conjugal visits advantages and disadvantages

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Pros and cons of conjugal visits

• Post author: admin
• Post published: October 22, 2019
• Post category: Human
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There has been a lot of controversy on conjugal visits for prisoners. Some people feel that inmates are entitled to this right while others are against it. But have you ever stopped and asked yourself the benefits of conjugal visits to the prisoners. I believe they are human just like everyone else and have the right to spend some time with their families. As a matter of fact, it may actually do them good and motivate them to reform much faster. Many people value and love their families. For this reason, getting the chance to be with them will definitely be a great experience. All said and done, conjugal visits may have their demerits and may not work in all cases.

1 . Strengthens family bonds. A number of families break when either parent is imprisoned. When children are involved, they will need to spend some time with their parents. This is what conjugal visits are all about. The inmates get to spend time with their loved ones.

2 . It encourages good behavior. In the states where conjugal visits are allowed, the inmates have to be on their best behavior before they can get this privilege. Any form of misconduct is an automatic ticket to being disqualified.

3 . Reduces violence. The fact that the inmates get to see their loved ones makes them more happy and obedient to the rules. They are less likely to result in violence out of frustrations or because they have nothing to look forward to. Besides, good behavior such as avoiding violence will help them become eligible for conjugal visits.

4 . It makes the prison environments safer for inmates. Basically, many of the prisoners especially those serving long jail terms will want to qualify for the conjugal visits. In this case, most of them avoid getting involved in things like violence, terrorizing each other, using drugs, and fights. This makes prisons safer.

5 . Reduces cases of sexual violence in prison. There is a lot of sexual violence that is either reported or goes unreported in the prisons of states which don’t allow conjugal visits. Keep in mind, even when they are behind bars, the inmates are still human beings. For this reason, they may result in sexual violence and contact with fellow inmates just to satisfy their urges.

6 . The inmates can maintain their roles as husbands or wives. This is very important for the family. A man doesn’t have to stop being a husband when imprisoned. The same goes for a woman.

7 . Enhances post-release success. Since the inmates can maintain ties with his/her families, it will be easier to fit in with the family upon release from prison. Furthermore, the family will still be intact.

8 . Reduces the rates of re-offending prisoners. Prisoners who keep in contact with their families will be less compelled to commit another crime once released from prison.

9 . The visits are not usually between the couples but include an extended family. The visits are for the entire family and this includes children and any other person who is part of the family.

10 . The family can engage in some activities. There are board games, a fully functional kitchen, and pretty much anything that will be required to make the visit a success.

1 . Increases the number of single parents. Despite the fact that there are contraceptives provided, more and more women still manage to fall pregnant. They end up raising the child alone and this may not be a good thing.

2 . A lot of money is involved. The state uses a lot of the taxpayer’s money to make conjugal visits a success. For instance, there are associated costs for staff that have to escort the inmates to the visitation facilities and so on.

3 . Safety concerns. As much as it’s a family affair, you can’t tell what will happen next. There is usually no supervision in the visitation facility and hence anything can happen.

4 . Some inmates are excluded from the program. You have to meet a certain level of discipline in order to be eligible for conjugal visits. In this case, some prisoners are often excluded from citing safety concerns.

5 . Increased prison contrabands. The outside people who come to the prisons for conjugal visits may smuggle in illegal items and even drugs. There are usually increased cases of contrabands in prisons as a result of conjugal visits.

6 . The risk of sexually transmitted diseases. There is always the risk of transmitting diseases such as HIV/AIDS among couples. This is because sexual activity is permitted.

7 . The prisoners are subjected to humiliating strip searches. This may be nothing new to inmates but they have to be strip-searched before and after the visitation. They are also piss tested for drugs and alcohol.

8 . The visits are interrupted from time to time. While it’s supposed to be alone time with the family, the normal prison processes are still maintained. For instance, during the daily counts, they are called out so that they are accounted for.

9 . Potential for escape attempts. A number of inmates take conjugal visits as an opportunity to plan escapes. For this reason, some states decided to discontinue this program.

10 . At times, they are not effective. Some prisoners will only be on their good behavior to earn this right and not because they really want to change for the better.

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This post has 2 comments.

What a worthless article with no evidence or findings. Just assumptions made from others’ assumptions. Do some research before you try to “educate” people about extended family visits. You went for a real stretch to provide cons. Booooo

I, personally think that whether conjugal visits are eligible or not one thing remains that they’ll be reasons brought up every time why they shouldn’t be allowed. I honestly think they should be allowed

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Pros and Cons of Conjugal Visits

Conjugal visits for prisoners are always subject to controversy. People with a more punitive view believe that it’s an excessive luxury. Others who think it’s right prisoners are entitled to.

The best way to look at it is to think about how it affects the prisoners. Are there clear-cut benefits to conjugal visits for prisoners? It sure seems so. Most people love their families. Family time could be a motivator for many to reform.

On the other hand, the positive effects could be minimal. Without benefits, is the cost worth it?

Let’s dive into the history and advantages and disadvantages of conjugal visits.

What is a conjugal visit?

A conjugal visit is typically a prison visitation between spouses for sexual purposes. 

Today, they’re ingrained in popular culture. Prison-related jokes often involve them. For example, the sitcom  Arrested Development  had an episode that ended with a son accidentally viewing his mother and father having sex on a conjugal visit. HBO’s Oz illustrates how conjugal visits lead to better behavior. It also shows the violence that happens when they’re are taken away. 

They’ve even become a significant part of our sexuality. Conjugal visits are a pretty standard setting for pornography. 

Today, professionals prefer the term “family visits.” Believing visits help reform prisoners, some prisons have expanded them to include private time with grandparents, children, in-laws, and spouses. The hope is that keeping them connected with the outside world makes prisoners think about life beyond prison and make better decisions.

Their Dark Origins

Like most things prison-related, I’m guessing you wouldn’t be surprised that they have a dark origin. They started with Parchman Penitentiary in 1904. This prison was a recreated southern plantation straight out of the 19th century. This included a black convict slave labor force.  

Conjugal visits were an incentive for good behavior. Every Sunday, guards drove prostitutes in for the laborers. Over time, the practice spread and shifted away from prostitutes towards girlfriends and wives. The practice spread, and by 1995, seventeen states had some form of conjugal visits. 

Sadly, public opinion has put an end to conjugal visits for the most part. Only California, New York, and Washington still have them. America’s punitive views have led to conjugal visits ending in the other fourteen states. 

Pros of Conjugal Visits

Now that we know more, let’s take a look at the pros and cons of conjugal visits.

Conjugal visits encourage good behavior

Whether an inmate gets a conjugal visit depends on how they behave. They’ve dangled carrots keeping inmates on track. If they misbehave, they won’t see their family. It’s as simple as that.  

Family is an excellent motivator. Prisoners have something to look forward to. After visits, they’re more grounded mentally. Their families also provide moral support and keep them on the right track. Why put all of that at risk over a fight.

Strengthens familial bonds

One of the most significant difficulties prisoners face is their families falling apart. Without a safety net when they get out, they’ll likely be back in prison. 

Conjugal visits allow prisoners to spend time with their spouse, hopefully preventing a future divorce . Spending time together is especially critical for families with children. 

The benefits don’t only translate to the prisoner. Studies show that conjugal visits improve the lives of those who visit. 

Makes prison life safer 

Most long-term prisoners are looking for ways to qualify for privileges like conjugal visits. To qualify, they must avoid ‘terrorizing’ other prisoners, getting into fights, instigating violence, selling drugs, etc. 

In a paper published in 2014, Flordia International University discovered that conjugal visits decreased sexual abuse in prison alone by  seventy-five percent .  

Less sexual abuse has the additional benefit of reducing the transmission of STDs. That means fewer prisoners contracting HIV and other diseases, saving prisons on treatment costs.  

Fewer repeat offenders

Since prisoners are allowed to maintain family ties, they stand a better chance of living a healthy family life once their prison term comes to an end. 

A study of New York prisoners in the 1980s revealed that prisoners reoffended 67% less often if they had conjugal visits. Visits with family maintain ties and give them something to live for when they leave.  

Conjugal visits offer much needed privacy

One of the worst parts of being in prison is the lack of privacy. You sleep and use the bathroom in front of your cellmate. You shower in front of the guards. Cameras and guards closely monitor your visitations.  

Having a few moments alone with your spouse can make a big difference in prisoners’ mental health. 

You’re not only punishing prisoners

Prisoners aren’t the only ones hurt by removing conjugal visits. By punishing them, you’re punishing their spouse who did nothing. You’re hurting their children. They just want to spend time with their parents.

You’re also taking away reproductive rights. It might not be the best idea to have a child with someone in prison, but they should at least have the freedom to choose.

Conjugal visits can also include other family members

As we mentioned, visits are not limited to just couples. You can spend time with your children in less crowded areas. Grandparents, siblings, and cousins can all join. If you come from a large family, this could make a big difference.  

Cons of Conjugal Visits

There’s some safety concerns.

Despite conjugal visits being a ‘family affair,’ they can be unpredictable since there is virtually no supervision in the visitation area – so anything could potentially happen. 

For example, in 2010, a German inmate killed his 46-year-old girlfriend during a six-hour unsupervised visit.

Still, cases like this are rare and shouldn’t drive public policy. 

They’re a source of contraband

People coming in from the outside to visit their loved ones may carry illegal items with them, including drugs or even concealable weapons. Sheriffs and prison officials report visits constitute a significant source of illicit goods.

We should take these claims with a grain of salt. Some studies show that the majority of contraband arrests come from staff. Security makes it difficult for prisoners to smuggle anything. You may not be able to check the visitor, but prisoners are strip-searched and drug tested. 

Visits are not entirely ‘private.’

Even though conjugal visits are supposed to be mostly private, this doesn’t mean that normal day-to-day prison processes will not occur. For example, prisoners must respond to daily ‘call-outs’ at their scheduled time. 

Guards checking in can quickly ruin the mood if things are getting intimate.   

Possible escape attempts

Officials cite escape attempts as the reason to end conjugal visits. Some prisoners take the opportunity to make escape plans. For this very reason, some states have discontinued the practice. 

We’ve tried to look into this claim but haven’t found a lot of evidence. It makes sense that this would happen, but 

Risk of STDs

Though visits reduce sexual violence, STDs are always a problem with sex involved. Sex is still risky, and prisoners might bring STDs back with them into the prison.

More major single parents

Even after being provided contraceptives, many female prisoners still become pregnant. If the father is in prison for life, that’s another single mother. She won’t even benefit from child support, as the father wouldn’t be able to pay.

The programs are expensive

We think that many of the problems with conjugal visits are mostly deflections. States shut these programs down because they cost money. Guards need to monitor prisoners. Space and resources are spent building the private areas. 

With many prisons operating on shoestring budgets, I get the desire to end these programs. 

The Verdict: Do conjugal visits work?

Based on these pros and cons of conjugal visits, we believe they work. Reduced repeat offenders, fewer rapes, and more families staying together are a good thing. Most of the reasons not to implement these programs are punitive or anecdotes not to spend money. As a society, we need to think about how we treat our prisoners. There is a better way if we can fork up the dough and open our hearts.  

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Pros and Cons of Conjugal Visits

The reach of human rights does not end at the prison gates. After all, the primary goal of a healthy corrections system is the rehabilitation and successful reintegration of inmates into society.

That said, some rights remain controversial among legislators, prison reform advocates, and concerned citizens.

One such right is the right to conjugal visits . Some consider a marital visitation program as an inmate’s privilege. Others think it is an extension of their fundamental human rights.

The United States criminal justice system believes that conjugal visitation is a privilege to offenders and a right of their spouses.

Even though conjugal visitations play a crucial role in the lives of inmates and their loved ones, very few incarcerated persons can access them.

Say you or your spouse is in a correctional institution. In that case, you may find the sections below regarding conjugal visitation helpful in understanding the potential benefits and drawbacks of such visits for you and your family.

Additionally, you may learn more about the rules and procedures of conjugal visits. Our online site, LookUpInmate.org , contains detailed information regarding the state’s provisions for married inmates.

We also offer a free search tool to locate inmates in correctional facilities in the U.S.

Pros of Conjugal Visits

Generally, arguments favoring conjugal prison visits hinge on the program’s practical benefits to the inmates, their spouses, and prison facilities. Below are 11 potential advantages of conjugal visits.

Conjugal Visits Encourage Good Behavior

Whether an inmate receives a conjugal visit often depends on how well they behave in the penitentiary.

Prison governors use a “carrot and stick” (reward and punishment) approach to regulate inmates’ behavior.

Conjugal visits are one such carrot to keep incarcerated people following the facility’s rules. An inmate who misbehaves will likely not have in-person contact with their family.

The extended family visit is an effective motivator. Inmates have something to anticipate. After visits, they are more stable mentally. Their families also give moral support and help them stay on track.

Conjugal Visits Strengthen Familial Bonds

One of the most difficult challenges inmates face is their families falling apart. They will likely recidivate (reoffend) without solid social support when they get out.

Conjugal visits let offenders spend time with their spouses, hopefully keeping their marriages intact. Spending time together is particularly important in families with children.

The benefits do not only extend to the inmate. Studies show that conjugal visits support family cohesion.

Conjugal Visits Make Prison Life Safer

Most long-term prison inmates seek ways to gain privileges like conjugal visits. Consequently, they must refrain from harassing other prisoners, getting into fights, provoking violence, selling drugs, and other criminal activities.

Research from Florida International University indicated that prison systems allowing conjugal visits have fewer rapes and sexual assaults than those prohibiting such visits.

Reduced sex crimes have the extra benefit of decreasing the transmission of STDs (sexually transmitted diseases), like HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) and HIV’s late-stage form, AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome).

Conjugal Visits Results in Fewer Repeat Offenders

Since inmates can preserve family ties, they are likelier to live a healthy family life after release.

One study from the Journal of Criminal Justice showed that receiving visitation led to a 26% decrease in recidivism.

Visits with family strengthen bonds and give incarcerated individuals a reason to live after their release.

Conjugal Visits Offer Much-Needed Privacy

One of the most frustrating aspects of correctional facilities is the lack of privacy. In most cases, inmates must sleep and share the bathroom with their cellmates. Sometimes, they even shower in front of the correctional officers. Cameras and guards constantly observe their movements.

Spending time alone with your spouse, even briefly, might help improve inmates’ emotional and mental health.

Conjugal Visits Reduce Sexual Violence

Sexual violence includes various forms of abuse, such as rape, harassment, and sexual assault .

As shown above, conjugal visits can help reduce sexual violence in the prison setting. The states that do not allow conjugal visitation have a high sexual violence incidence rate.

In contrast, the region that allows conjugal visits has a lower rate of sexual crimes .

These outcomes suggest that conjugal and family visits can help reduce sex offenses in prison and the community.

Conjugal Visits Reduce the Risk of Sexually Transmitted Diseases

One of the most notable benefits of conjugal visits is protection from STDs, including HIV, chlamydia, and genital herpes.

Engaging in sexual relations with multiple partners can increase the chances of acquiring infectious diseases like HIV.

Conjugal Visits Reduce Recidivism

Recidivism refers to the tendency of the offender to repeat a crime. As mentioned above, conjugal visits help reduce the recidivism rate.

A simple explanation is that extended family visits remind the inmate that there’s life awaiting them beyond the prison bars.

These in-person meetings reinforce in their minds the thought that committing another crime is not worth sacrificing time with family.

Conjugal Visits Can Also Include Other Family Members

Visits do not just affect couples. Family visits also let inmates spend time with their children in less crowded areas. In some cases, grandparents, siblings, and cousins can all participate.

You’re Not Only Punishing Prisoners

Inmates aren’t the only ones who suffer from the lack of conjugal visits. Institutions that prohibit this type of visit as a punishment are also punishing the inmates’ spouses and children who did nothing wrong.

Some argue that this prohibition removes the inmate’s and their spouse’s reproductive rights.

Inmates Are Allowed to Keep Their Roles As Husbands or Wives

This advantage is critical for the family’s well-being. Prison can end the male inmate’s identity as a husband or the female inmate’s identity as a wife.

Conjugal visits help preserve the familial structure and stability of the incarcerated person and their spouse.

By recognizing and affirming their marital roles, conjugal visits contribute to rehabilitation by fostering responsibility, commitment, and accountability among inmates. This outcome can aid the inmate’s successful reintegration into society after release.

Cons of Conjugal Visits

Arguments against conjugal visitations often highlight the prison system’s lack of the budget and security level to facilitate this type of visit.

Below are nine potential drawbacks of conjugal visits.

There Are Some Safety Concerns

Although conjugal visits are a family affair, they can be relatively unsafe due to the lack of supervision in the visitation area. Still, some argue that criminal cases happening during visits are rare and should not drive public policy.

Conjugal Visits Are a Source of Contraband

People coming in from the outside to see their loved ones might smuggle illegal items, including drugs or concealed weapons.

That said, tight security often makes it difficult for inmates to smuggle items. While some facilities do not check visitors during visits, they might still subject the offenders to strip-search and drug tests.

Visits Are Not Entirely ‘Private’

Even though conjugal visits are primarily private, it does not mean daily prison routines do not take place. For example, prisoners must respond to routine ‘call-outs’ at their scheduled time. Guards checking in can also quickly ruin the mood if things get intimate.

Carrying Prohibited Items Poses a Risk

As indicated above, visits could be a risk for illicit activity. Visitors can bring illegal or banned items, including narcotics and weapons, guns, and other sharp objects that could injure fellow inmates.

Possible Escape Attempts

Officials cite escape attempts as one primary reason to end conjugal visits. They argue that some inmates take the opportunity to make escape plans. Consequently, some jurisdictions have discontinued the practice.

Risk of STDs

Though visits tend to decrease sexual violence, STDs remain a concern for some whenever sex is involved. These critics think inmates might bring STDs into prison with them.

Risk of Increased Cases of Pregnant Women and More Major Single Parents

Female inmates or visitors can become pregnant even after being supplied with contraceptives. This scenario can result in another single mother if the father is incarcerated for life.

The Programs Are Expensive

Many of the issues with conjugal visits are likely deflections from the most probable reason facilities end the program: lack of funds.

Several states have shut down these programs due to their high costs. Private spaces consume a lot of resources and space. The impulse to remove these programs may result from many prisons operating on low budgets.

What Is a Conjugal Visit?

Simply put, conjugal visitation refers to the visit by the husband or wife for a scheduled period to their incarcerated husband or wife. During this time, the couple receives limited privacy. Usually, this private moment involves sexual relations.

Inmates and visitors must submit applications to the prison system authorities to arrange an extended family or conjugal visit.

Here are the typical rules regarding such visitations:

• The requesting inmate should have a decent prison record and no violent offenses.
• Extended family visits often do not apply to inmates confined to low-security facilities.
• Institutions do not allow convicted individuals who received sentences for child abuse or domestic violence conjugal visits.

Additionally, state or federal prisons determine eligible visitors. The visitor is usually a family member, has a record of inmate visitation to the facility (or a legitimate reason for not doing so), and must pass a background check.

Conjugal Visit : An Emerging Human Right

As indicated above, many people today view spousal visitation as an extension of the spouse’s conjugal rights.

While the visitation program is technically not a right, many countries today allow inmates extended, in-person contact with their loved ones.

Aside from the U.S., countries that allow conjugal visits may include the following:

• Saudi Arabia

However, countries allowing conjugal visitations are rare, and most do not welcome extended family visits.

The U.S. is not the only country becoming more restrictive regarding conjugal visits. Northern Island and Great Britain have also restricted such visits.

That said, these countries permit home visits, emphasizing contact with the outside world to which the inmate will eventually return.

In addition, authorities often grant home visits to inmates with a few weeks to a few months remaining of a long sentence.

Meanwhile, countries like Germany allow conjugal visits following an extensive screening process.

Sex, Love, and Marriage Behind Bars

As expected, conjugal visits provoke discussion around the complex relationship of sex, love, and marriage behind bars.

Advocates argue that these visits can improve bonds between inmates and reduce recidivism rates, allowing them to develop stronger bonds.

In contrast, critics express concerns regarding the potential for exploitation, security threats, and the cost of facilitating intimate encounters for incarcerated persons.

Excellent institutions find the intricate balance between human rights, rehabilitation initiatives, and the practical realities of managing correctional systems.

Some incarcerated individuals use the metaphor of “heaven” to depict the profound sense of ease and happiness they encounter when they can physically reconnect with their spouse during conjugal visits.

The joy of companionship, intimacy, and touch with the opposite sex is so rare that inmates go to great lengths to avoid conflict and bad encounters.

Their Dark Origins

Conjugal visits may have originated in 1918 at Parchman Farm, a boot camp in Mississippi .

Such visitations were a haphazard, paternalistic reward system for Black prisoners. Specifically, these visits mean these people may have sexual intercourse on a given Sunday in exchange for their hard work in prison.

This way, the concept of conjugal visits derives from racist premises.

For instance, prison administrators believed allowing Black individuals to participate in lawful sexual activities would increase their productivity.

The officers also believed Black men had higher sex drives than white men. Consequently, buses packed with women arrived every weekend to get intimate with the Black offenders.

Authorities used conjugal visits to “support” Black inmates through a six-day workweek of physically and mentally demanding work.

However, due to various advocacy groups, conjugal visits now last longer with the family.

Even the Parchman Farm improved during the 1960s. For example, institutions allowed frequent visits, initiated furlough programs, and built cabins so inmates could spend time alone with their spouses.

A Misconception With Conjugal Visits

Conjugal visits are more than just sexual encounters and “family visits,” meaning children can stay overnight.

For instance, a spouse or partner in Connecticut cannot enter the facility without the inmate’s child.

In the state, approximately a third of lengthy visits are between spouses.

Are Conjugal Visits Beneficial?

The answer to this question depends on what factor you emphasize. If the prison system is not corrupt and the inmate complies with visitation conditions, the program will likely produce favorable outcomes.

Overall, research is still ongoing regarding the effectiveness of conjugal visits.

How Many States Still Allow Conjugal Visits? What States in the U.S. Allow Conjugal Visits?

Today, only four states have rules that allow extended visits: New York, Washington, California, and Connecticut.

However, each state in the United States has various rules regarding conjugal visitations, or “extended family visits.”

A 1981 report stated that the following states were the only regions in the U.S. that had conjugal visitation programs for inmates:

• South Carolina
• Mississippi

Following the report, various states changed their position regarding conjugal visits. For instance, at the beginning of 2000, South Carolina and Minnesota were off the list, and New Mexico and Connecticut had extended visitation policies.

However, despite being the first state to initiate conjugal visitation programs in the U.S., the Department of Corrections in Mississippi ended the privilege in 2016.

Do You Get Conjugal Visits on Death Row?

Death row inmates have no right to conjugal visits, even in states that do it for other convicts.

For example, California ’s state prisons only allow “condemned” (incarcerated people on death row) visits using a secured booth and always require the incarcerated individual to be escorted and handcuffed.

Some of these incarcerated persons on death row may only receive non-contact visits.

1. Conjugal Visitation: Prisoner’s Privilege or Spouse’s Right https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/conjugal-visitation-prisoners-privilege-or-spouses-right 2. Benefits and risks of conjugal visits in prison: A systematic literature review https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/cbm.2215 3. Research Finds that Conjugal Visits Correlate with Fewer Sexual Assaults https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2014/may/19/research-finds-conjugal-visits-correlate-fewer-sexual-assaults/ 4. The effect of prison visitation on reentry success: A meta-analysis https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0047235216300575 5. Evolution of Conjugal Visiting in Mississippi https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/evolution-conjugal-visiting-mississippi 6. Conjugal Visits https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/02/11/conjugal-visits 7. This Couple Wants You to Know That Conjugal Visits are Only Legal in 4 States https://scalawagmagazine.org/2022/06/conjugal-visits/ 8. Conjugal Visitation in American Prisons Today https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/conjugal-visitation-american-prisons-today 9. Mississippi First to Begin Conjugal Visits, Latest to End Them https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2016/jan/11/mississippi-first-begin-conjugal-visits-latest-end-them/ 10. Types of Visits https://www.cdcr.ca.gov/visitors/types-of-visits/

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Controversy and Conjugal Visits

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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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The Ethicist

Does Everyone Have the Right to Conjugal Visits?

By Chuck Klosterman

• April 18, 2014

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

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

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

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

DOUBLING DOWN

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

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

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

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

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

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Weight-Loss Drugs: Doctors say they are seeing more women try weight-loss medications in the hopes of having a healthy pregnancy. But little is known about the impact of those drugs  on a fetus.

Premature Births: After years of steady decline, premature births rose sharply in the United States  between 2014 and 2022. Experts said the shift might be partly the result of a growing prevalence of health complications among mothers .

Depression and Suicide: Women who experience depression during pregnancy or in the year after giving birth have a greater risk of suicide and attempted suicide .

Benefits and risks of conjugal visits in prison: A systematic literature review

Affiliations.

• 1 Division of Psychological Medicine and Clinical Neurosciences, School of Medicine, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK.
• 2 School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK.
• PMID: 34597428
• DOI: 10.1002/cbm.2215

Background: Imprisonment impacts on lives beyond the prisoner's. In particular, family and intimate relationships are affected. Only some countries permit private conjugal visits in prison between a prisoner and community living partner.

Aims: Our aim was to find evidence from published international literature on the safety, benefits or harms of such visits.

Methods: A systematic literature review was conducted using broad search terms, including words like 'private' and 'family', to maximise search sensitivity but strict criteria for inclusion - of visits unobserved by prison staff and away from other prisoners. All included papers were quality assessed. Two of us independently extracted data from included papers, according to a prepared checklist. Meta-analysis was considered.

Results: Seventeen papers were identified from 12 independent studies, all but three of them from North America. The only study of health benefits found a positive association with maintaining sexual relationships. The three before-and-after study of partnership qualities suggested benefit, but conjugal visiting was within a wider family-support programme. Studies with in-prison behaviour as a possible outcome suggest small, if any, association, although one US-wide study found significantly fewer in-prison sexual assaults in states allowing conjugal visiting than those not. Other studies were of prisoner, staff or partner attitudes. There is little evidence of adverse effects, although two qualitative studies raise concerns about the visiting partner's sense of institutionalisation or coercion.

Conclusions: The balance of evidence about conjugal visiting is positive, but there is little of it. As stable family relationships have, elsewhere, been associated with desistance from crime, the contribution of conjugal visiting to these should be better researched.

Keywords: conjugal visit; consensual sex in prisons; imprisonment; prisoners; private visiting.

© 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Publication types

• Systematic Review
• Interpersonal Relations
• Risk Assessment
• Sexual Partners

Conjugal Visits in Prisons Discourse: Is it Even an Offender Rehabilitation Option in Africa?

Conjugal rights issue in prisons is indeed an old debate. This article reviewed the literature on the genesis of prisoners’ conjugal visits programme, its global prevalence and the scholarly debate for and against its provision to understand if it can be a rehabilitation option in African countries’ prisons. It has been noted that conjugal visits programme was haphazardly started in the 1900s in Mississippi before becoming an official programme in 1989. Though they were discontinued later in 2014 in Mississippi, conjugal visits are still provided in many penitentiary facilities in America, Europe, Asia and Africa. Studies have revealed that conjugal visits are capable of reducing the problems of homosexuality, sexual assaults and physical violence in prisons. It has also been observed that, apart from the fact that denial of conjugal rights to the prisoners’ spouse could be a form of punishment to innocent victims, conjugal visits can be incentives for good prisoners’ behaviour and rehabilitation in prisons. However, apart from the fact the programme is likely to be expensive and costly to African countries whom their general strife is prisoners’ overcrowding, most of the arguments against conjugal visits are moral-based such as that the programme is likely to perpetrate one-parent family system and is prone to abuse by both prisoners and prison staff. It has, therefore, been concluded that it cannot hurt anybody if legally married prisoners and their spouses are provided with a right to enjoy conjugal visits especially in those jurisdictions which have embraced rehabilitation philosophy.

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Benefits and risks of conjugal visits in prison: A systematic literature review

Abstract: background imprisonment impacts on lives beyond the prisoner's. in particular, family and intimate relationships are affected. only some countries permit private conjugal visits in prison between a prisoner and community living partner. aims our aim was to find evidence from published international literature on the safety, benefits or harms of such visits. methods a systematic literature review was conducted using broad search terms, including words like ‘private’ and ‘family’, to maximise search sensitivity … show more.

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References 24 publication s, the experiences of men in prison who do not receive visits from family or friends: a qualitative systematic review.

BackgroundVisits present an opportunity for prisoners to preserve family ties and reduce isolation, but not all receive visits from family or friends whilst incarcerated.AimsTo locate, appraise and synthesise qualitative data on the experiences of adult male prisoners (aged 18 years+) who do not receive prison visits from family or friends.MethodsNine electronic databases were searched from the date of their inception until March 2023. The quality of included studies was assessed using the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme checklist for qualitative studies, and data from the studies were synthesised using the thematic synthesis method.ResultsEighteen studies from seven countries (the USA, the UK [England, Northern Ireland & Scotland], Canada, Netherlands and the Philippines) were eligible for inclusion. Three main themes emerged: (1) reasons for not receiving visits, (2) harmful effects of not receiving visits and (3) the value of volunteer visitor programmes. Practical problems were cited as interfering with visiting opportunities, but also some prisoners or families chose not to meet in prison. Loneliness and depression were extensively described as effects of not receiving visits. Qualities associated with volunteer visitors included raised self‐esteem, improved mood and personal growth.ConclusionNarratives of the experiences of adult men in prison without visits from family or friends suggest that not only the practical difficulties of imprisonment affect visiting; barriers that prisoners themselves impose would merit further exploration, as would family and relationship dynamics during incarceration and the emotional impact of prison visits, for both prisoners and their families. There are suggestions of therapeutic as well as humanitarian benefits from volunteer visiting programmes. There is a gap in the literature about any specific effect on rebuilding family relationships.

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