Family Reunion Program aims to use conjugal visits as an opportunity for inmates to display good behavior throughout their entire prison term.
  • Therefore, any reports of disciplinary issues or misconduct may be used to reject the inmate’s application. It is essential that inmates refrain from engaging in any sort of fight or disciplinary issue to maintain their eligibility for a conjugal visit.

These criteria are critical components of the DOCCS Family Reunion Program’s eligibility requirements, which aim to ensure that the program is reserved for inmates who have demonstrated good behavior and have not engaged in any disciplinary issues.

  • Spouse: The DOCCS Family Reunion Program has specific eligibility requirements for legal spouses of inmates who wish to participate in conjugal visits. Firstly, the inmate must have been married to their spouse for at least six months before their arrest, and their spouse must have no criminal record. Additionally, spouses must possess valid documents during the time of their visit.

It is important to note that even if the family arrives at the conjugate cabin, the DOCCS Family Reunion Program reserves the right to reject the visit if they discover any issues with the eligibility requirements. This ensures that the program is reserved for legal spouses who meet all the eligibility criteria and that the program is not being misused in any way.

  • Children: Although it is rare, the DOCCS Family Reunion Program does allow children to participate in conjugal visits if they meet certain eligibility requirements. Firstly, children must be 18 years of age or above to participate. In the case of minors, they must be accompanied by an adult if their application is accepted.

However, unaccompanied minor visits may be allowed after a special review and with the approval of the superintendent. This ensures that the program is reserved for individuals who meet all eligibility requirements and that the safety and security of all parties involved are not compromised.

  • Grandparents: The DOCCS Family Reunion Program permits grandparents to participate in conjugal visits with the inmate.
  • Foster parents & guardians: In addition to legal spouses, children, and grandparents, the DOCCS Family Reunion Program also permits foster parents and guardians to participate in conjugal visits with the inmate. However, proper verification of their claims must be provided to ensure that only eligible individuals are allowed to participate in the program.
  • Nieces and Nephews: Under certain circumstances, the DOCCS Family Reunion Program may make special considerations to allow an inmate to meet their nieces and nephews who are above the age of 18. This is done on a case-by-case basis, and the eligibility criteria must be met before such visits are approved.
  • Siblings: Inmates are also allowed to meet their siblings.
  • Stepchildren: The DOCCS Family Reunion Program permits an inmate to meet their stepchildren, provided that a written statement from a non-custodial and biological parent is provided. The stepchildren must also be accompanied by their biological parents during the visit. This ensures that only eligible individuals are allowed to participate in the program and all necessary precautions are taken to ensure the safety and security of everyone involved.
  • Cousins and In-laws: In accordance with the DOCCS Family Reunion Program guidelines, an inmate is not permitted to meet with their cousins and in-laws, including their mother-in-law, brother-in-law, father-in-law, and sister-in-law. While inmates can request a special review for such cases, it is rare for such requests to be approved. In most cases, the DOCCS Family Reunion Program adheres strictly to its guidelines and policies to ensure the safety and security of all parties involved.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are conjugal visits in the context of prisons in new york.

Conjugal visits, also known as family reunion programs, allow inmates to spend extended private time with their legal spouses or domestic partners inside a designated cabin or room within the prison grounds.

Are conjugal visits a constitutional right for inmates in New York?

No, conjugal visits are not considered a constitutional right, but rather a privilege for well-behaved inmates.

Who is eligible for conjugal visits in New York prisons?

Inmates who have served at least six months of their sentence, exhibited good behavior throughout their incarceration, and have legal spouses or domestic partners with no criminal record are eligible for conjugal visits.

Can children visit during conjugal visits in New York prisons?

Generally, children under 18 are not allowed to visit during conjugal visits, but exceptions can be made in rare cases.

Who else can visit during conjugal visits in New York prisons?

Grandparents, foster parents, and legal guardians are allowed to visit if proper verification of their claims is provided. Stepchildren may also be allowed to visit if accompanied by their biological parents and with written consent from non-custodial biological parents.

Can an inmate meet their cousins or in-laws during conjugal visits in New York prisons?

No, cousins and in-laws, including mother-in-law, father-in-law, brother-in-law, and sister-in-law, are not allowed to visit during conjugal visits. Exceptions can be made through a special review, but it is often not approved.

the DOCCS Family Reunion Program provides the opportunity for conjugal visits to inmates in low-security prisons in the state of New York. However, there are strict eligibility criteria that must be met by both the inmate and their visitors, including having a legal marriage of at least six months, exhibiting good behavior during their time in prison, and passing strict background checks.

The program also has restrictions on which family members are eligible to visit, with blood relatives being given priority over other relatives. The conjugal visits are also subject to strict regulations and are usually limited to enclosed cabins or rooms within the prison grounds. While the program is not without controversy, it provides a means for inmates to maintain a connection with their families and loved ones during their time in prison.

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Veteran Miami Prosecutor Quits After Judge's Rebuke Over Conjugal Visits for Jailhouse Informants

A veteran prosecutor in Miami has quit after a judge found that state investigators manipulated witnesses by providing conjugal visits and other favors to jailhouse informants in exchange for their testimony in a high-profile death penalty case against a local gang leader

Veteran Miami Prosecutor Quits After Judge's Rebuke Over Conjugal Visits for Jailhouse Informants

Alan Diaz

FILE -Miami-Dade state attorney Michael Von Zamft talks to reporters outside the Miami-Dade County courtroom in Miami, Monday, June 15, 2009. Michael Von Zamft, a veteran prosecutor in Miami has resigned after a judge found that state investigators manipulated witnesses, including possibly providing conjugal visits to jailhouse informants in exchange for their testimony, in a high-profile death penalty case against a notorious gang leader, Friday, March 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Alan Diaz, File)

MIAMI, Florida (AP) — A veteran prosecutor in Miami has resigned after a judge found that state investigators manipulated witnesses, including possibly providing conjugal visits to jailhouse informants in exchange for their testimony, in a high-profile death penalty case against a notorious gang leader.

During his career Michael Von Zamft has led some of the biggest murder, conspiracy and racketeering cases in the Florida state attorney’s office in Miami and at times served as a trainer and supervisor to younger prosecutors.

He resigned this week following a stunning rebuke by the judge, who disqualified him and another prosecutor, Stephen Mitchell, from the resentencing trial of gang leader and convicted murderer Corey Smith.

Judge Andrea Ricker Wolfson said she found evidence of “witness testimony manipulation” and “severe recklessness” by prosecutors stretching back to the case's origins 24 years ago and continuing to the present.

“The allegations in this claim are like a rabbit hole in Alice in Wonderland,” the judge wrote in her 15-page order. “The prosecutors in this case have lost sight of their responsibility, and justice demands their disqualification.”

State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said Friday that she accepted the resignation of Von Zamft, her colleague of almost 30 years, and reaffirmed her commitment that all prosecutors seek “truth and justice” lawfully and with “honesty, integrity and professionalism.”

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Her office did not respond to questions by The Associated Press about whether she had initiated any discipline actions against the prosecution team behind the case or filed a complaint to the Florida Bar.

“I will ask my top litigators to examine every aspect of this case and determine the best path forward,” Rundle said in a statement, in which she also defended the decision to seek the death penalty for Smith. “We are also the voice of the murder victims who cannot speak for themselves.”

Von Zamft declined to comment.

Among the irregularities the judge found was testimony from inmates who said they were granted favors including conjugal visits when they were brought to the Miami Police Department's Homicide Unit to coordinate their testimony against Smith as state witnesses.

But the most damaging allegations against Von Zamft came from recordings of his conversations with an inmate in which, in anticipation of the resentencing trial, he discussed arranging jailhouse meetings among several witnesses so they can coordinate their testimony — something Smith's lawyers were never told, as is required in criminal prosecutions.

In a 2022 phone call, Von Zamft also discussed sidelining another witness whose version of events had shifted over the years, saying that if she didn't testify as he wanted, “I will find a way to make her unavailable” and read her previous testimony into the record.

“On television, Perry Mason, defense attorney extraordinaire, always managed to find the smoking gun at the end of every episode,” the judge wrote of that exchange. “In real life, this happens very rarely. It happened here.”

David Oscar Markus, a Miami defense attorney who has successfully litigated misconduct allegations against federal prosecutors, said the admonishment of the prosecutors is as brave as it is rare.

“Sadly this is not some isolated incident,” Markus said. “If a defense lawyer had come close to this conduct, he would be in handcuffs and charged with obstruction. But little is done to prosecutors who cross the line.”

Smith was an alleged leader of what's known as the John Doe Gang, a drug organization that sold marijuana and crack cocaine in a poor, predominantly Black neighborhood of Miami in the late 1990s.

His conviction in 2004 in the killing of four individuals was touted at the time as a major victory against gangs and was the culmination of years of federal and state investigations.

Another prosecutor who worked on that case, Bronwyn Miller, was appointed as a judge on the Miami-Dade County Court. She now sits on the Third District Court of Appeal in Florida.

Smith was sentenced to death for two of the killings on the recommendation of a majority of jury members, but in 2017 state law changed to require a unanimous vote in capital punishment cases. As a result the death sentence was vacated.

Despite her admonishment of the prosecutors, Wolfson rejected Smith's argument that there is a broader culture of misconduct that should bar Rundle's office from pressing forward on the case.

“We cannot help but remain concerned that given the tenure of these attorneys, the issues raised were not unique to them or this case,” Craig Whisenhunt and Allison Miller, attorneys for Smith, said in a statement.

This story has been updated to correct the spelling of attorney Craig Whisenhunt's last name.

Follow Goodman on Twitter: @APJoshGoodman

Copyright 2024 The  Associated Press . All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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A majority of family medicine visits should qualify for the visit complexity add-on code. Here's how to start using it in your practice.

THOMAS J. WEIDA, MD, FAAFP, AND JANE A. WEIDA, MD, FAAFP

Fam Pract Manag. 2024;31(2):6-10

Author disclosures: no relevant financial relationships.

have conjugal visits

Primary care is unique in that it is based on an ongoing relationship with patients. Effective Jan. 1, 2024, traditional Medicare (and some Medicare Advantage plans) will recognize the value of that relationship by reimbursing for HCPCS code G2211, which clinicians can add on to an office/outpatient visit evaluation and management (E/M) code. G2211 documents that the longitudinal relationship has complexity beyond that captured in the work of standard E/M codes. This complexity exists for chronic care and even some acute care visits. The deciding factor is the continuing relationship between the clinician and the patient.

DEFINITION OF G2211

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) defines G2211 as follows:

Visit complexity inherent to evaluation and management associated with medical care services that serve as the continuing focal point for all needed health care services and/or with medical care services that are part of ongoing care related to a patient's single, serious condition or a complex condition. (Add-on code, list separately in addition to office/outpatient evaluation and management visit, new or established.) 1

There are two aspects to this definition. The first part underscores that the basis for G2211 is not the patient's clinical condition but the clinician's continued responsibility for the patient. The second part acknowledges that an ongoing relationship may exist for a single, serious condition or a complex condition even if the clinician is not the focal point for all services; CMS provides the example of a patient with HIV who receives ongoing care from an infectious disease doctor. 2

CMS created the new G2211 add-on code to recognize that the longitudinal relationship with a patient has complexity beyond that captured in the work of standard E/M codes.

Code G2211 can be added to office/outpatient E/M visits (99202-99205 or 99211-99215) based on the clinician's continued responsibility for the patient, not based on the patient's clinical condition.

Additionally, even if the clinician is not the focal point for all services for the patient, an ongoing relationship may exist for a “single, serious condition or a complex condition,” justifying use of G2211.

USING G2211

G2211 may only be added to a new or established patient office/outpatient visit E/M code (99202-99205 or 99211-99215). It may be added whether medical decision making or time is used to select the level of service. G2211 may be used for either chronic care visits (with no minimum number of chronic conditions needed to qualify) or acute visits as long as a longitudinal relationship exists or will exist with the patient. Therefore, a new patient visit can qualify when the patient will be establishing with the clinician as their medical home, and an acute care visit with an established patient can qualify if the clinician's practice serves as the continuing focal point for all needed health care services.

CMS has not required any additional documentation to support code G2211. However, if there might be any doubt about the longitudinal patient relationship (or intent to provide longitudinal care), it may be helpful to demonstrate it in the visit note. Particularly for acute problems, documenting the longitudinal relationship's impact on the acute visit could be helpful. For example, the assessment and plan could read as follows: Influenza A, X prescribed, call if not improved in X days; make an appointment to return for influenza immunization in about 2 weeks; next visit as needed for new or worsening problem, already scheduled annual wellness visit .

G2211 may also be used in instances where a “patient's overall, ongoing care is being managed, monitored, and/or observed by a specialist for a particular disease condition.” 1 G2211 is an add-on code to the E/M visit, and modifier 25 does not need to be added to the E/M code. (In fact, G2211 cannot be billed if the visit requires modifier 25; see the exclusions section below.) G2211 can be billed with an office visit E/M service provided via telehealth.

EXAMPLES WHERE G2211 WOULD QUALIFY

A 65-year-old established patient on Medicare whom you have been treating for diabetes, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia presents to your office for a routine check. You order an A1C, comprehensive metabolic panel, lipid panel, and urine for microalbumin, and you adjust the patient's blood pressure medication. This would qualify for a 99214 E/M code as well as the G2211 add-on code because you have an ongoing relationship with the patient.

A 72-year-old patient on Medicare who is new to the practice visits your office to establish ongoing care and also has sinus congestion. This would qualify for an appropriate E/M code as well as the G2211 add-on code. In this example, “the complexity that code G2211 captures isn't in the clinical condition — the sinus congestion.

The complexity is in the cognitive load of the continued responsibility of being the focal point for all needed services for this patient.” 3 The intent to establish ongoing care for this new patient suffices.

A 68-year-old established patient who sees you yearly for a Medicare annual wellness visit and periodically for acute problems presents at this visit with complaint of a cough and concern for influenza. You order a rapid test for influenza and recommend influenza vaccination after the patient recovers from this illness and each season thereafter. This would qualify for an appropriate E/M code as well as the G2211 add-on code because you serve as the continuing focal point for all of the patient's health care.

An endocrinologist has been managing a Medicare patient's uncontrolled diabetes and complications for years, and the patient returns for a recheck. This would qualify for an appropriate E/M code as well as the G2211 add-on code because the physician has an ongoing relationship with the patient that involves care of a “single, serious condition or a complex condition” (diabetes, in this instance).

CMS will not pay for G2211 when the E/M service is reported with modifier 25 (significant, separately identifiable E/M service by the same physician or other qualified health care professional on the same day of the procedure or other service). 4 The intent was to exclude G2211 from instances where minor procedures are performed on the same date as an office visit, which often occurs outside of primary care and does not reflect the visit complexity and ongoing relationship otherwise envisioned by G2211. In those instances, CMS considers the additional work and complexity to be part of the procedure code. Unfortunately, the unintended effect of CMS's decision is to exclude the use of G2211 in primary care when modifier 25 is applicable, such as medication administration (e.g., 96372) or spirometry (e.g., 94010 or 94060) in addition to an E/M service. CMS may make additional clarifications on this issue in upcoming rules as they monitor the use of G2211 and have further discussions with interested parties.

Because G2211 may only be reported in addition to office/outpatient E/M visits (99202-99215), it cannot be attached to Medicare annual wellness visits or transitional care management visits. Complexity is already factored into the work and codes for these visits. G2211 also cannot be added to any non-office-visit E/M codes, such as inpatient, emergency department, nursing home, or home visit codes. G2211 would not be appropriate for most urgent care center visits, given the one-off nature of those encounters.

Additionally, CMS considers G2211 to be inappropriate when the visit “is provided by a professional whose relationship with the patient is of a discrete, routine, or time-limited nature; such as, but not limited to, a mole removal” — unless comorbidities are present or addressed, or unless the clinician has taken (or plans to take) responsibility for ongoing care for the patient. 5

CMS has not clarified in writing whether G2211 can be billed by a physician covering for a colleague who is the patient's ongoing source of care or by a nonphysician provider billing for an acute visit with a patient whose ongoing physician is in the same practice. However, based on statements from CMS staff at a Jan. 24, 2024, Open Door Forum , CMS seems inclined to think of clinicians in the same specialty and same group interchangeably for purposes of reporting G2211. (We will update the online version of this article when CMS publishes more guidance.)

EXAMPLES WHERE G2211 WOULD NOT QUALIFY

A 65-year-old established patient on Medicare whom you have been treating for diabetes, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia presents to your office for a routine check. You order an A1C, comprehensive metabolic panel, lipid panel, and urine for microalbumin, and you adjust the patient's blood pressure medication. You also order injection of a medication reported with 96372. This would qualify for a 99214 but would not qualify for G2211 because adding the injection code, 96372, requires that you add modifier 25 to the E/M code.

A 67-year-old Medicare patient sees you for a subsequent Medicare annual wellness visit. G2211 cannot be added because the proper code for this visit is G0439, a HCPCS code, which is not one of the applicable E/M codes. If you had provided the annual wellness visit in addition to an office/outpatient E/M service, modifier 25 would have been required, which would also disqualify the visit for code G2211.

A 70-year-old Medicare patient sees a gastroenterologist for a screening colonoscopy exam without expectation of an ongoing relationship. G2211 cannot be added as there is no ongoing relationship established (or expected to be established).

G2211 DOs AND DON'Ts

Do use G2211 for:

✓ Office/outpatient E/M visits (99202-99205 or 99211-99215) if you are the “continuing focal point for all needed health care services” for the patient, whether the condition is acute or chronic. (If you are not the continuing focal point, use G2211 only if you provide ongoing care for a serious or complex condition.)

Don't use G2211 for:

✗ Non-office E/M visits,

✗ Urgent care center visits (i.e., one-off visits),

✗ Transitional care management visits,

✗ Medicare annual wellness visits,

✗ Visits requiring modifier 25 (i.e., services that when reported on the same date as an office/outpatient E/M service necessitate adding modifier 25 to the E/M code). Examples:

  • Annual wellness visit (G0438-G0439),
  • Injection of medication (96372),
  • Spirometry, inhalation treatment, or other pulmonary function services (94010-94799),
  • Osteopathic manipulative therapy (98925-98929),
  • Annual alcohol misuse screening (G0442),
  • Annual depression screening (G0444),
  • High-intensity behavioral counseling to prevent sexually transmitted infection (G0445),
  • Annual, face-to-face intensive behavioral therapy for cardiovascular disease (G0446),
  • Face-to-face behavioral counseling for obesity (G0447).

USE IN FAMILY MEDICINE RESIDENCY PROGRAMS

Unlike many other specialty residency programs, where patients may see different residents but the same attending physician who is established with the patient and bills for the visit, family medicine patients may see the same resident but have multiple attending physicians who bill for the visits. G2211 is not included in the primary care exception, so that would suggest that in order to use this code for visits that normally qualify for the primary care exception (straightforward and low complexity medical decision making), the attending physician would also need to see the patient. CMS has offered no written guidance in this area. However, at the Jan. 24 Open Door Forum , CMS staff suggested that guidance may be forthcoming allowing G2211 to be billed with E/M services on the primary care exception list if the resident is serving as the focal point for the patient's care.

Until specific guidance is released, given the intent of CMS to recognize the value of the longitudinal relationship between the physician and patient, the following billing practices seem appropriate. If the patient sees the resident who usually provides their care, then it would seem appropriate to use G2211. This would apply to continuity of care issues or acute issues where ongoing care influences the decision-making. If a resident doesn't usually see the patient for care but is seeing the patient for a continuity-type visit, it would seem appropriate to use G2211, as billing would be submitted under one Tax Identification Number (TIN) for the residency practice. Additionally, this would fulfill the intent of the longitudinal relationship for the practice. It would be important for the resident to document the ongoing relationship they have with the patient or the impact the patient's total health has on the current issue. The attending physician would also need to see the patient and document appropriately. Again, this is simply what seems appropriate given the intent of the code, but we look forward to guidance from CMS.

Medicare's national payment amount for G2211 is $16.05; the actual allowance will vary geographically. This value will be subject to the patient's deductible and coinsurance. A Medicare patient often has a 20% coinsurance; therefore, if this code reimburses $16, the patient will be responsible for $3.20. Practices should be prepared to explain to patients what this additional charge is.

CMS estimates that practices will use G2211 with more than half of office/outpatient E/M services once physicians become familiar with the code. So, assuming you provide 20 visits per day, 200 days per year, and half of your visits qualify for the new code, it could bring in $32,080 per year. Some Medicare Advantage plans may pay for this code, while others may consider the work to already be included in capitation rates or other services paid to the practice. Private insurers' coverage of G2211 will also vary because it is not a CPT code, but a Medicare HCPCS code. Each individual insurer sets its own payment policy, just as each state sets its own Medicaid payment policy.

OVERALL, IT'S A WIN

Although limited by legislative actions and budget neutrality, CMS is recognizing the contribution primary care (and other longitudinal care that consists primarily of E/M services) makes to the overall management of Medicare patients. The visit complexity add-on code, G2211, will be valuable for family physicians. Given that Medicare will be paying less per visit in 2024 because the Medicare RVU conversion factor has decreased by $1.14 per RVU, adding this new code will provide a positive net payment for office/outpatient E/M visits. Practices should check the payment policies of their Medicare Advantage plans and private insurers to determine whether they will be paying for this code.

Medicare and Medicaid Programs; CY 2024 Payment Policies Under the Physician Fee Schedule and Other Changes to Part B Payment and Coverage Policies. 88 FR 78970. https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2023-24184/p-1379

Medicare and Medicaid Programs; CY 2024 Payment Policies Under the Physician Fee Schedule and Other Changes to Part B Payment and Coverage Policies. 88 FR 78974. https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2023-24184/p-1397

How to use the office & outpatient evaluation and management visit complexity add-on code G2211. MLN Matters , 13473. Jan. 18, 2024.

Current Procedural Terminology 2024 Professional Edition. American Medical Association. Appendix A:971.

Medicare and Medicaid Programs; CY 2024 Payment Policies Under the Physician Fee Schedule and Other Changes to Part B Payment and Coverage Policies. 88 FR 78971. https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2023-24184/p-1385

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IMAGES

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  2. So What are the Actual Rules with Conjugal Visits and How Did They Get

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  5. Conjugal visits: A guilty pleasure or a much-needed human connection

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  6. So What are the Actual Rules with Conjugal Visits?

    have conjugal visits

COMMENTS

  1. States That Allow Conjugal Visits

    A conjugal visit is private time that a prisoner may spend with a spouse or married partner. The idea behind such visitation is to allow inmates to have intimate contact, that is, sex, with their partners. Depending on the state's extended family visitation program, a conjugal or extended family visit may last a few hours or overnight. ...

  2. Conjugal visit

    A conjugal visit is a scheduled period in which an inmate of a prison or jail is permitted to spend several hours or days in private with a visitor. The visitor is usually their legal spouse. The generally recognized basis for permitting such visits in modern times is to preserve family bonds and increase the chances of success for a prisoner's eventual return to ordinary life after release ...

  3. How Do Conjugal Visits Work?

    A conjugal visit is a popular practice that allows inmates to spend time alone with their loved one (s), particularly a significant other, while incarcerated. By implication, and candidly, conjugal visits afford prisoners an opportunity to, among other things, engage their significant other sexually. However, in actual content, such visits go ...

  4. Conjugal Visit Laws by State 2024

    Conjugal visits began as a way for an incarcerated partner to spend private time with their domestic partner, spouse, or life partner. Historically, these were granted as a result of mental health as well as some rights that have since been argued in court. For example, cases have gone to the Supreme Court which have been filed as visits being ...

  5. The Process and Regulations for Conducting Conjugal Visits in ...

    The short answer is yes. Other countries do have conjugal visits. Conjugal visits are actually more common in other countries than they are here in the US. Canada, Mexico, Spain, Brazil, and South America are some countries that allow conjugal visits. Like in the US, conjugal visits in other countries aim to help couples stay close.

  6. Which states allow conjugal visits?

    Conjugal visits and family visits are the first two methods named by the prison commissioner, never mind that I have yet to find any evidence that Florida ever allowed those kinds of visits. Often, the excuse for policing visits so strictly is that drugs can be exchanged. But I know that lie is used for every type of control in prison.

  7. 9 Arresting Facts About Conjugal Visits

    6. PRISONERS IN INDIA HAVE THE LEGAL RIGHT, NOT PRIVILEGE, TO BEAR CHILDREN. In 2015, India's government passed legislation stating that conjugal visits are a right, not a privilege, for married ...

  8. Controversy and Conjugal Visits

    "The words 'conjugal visit' seem to have a dirty ring to them for a lot of people," a man named John Stefanisko wrote for The Bridge, a quarterly at the Connecticut Correctional Institution at Somers, in December 1963.This observation marked the beginning of a long campaign—far longer, perhaps, than the men at Somers could have anticipated—for conjugal visits in the state of ...

  9. An Incarcerated Journalist Explains Conjugal Visits and What Sex in

    Today, only four states allow conjugal visits—New York, California, Washington, and Connecticut—though when Covid came, Connecticut's program was suspended, and it has yet to return. Federal ...

  10. What is a Conjugal Visit and Do California Prisons Offer Them?

    A conjugal visit is where an inmate gets to see their family with some slight level of privacy and intimacy. One of the big misconceptions about these visits is that they are purely designed to allow prisoners to have sex. While that may be how the program started and may be part of the experience for married couples, the true purpose of the ...

  11. So What are the Actual Rules with Conjugal Visits and How Did They Get

    In fact, in New York, it's reported that around 40% of conjugal visits don't include a spouse or the like, rather often just children and other loved ones. For this reason, these visits are usually officially called things like "Extended Family Visits" or, in New York, the "Family Reunion Program". As one California inmate summed up ...

  12. Does Everyone Have the Right to Conjugal Visits?

    By Chuck Klosterman. April 18, 2014. Earlier this year, the Mississippi Department of Corrections decided to stop offering hourlong conjugal visits, depriving about 155 inmates (out of more than ...

  13. What States Allow Conjugal Visits?

    Only Four States Still Allow Conjugal Visits. As of 2015, the only states allowing conjugal visits are California, New York, Washington, and Connecticut. Mississippi and New Mexico also had conjugal visit policies before. However, Mississippi halted allowing these visits on February 1, 2014, and New Mexico did the same on May 1, 2014.

  14. What's The Deal With Conjugal Visits In Prison?

    Conjugal visits are usually only allowed in medium security or lower prisons, and are now allowed for prisoners convicted of sexual assaults. But each state has its own rules: Only New York and California, for example, allow same-sex conjugal visits. And in Connecticut, according to Thrillist, a spouse or partner is required to visit with the ...

  15. Conjugal Visits

    Conjugal Visit Rules Good behavior is an obvious requirement for earning family and conjugal visitation rights, but there's a bit more to it than that. For the most part, the rules surrounding family visits are the same; they must be in medium security or lower prisons, and they must not have been convicted of sexual assault .

  16. Death Row Prisoners: Visitation Rights

    Conjugal Visits. One type of contact visit is the conjugal or extended family visit. Conjugal visits are usually longer (sometimes lasting a few days) and take place in private rooms or trailers. Prisoners who have conjugal visits with their spouses may have sexual relations. Proponents argue that conjugal visits maintain family ties, and some ...

  17. PDF KNOW YOUR RIGHTS RESTRICTIONS ON VISITATION

    The Constitution does not require contact visits (prison visitations that permit visitors and inmates to have a limited degree of contact without a glass-barrier)8 or conjugal visits (unsupervised visits between inmates and their spouses, usually over a weekend, which permit sexual contact)9 either for convicted prisoners or for pre-trial detainees

  18. Conjugal Visitation in American Prisons Today

    American courts have almost unanimously refused to declare that any class of incarcerated persons is entitled to conjugal visitation rights. Only one court decision has declared that any such right exists. However, demands are still made in the courts for the implementation of conjugal visitation programs. Evolving standards of what constitutes ...

  19. One Conjugal Visit

    Back in the 90's, 17 states allowed prisoners to have these conjugal visits. But things have changed. Earlier this year, Mississippi and New Mexico both ended conjugal visits in their prisons and today only three states, New York, Washington and California allow inmates to have this kind of intimacy.

  20. BOP: How to visit a federal inmate

    The Federal Bureau of Prisons does not permit conjugal visits. Plan your trip. Find out when you can visit and get directions to the facility. Visiting Schedules All institutions have visiting hours on Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays; and most have them at other times during the week. Weekends are the most popular time to visit so prisons may ...

  21. Are Conjugal Visits Really Allowed in MN?

    In movies and on television, the idea of conjugal visits in prison seems universal, but it's actually not a reality in a good number of states, including Minnesota. A petition made the rounds recently online to try to change this fact. A woman requested the state's Senator, Amy Klobuchar, to help make conjugal visits a right for inmates in Minnesota. The petition closed and the laws have ...

  22. How To Visit An Inmate In Prison

    Breaking the law during a conjugal visit may lead to very serious consequences for both the visitor and the inmate. What is a conjugal visit in jail? A conjugal visit is a visitation that allows an inmate have some private time for intercourse with a listed spouse. This type of visitation is allowed to help families cope with their intimate ...

  23. What Prisons in New York Have Conjugal Visits?

    Additionally, the courts have emphasized the need for strict regulation and have limited conjugal visits to the inmate's blood relations. The visits must take place within an enclosed cabin on prison grounds, though exceptionally well-behaved prisoners may be allowed to have visits in a public park. However, prisoners convicted of child or ...

  24. Veteran Miami Prosecutor Quits After Judge's Rebuke Over Conjugal

    Michael Von Zamft, a veteran prosecutor in Miami has resigned after a judge found that state investigators manipulated witnesses, including possibly providing conjugal visits to jailhouse ...

  25. G2211: Simply Getting Paid for Complexity

    The visit complexity add-on code, G2211, will be valuable for family physicians. Given that Medicare will be paying less per visit in 2024 because the Medicare RVU conversion factor has decreased ...