federal prison conjugal visit

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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.

How Do Conjugal Visits Work?

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?

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.

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 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.

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 Visits

Why they’re disappearing, which states still use them, and what really happens during those overnight visits..

Although conjugal, or “extended,” visits play a huge role in prison lore, in reality, very few inmates have access to them. Twenty years ago, 17 states offered these programs. Today, just four do: California, Connecticut, New York, and Washington. No federal prison offers extended, private visitation.

Last April, New Mexico became the latest state to cancel conjugal visits for prisoners after a local television station revealed that a convicted killer, Michael Guzman, had fathered four children with several different wives while in prison. Mississippi had made a similar decision in January 2014.

A Stay at the “Boneyard”

In every state that offers extended visits, good prison behavior is a prerequisite, and inmates convicted of sex crimes or domestic violence, or who have life sentences, are typically excluded.

The visits range from one hour to three days, and happen as often as once per month. They take place in trailers, small apartments, or “family cottages” built just for this purpose, and are sometimes referred to as “ boneyards .” At the MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution in Connecticut, units are set up to imitate homes. Each apartment has two bedrooms, a dining room, and a living room with a TV, DVD player, playing cards, a Jenga game, and dominoes. In Washington, any DVD a family watches must be G-rated. Kitchens are typically fully functional, and visitors can bring in fresh ingredients or cooked food from the outside.

In California, inmates and their visitors must line up for inspection every four hours throughout the weekend visit, even in the middle of the night. Many prisons provide condoms for free. In New Mexico, before the extended visitation program was canceled, the prisoner’s spouse could be informed if the inmate had tested positive for a sexually transmitted infection. After the visit, both inmates and visitors are searched, and inmates typically have their urine tested to check for drugs or alcohol, which are strictly prohibited.

What Everyone Gets Wrong

Conjugal visits are not just about sex. In fact, they are officially called “family visits,” and kids are allowed to stay overnight, too. In Connecticut, a spouse or partner can’t come alone: the child of the inmate must be present. In Washington, two related inmates at the same facility, such as siblings or a father and son, are allowed to arrange a joint visit with family members from the outside. Only about a third of extended visits in the state take place between spouses alone.

The Insider’s Perspective

Serena L. was an inmate at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in New York from 1999 to 2002. During that time, she qualified for just one overnight trailer visit. Her 15-year-old sister, who lived on Long Island, persuaded a friend to drive her to the prison. “I remember her coming through the gate, carrying two big bags of food, and she said, ‘I got your favorite: Oreos!’ ” Serena says. “It was like a little slumber party for us. When I was first incarcerated, we had tried to write to each other and talk to each other by phone, but there was lots we weren’t really emotionally able to come to terms with until we had that private space, without a CO watching, to do it.”

The (Checkered) History

Conjugal visits began around 1918 at Parchman Farm, a labor camp in Mississippi. At first, the visits were for black prisoners only, and the visitors were local prostitutes, who arrived on Sundays and were paid to service both married and single inmates. According to historian David Oshinsky, Jim Crow-era prison officials believed African-American men had stronger sex drives than whites, and would not work as hard in the cotton fields if they were not sexually sated. The program expanded in the 1940s to include white, male inmates and their wives, and in the 1970s to include female inmates.

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Visiting Applications and Rules for Visiting Federal Bureau of Prisons (all BOP)

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Federal Prisons Inmate visitation application  -  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 sends the completed form back to the inmate's address (listed on the form).
• They 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.

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

Who can an inmate add to their visiting list.

Immediate Family:

• Step-parent(s)
• Foster parent(s)
• Grandparents

Other types of approved visitors:

• 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 (PSR) 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  - Review all visiting rules, regulations, and procedures before your visit.

Dress Code Wear clothing that is appropriate for a large gathering of men, women, and young children. Wearing inappropriate clothing (such as provocative or revealing clothes) may result in your being denied visitation.

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)

Visiting Duration By law, an inmate gets at least four hours of visiting time per month but usually, the prison can provide more. However, the Warden can restrict the length of visits or the number of people who can visit at once, to avoid overcrowding in the visiting room.

General Behavior Because many people are usually visiting, it is important visits are quiet, orderly, and dignified. The visiting room officer can require you to leave if either you or the inmate is not acting appropriately.

Physical Contact In most cases, handshakes, hugs, and kisses (in good taste) are allowed at the beginning and end of a visit. Staff may limit contact for security reasons (to prevent people from trying to introduce contraband) and to keep the visiting area orderly. 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 choose to limit visits to either Saturday or Sunday and the day will vary for each inmate. Other factors that can affect the days and times you can visit include:

• 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.

How to get there Unfortunately, there is no Government payment or reimbursement for transportation. Please arrange transportation to and from the facility accordingly. If you have any questions, please call the prison facility. Staff can help with directions, including how to get there by public transportation when available.

Reckoning with the South

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.

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.

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.

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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conjugal visit

• 1.1 History of Conjugal Visits
• 1.2.1 Potential Benefits
• 1.2.2 Criticisms
• 1.3 The Conjugal Visit Experience
• 1.4 The Future of Conjugal Visits

Conjugal Visits: An Overview

A conjugal visit , also known as an extended family visit , is a scheduled period of time where an incarcerated individual is permitted to spend private time with a legal spouse or partner. The purpose of these visits is to allow the maintenance of intimate relationships while a partner serves their sentence.

History of Conjugal Visits

Conjugal visits have a long history. They likely originated in the 1700s as a population control method in the Mississippi prison system. The idea was that allowing prisoners to procreate would provide more laborers for the region’s plantations. This practice continued into the early 20th century. Conjugal visits were granted as rewards for good behavior or available for purchase on a fee-for-service basis. Mississippi abolished this in the 1950s, but conjugals remained common in Latin America—a policy possibly influenced by French colonists. In recent decades, only six states have allowed conjugals. California offered them from 1968–1996. New York now permits just a single two-day visit before release. As of 2022, they remain available solely in Washington, California, New Mexico and Connecticut.

Debating the Merits of Conjugal Visits

There are impassioned arguments on both sides of the conjugal visit debate:

Potential Benefits

• Maintaining family bonds and intimacy is considered a basic human right by groups like Amnesty International.
• Conjugals incentivize good behavior in prison and assist prisoners in transitioning back to public life.
• The family unit is preserved despite incarceration.
• Visits decrease sexual violence in prisons.
• There are possible mental health benefits .
• Providing private rooms for prisoners is controversial and upsetting to victims’ rights groups.
• There are concerns about contraband smuggling.
• The spread of STIs is possible if precautions aren’t taken.
• Administering visits strains budgets and prison resources.
• Conjugals could undermine legal punishments and be demoralizing for staff.

There’s also debate around whether conjugals privileges should be extended to same-sex couples in the U.S. This remains an evolving civil rights issue.

The Conjugal Visit Experience

For prisoners, qualifying for conjugal visits depends upon meeting strict criteria set by state corrections departments regarding:

• Behavioral compliance
• Visitor background checks
• Application procedures
• Relationship legitimacy
• Clean drug tests
• Health exams

If deemed eligible, inmates typically get up to 72 hours per visit, once every two months. These occur in dedicated trailers with food preparation areas, televisions, games, and other basic amenities. Still, despite the pleasant setting, having sex while under 24/7 surveillance is challenging. Maintaining intimacy often proves difficult after long separations. Counseling services may assist couples in overcoming awkwardness. Visitation procedures are strict. Physical contact with visitors usually begins with a kiss and hug, followed by a pat down. Any violations of rules or suspicious activity leads to termination of the visit.

The Future of Conjugal Visits

While their popularity has declined, conjugal visits still have ardent defenders. The topic remains controversial. As researchers gather more data on the impacts of these programs, corrections officials may reverse long-held policies.

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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.

• Conjugal Visit
• Prisoner Murders Girlfriend
• The Dark Origins of Conjugal Visits
• No Laughing Matter
• Mississippi Ending Conjugal Visits
• How Conjugal Visits Work
• States That Allow Conjugal Visits
• Conjugal Visits Correlate to Fewer Sexual Assaults
• Conjugal Visits Rules and History
• Extended Family Prison Visit
• One Conjugal Visit
• Conjugal Visits
• California Inmate Visitation
• San Quentin Visitation
• Prison Visits
• The Conjugal Visit
• Canada Visiting an Inmate
• Pennsylvania Visiting Rules
• National Crime and Justice
• Conjugal Visits Not Practical
• Australia Conjugal Visits
• South Dakota Corrections
• United States Incarceration Rate
• New Mexico Incarceration Statistics
• New Research on Prison Education
• State of Phone Justice
• Cost of Incarceration

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.)

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

9 Arresting Facts About Conjugal Visits

By suzanne raga | sep 6, 2015.

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.

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What jails or prisons allow conjugal visits?

There are no jails that allow conjugal visits. Very few state prisons have this policy...

SEARCH FOR ANY FACILITY OR INMATE IN THE COUNTRY

City or county jail.

Locate the state, then the city or county where you think they are being held.

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Locate the state where you think they are being held.

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You must first go to any Federal Bureau of Prisons facility.

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STATE PRISON INMATE

Locate a federal prison inmate.

As of January of 2019, there are four U.S. states that allow prison conjugal visits within their prison systems: California, Connecticut, New York and Washington. 

There are no jails that allow conjugal visits.

To find out how to visit someone you know, begin your search for an inmate or arrestee here:

To find your jail or prison visitation policies, begin by finding the facility or prison system here:

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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 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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What States Allow Conjugal Visits?

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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A Chronicle of Current Events

For human rights & freedom of expression in the ussr, the podrabinek case, dec 1977 to feb 1978 (48.7).

<<No 48 : 14 March 1978>>

On 1 December 1977, the brothers Alexander and Kirill PODRABINEK (CCE 47) and their father Pinkhos Abramovich PODRABINEK were summoned for a chat by Yu.S. Belov, chief of a department at the Moscow City and Regional KGB. Alexander refused to appear.

“On behalf of the Committee for State Security ” (Belov told Kirill and his father Pinkhos Podrabinek)

“I suggest that you and your families leave the Soviet Union and go abroad via Israel within 20 days. There is enough material against you, Kirill Pinkhosovich, to institute criminal proceedings. You, Pinkhos Abramovich, are also known to us for your anti-social activities. An act of humanity is being offered to you both. I advise you to make use of it.”

Alexander (b. 1953) and Kirill Podrabinek (b. 1952)

The same evening Alexander Podrabinek was arrested on the street and taken to the KGB. Belov presented him, too, with an ultimatum: all three must leave the country, otherwise criminal proceedings would be instituted against both brothers.

Belov let it be understood that the absence of an invitation and difficulties with money would not be obstacles. Belov stressed that they could only leave all together.

HOSTAGE-TAKING

Many painful disputes have sprung up around the moral problems arising from KGB’s ultimatums and blackmail. The Chronicle cannot present the arguments but at least it can accurately convey the stance of participants in such events by reproducing all their statements in sufficient detail.

On 6 December 1977, there was a press conference at Andrei Sakharov ’s flat. Pinkhos PODRABINEK read out a “Statement for the Belgrade Conference [note 1] and the Press”:

“A distinctive feature of this case is the KGB’s use of the hostage system. Not one of us can determine his own fate independently, and a decision about the fate of three people has been placed by the KGB on Alexander Podrabinek alone, in whose departure the authorities are most of all interested. “We categorically refuse to accept such conditions and insist on our right to make our choices independently…”

Then Alexander PODRABINEK read out his “Reply” to the KGB’s proposal:

“I would like to draw the attention of the world public to my brother’s painful position and to the dirty tactics of the KGB — tactics of intimidation and terror. The whole world condemns the hijacking of aeroplanes and the taking of passengers as hostages, yet the KGB is using the very same method with regard to my brother, a method commonly used by terrorists. In the situation that has arisen the most painful thing for me is my brother’s fate. “At the KGB they insistently advised me to take advantage of this ‘humane act of the Soviet government’, as they expressed it. I regard this proposal as unconcealed blackmail by the KGB. “They have given me four days to reflect. On 5 December I have to give my reply. A reply that means a great deal to me. “This is my reply.

“I do not wish to go to prison. I value even the semblance of freedom which I possess now. I know that I would be able to live freely in the West and at last receive a real education. I know that there I would not have four agents at my heels, threatening to beat me up or push me under a train.

“Over there, I know, they will not put me in a concentration camp or a psychiatric hospital for attempting to defend people who are denied their rights and oppressed. Over there, I know, one breathes easily. While here one does so with difficulty, and they stop your mouth and stifle you if you speak too loudly. I know that our country is unhappy and doomed to suffering.

“And that is why I am staying.

“I do not want to go to prison, but neither do I fear a camp. I value my own freedom as I value my brother’s, but I am not bargaining for it. I will not give in to any blackmail.

“A clear conscience is dearer to me than material well-being. I was born in Russia. This is my country, and I must remain here, however hard it may be and however easy in the West. As far as I am able, I will go on defending those whose rights are being so brazenly trampled on in our country.

“That is my reply. I am staying.”

After this Alexander Podrabinek added that he would agree to leave the country only if Kirill were to ask him to do so.

On 7 December 1977, Kirill PODRABINEK made a statement:

KGB Blackmail

1. The KGB is using the hostage-taking method. They are basically blackmailing my brother Alexander, while I am the hostage. 2. The very formulation of the question: ‘leave or we will put you in prison’, is contrary to the law. If a man has committed a crime he must be prosecuted. However, in this case the KGB does not want to stage a new political trial but prefers to dispatch us abroad. The KGB has employed a well-calculated device — to exploit the insolubility of a situation with a hostage. All this blackmail is patently a consequence of the public stand taken by our family … “If any one of the three of us is arrested and any charge whatsoever brought against him, it can only be viewed as an act of revenge by the KGB and not as a requirement of justice.”

On 12 December 1977, Kirill Podrabinek informed Belov that he had decided to leave. Belov replied that Kirill could hand in his emigration documents, and on the same day Kirill did so. On 14 December Kirill Podrabinek made an addition to his previous statement:

“On 12 December, I telephoned investigator Belov at the KGB. Permission to go abroad has been granted; there was no mention of my only being able to leave only with my brother. Does this mean that the KGB has given up its hostage-taking and will really allow me to leave? In the very near future this will become clear … In view of all the circumstances, and fearing for my life” (see CCE 47) “I have taken the decision to leave.” *

KIRILL PODRABINEK (b. 1952)

On 27 December 1977, the police in Elektrostal (Moscow Region) brought charges against Kirill Podrabinek under Article 215 (RSFSR Criminal Code: “Illegal possession of arms, ammunition” etc). Kirill refused to sign the record of this charge. Investigator Radygin obtained his written undertaking not to leave town but said he would not need Kirill before the middle of January and, if need be, he could go to Moscow.

When Kirill Podrabinek came out of the Elektrostal police station he was met at the door by KGB Investigator Belov, who had arrived from Moscow. The condition of Kirill’s departure remained unchanged, Belov said, and gave him three days in which to persuade his brother to agree to leave.

From that day onwards, KGB employees began trailing Kirill Podrabinek . (His brother Alexander had been under a similar “escort” since 10 October 1977, see below). The same day 22 Muscovites issued a statement:

“Wishing to force Alexander Podrabinek to leave the country, the KGB is openly blackmailing him with his brother’s fate. A method of hostage-taking used thus far only by irresponsible criminal-terrorists is in the present case being adopted as a weapon by the official representatives of a powerful State. This blackmail clearly demonstrates the value of the charges brought against Kirill Podrabinek. “We call upon our fellow countrymen and world public opinion to protest against the use of hostage-taking, unprecedented in the practice of civilized states. We call upon our fellow countrymen and world public opinion to follow attentively the fate of the Podrabinek family.”

On 28 December Kirill Podrabinek made a statement:

State Terrorism

“… The KGB has resorted to hostage-taking. My brother Alexander has made a statement for the press saying that he does not wish to leave, but he will leave if I so demand. “Under no circumstances will I make this demand of Alexander. In the first place, that would mean becoming a blind instrument of blackmail in the hands of the KGB, exploiting a situation created by them for my own sake. In the second place, it is impossible for me to even ask, let alone demand such a thing. “However, I have resolved to pursue my chosen line of action and try to obtain permission to leave.”

On the evening of 29 December 1977, Kirill Podrabinek was arrested.

On the day of his arrest, he declared a hunger strike. After a few days he was transferred from Elektrostal to Moscow, to the MVD’s detention centre on Matrosskaya Tishina Street.

The first response to Kirill’s arrest was “The Christmas ‘Feat’ of the KGB”, a short article by Victor Nekipelov [note 2]:

“… The arrest of Kirill Podrabinek is an act of deliberate, demonstrative revenge. The authorities know full well that they are thereby dealing the severest blow to both Alexander Podrabinek – Take that for not accepting our offer! – and to his father — While you didn’t steer your sons to a compromise!”

On 1 January 1978, Yevgeny Nikolayev (see “In the Psychiatric Hospitals”, CCE 48.12 ) sent a letter to the RSFSR Procurator’s Office, protesting against the arrest of Kirill Podrabinek.

On 4 January 1978, Alexander and Pinkhos Podrabinek asked Belov for a meeting with Kirill.

Belov refused but promised to pass Kirill a note from them, “if there are no objections on the part of the investigator”. In the note Alexander and his father asked Kirill: “Do you agree to leave if there is no need to ask Alexander to do the same?”

On the same day, at 11.30 pm, Belov came to Elektrostal to see Pinkhos Podrabinek . He informed him that the investigator “had not allowed” the note to be passed to Kirill. If Alexander handed in his application to emigrate within three days, however, all three could leave the USSR. Otherwise, Alexander  would also be arrested. Belov suggested that P.A. Podrabinek go at once to Moscow and persuade Alexander to change his mind: he even gave Pinkhos Abramovich a lift back to Moscow in his car.

On 5 January 1978, Alexander Podrabinek appealed in an open letter to Amnesty International, calling on the organisation to speak out in Kirill’s defence.

On 9 January Alexander Podrabinek telephoned Belov at the KGB. When Belov asked if he intended to leave, Alexander replied that he could only decide this matter together with his brother.

On 15 January 1978, the Christian Committee for the Defence of Believers’ Rights in the USSR called upon “world public opinion” to speak out in defence of Kirill Podrabinek and condemn the policy of hostage-taking.

At the beginning of February 1978, the Podrabineks were summoned to Elektrostal for interrogation in connection with Kirill’s case.

Pinkhos Podrabinek replied to questions about Kirill but refused to sign a record of the interrogation. Alexander declined to answer questions, stating that the case was inspired by the KGB and was being conducted with violations of norms laid down in the Code of Criminal Procedure.

ALEXANDER PODRABINEK (b. 1953)

From 10 October 1977, Alexander Podrabinek was under constant KGB surveillance. Round the clock he was pursued by two cars carrying seven or eight employees of the security services.

Whenever he was inside a building the cars stood in front of the doorway. Whenever he walked along the street or travelled in public transport there were always several agents at his side. They threatened Alexander’s acquaintances and took photographs of them. Sometimes they interfered more actively with the life of their charge: on Sunday 18 December the escort prohibited Alexander from going skiing with friends in the Orekhovo-Borisovo district [Moscow Region]. Podrabinek wrote about this incident to [KGB chairman] Andropov:

“… Since 10 October of this year I have been under the continuous and unconcealed observation of our glorious Chekists. Defending the State’s security, I understand, it is essential for the KGB to search my home, call me as a witness in the case of Yury Orlov, suggest that I leave the USSR, blackmail me, make an attempt on my brother’s life, and do much else to ensure that I do not, accidentally, undermine the foundations of the Soviet political and social system. All this I understand. “I am not even particularly annoyed when one of the eight officers who perpetually watch over me swears he will break my legs or push me under a train. I understand the full difficulty of this highly complex, responsible and dangerous work and do not get angry with these heroic young people who, performing their civic duty, freeze on cold December nights outside the entrance to my house or squeeze after me onto a city bus in the rush-hour. I am enraptured by their daring, their persistence and their indifference to the cold … “Citizen Andropov! On behalf of myself and six of my friends I beg you: Provide your employees with skis and toboggans and, please, teach them how to use them, if they do not know. Then I shall be able to enjoy my on Sundays and the KGB will be able to work normally and not violate the Soviet Constitution. This can only enhance the reputation of our valiant organs and promote their physical development.”

From January 1978, the constant “escort” was replaced from time to time by ‘ordinary’ shadowing.

The security services are trying by any means to prevent Alexander Podrabinek from continuing his activities on the Working Commission (to Investigate the Use of Psychiatry for Political Purposes). In particular, they are hampering him from meeting, in the flats of his Moscow friends, people who have been subjected to “psychiatric persecution” and their relatives. Podrabinek and his friend Dmitry Leontyev , in whose flat he was living, were fined for violating the city residence regulations. Podrabinek was forbidden to continue residing at the flat.

Alexander Podrabinek was warned that he was liable to be charged with “parasitism”. In February 1978, having given his shadow the slip, he managed to get a job as a medical orderly (he is a qualified paramedic).

The pre-trial investigation of Kirill Podrabinek ’s case was completed in February 1978.

=======================

[1] Representatives of all 35 member-States of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) assembed in the Yugoslav capital Belgrade to discuss the implementation of the 1975 Helsinki Accords five years on.

[2] Victor Nekipelov

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Norilsk: The city built by gulag prisoners where Russia guards its Arctic secrets

Environmental activists are frustrated by how authorities handled a diesel spill which poured into two Arctic rivers in late May.

International correspondent @DiMagnaySky

Friday 3 July 2020 23:41, UK

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The drive from Norilsk airport to the city takes you past mile after mile of crumbling, Soviet-era factories.

It looks like an endless, rusting scrapyard - a jumble of pipes, industrial junk and frost-bitten brickwork. If you were looking for an industrial apocalypse film setting, this would be your place - but you're unlikely to get the permissions.

Norilsk was built in Stalin's times by gulag prisoners. This gritty industrial city is a testament to their endurance both of the cruelty of Stalin's regime and of the harsh polar climate. There were no thoughts then on how to build to protect the environment, just to survive it.

Vasily Ryabinin doesn't think much has changed, at least in ecological terms. He used to work for the local branch of the federal environmental watchdog, Rosprirodnadzor, but quit in June after exposing what he says was a failure to investigate properly the environmental impact of the gigantic diesel spill which poured into two Arctic rivers in late May.

At 21,000 tonnes, it was the largest industrial spill in the polar Arctic .

Despite the Kremlin declaring a federal emergency and sending a host of different agencies to participate in the clean-up, just last week Mr Ryabinin and activists from Greenpeace Russia found another area where technical water used in industrial processes was being pumped directly into the tundra from a nearby tailing pond. Russia's investigative committee has promised to investigate.

"The ecological situation here is so bad," Mr Ryabinin says.

"The latest constructions such as the tailing pond at the Talnack ore-processing plant were built exclusively by Nornickel chief executive Vladimir Potanin's team and supposedly in accordance with ecological standards, but on satellite images you can see that all the lakes in the vicinity have unnatural colours and obviously something has got into them."

Mining company Nornickel would disagree. It has admitted flagrant violations at the tailing pond and suspended staff it deems responsible at both the Talnack plant and at Norilsk Heat and Power plant no 3 where the diesel spill originated from.

On Thursday it appointed Andrey Bougrov, from its senior management board, to the newly-created role of senior vice president for environmental protection. It has a clear environmental strategy, provides regular updates on the status of the spill, and its Twitter feed is filled with climate-related alerts.

But what investors read is very different to the picture on the ground.

Norilsk used to be a closed city - one of dozens across the Soviet Union shut off to protect industrial secrets. Foreigners need special permissions approved by the Federal Security Service (FSB) to enter the region. It would take an invitation from Nornickel to make that happen and, for the past month since the spill, that has not been forthcoming.

Unlike in Soviet times, Russian citizens are now free to come and go. That's why our Sky News Moscow team were able to fly in and travel around the city, even if getting to the spill site was blocked. What they were able to film provides a snapshot of the immense challenge Russia faces in upgrading its Soviet-era industrial infrastructure, particularly at a time when climate change is melting the permafrost on which much of it was built.

Just downwind from one of the rusting factories on the city outskirts is a huge expanse of dead land. The skeletal remains of trees stand forlorn against the howling Arctic winds. Sulphur dioxide poisoning has snuffed the life out of all that lived here. Norilsk is the world's worst emitter of sulphur dioxide by a substantial margin.

"For 80km south of here everything is dead," Mr Ryabinin says, "and for at least 10km in that direction too. Everything here depends on the wind."

Immediately after the spill, Mr Ryabinin filmed and took samples from the Daldykan river just a few kilometres from the fuel tank which had leaked. By that point the river was a churning mix of diesel and red sludge dredged up from the riverbed by the force of the leak. Norilsk's rivers have turned red before and the chemical residues have sunk to the bottom, killing all life there. Nothing has lived in those rivers for decades.

In his capacity as deputy head of the local environmental watchdog, Mr Ryabinin says he insisted that he be allowed to fly further north to check the levels of contamination in Lake Pyasino and beyond.

Nornickel at the time claimed the lake was untouched by the spill. Mr Ryabinin says his boss encouraged him to let things be.

"I can't be sure I would have found anything, but this sort of confrontation - making sure I didn't go there with a camera, let alone with bottles for taking samples, it was all very clear to me. It was the final straw."

Rosprirodnadzor refused to comment to Sky News on Mr Ryabinin's allegations or suggestions that the agency was working hand in hand with Nornickel.

Georgy Kavanosyan is an environmental blogger with a healthy 37,000 following on YouTube. Shortly after the spill, he set out for Lake Pyasino and to the Pyasina River beyond to see how far the diesel had spread.

"We set out at night so that the Norilsk Nickel security wouldn't detect us. I say at night, but they've got polar nights there now, north of the Arctic Circle. So it's still light but it's quieter and we managed to go past all the cordons."

He is one of the few to have provided evidence that the diesel has in fact travelled far beyond where the company admits. Not just the 1,200km (745m) length of Lake Pyasino but into the river beyond.

He says his measurements indicated a volume of hydrocarbons dissolved in the water of between two and three times normal levels. He thinks after he published his findings on YouTube, the authorities' vigilance increased.

Greenpeace Russia have spent the last two weeks trying to obtain samples from Lake Pyasino and the surrounding area. They have faced difficulties getting around and flying their samples out for independent analysis.

They are now waiting for results from a laboratory in St Petersburg but say the samples remain valid technically for just four days after collection and that they weren't able to make that deadline due to the authorities' actively obstructing their work.

Elena Sakirko from Greenpeace Russia specialises in oil spills and says this has happened to her before. This time, a police helicopter flew to the hunter's hut where they were staying and confiscated the fuel for the boat they were using. Then a deputy for the Moscow city parliament tasked with bringing the samples back from Norilsk was forced to go back empty-handed.

"We were told at the airport we needed permission from the security department of Nornickel," Ms Sakirko says. "We asked them to show us some law or statement to prove that this was legal or what the basis for this was, but they haven't showed us anything and we still don't understand it."

Nornickel announced this week that the critical stage of the diesel spill is over. The company is now finalising dates for a press tour for foreign media and for other international environmentalists.

Mr Ryabinin thinks this should have happened weeks ago.

"If we don't let scientists come to the Arctic region to evaluate the impact of the accident, then in the future if anything similar happens, we won't know what to do."

A spokesperson for Nornickel said the company "is actively cooperating with the scientific community and will meticulously assess both the causes and effects of the accident."

Nornickel considers permafrost thawing to be the primary cause of the accident, but is waiting for the end of investigation before making a final statement, the spokesperson said.

They added that the company "accepts full responsibility for the incidents on its sites these past two months and holds itself accountable for any infrastructural deficits or poor decisions by personnel.

"The imperative is to do everything to clean up our sites, instil a stronger culture of transparency and safety in our workforce, and ensure that such situations do not occur in the future."

Trump Airport—Or Trump Federal Prison? Democrats Propose Naming Correctional Institution After Ex-President In GOP Rebuke.

A group of House Democrats proposed renaming a Miami federal prison after former President Donald Trump on Friday—a tongue-in-cheek response to a similar proposal from a group of House Republicans earlier this week to rename a Washington, D.C. airport after the former president.

Reps. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., and John Garamendi, D-Calif., introduced the resolution to designate the Miami Federal Correctional Institution as the “Donald J. Trump Federal Correctional Institution.”

The legislation was filed in response to a proposal earlier this week to rename the Washington Dulles International Airport after Trump, filed by Reps. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., Chuck Fleischmann, R-Tenn., Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., Barry Moore, R-Ala., and Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas.

The Democrats took jabs at Trump and his Republican allies in statements explaining their reasons for introducing the resolution—Connolly said the federal prison would be “a more fitting option” than the airport, noting Trump’s various civil and criminal court cases, while Moskowitz noted “everyone knows President Trump loves to write his name in gold letters on all his buildings.”

Both proposals were referred to committee, and neither is likely to pass the divided Congress.

The Miami federal correctional institute is the closest federal prison to Trump’s Mar-A-Lago resort and is located in the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida—where the Justice Department indicted Trump on 40 felonies last year for his alleged mishandling of classified documents after leaving office.

717.5. That’s the maximum total number of years former President Donald Trump could be sentenced to in his four criminal cases, including 450 years in his classified documents case. He’s likely to get a far shorter sentence if found guilty: Judges usually sentence people to far below the maximum, and the logistics of jailing an ex-president under Secret Service protection are expected to be difficult if not impossible.

Key Background

Democrats widely rebuked the resolution to rename the airport after Trump, with some, including Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., noting the travelers who were detained there under Trump’s controversial executive order blocking entrants from seven Muslim-majority countries. Trump showed interest in having an airport renamed after him in 2020, the Daily Beast reported , and has publicly mentioned the possibility of having his face engraved into Mount Rushmore.

A Donald J. Trump International Airport? House Republicans Introduce Bill To Rename Dulles After Former President. (Forbes)