In a number of jails or prisons, conjugal visits are allowed. Of course, it cannot be done anytime, but there is a schedule for that. However, you may wonder why conjugal visits are allowed. Let’s read about the reasons why conjugal visits are allowed in prisons or jails here along with some other information related to conjugal visits.
One of the reasons why conjugal visits are allowed is to preserve family bonds. Besides, it is also allowed to increase the opportunity of success for a prisoner to be able to go back to their ordinary life after they are released from prison. A professor of social welfare at the Luskin School of Public Affairs at the University of California, Los Angeles, named Jorja Leap, said that criminologists believe that if conjugal visits are allowed, it can build family ties and reduce recidivism.
A conjugal visit itself is scheduled and in a conjugal visit an inmate can spend several hours or days with a visitor, who is usually their legal spouse, in private. A conjugal visit usually takes place in a designated room which is aimed for that purpose. In that kind of room, a number of things may be provided such as bed linens, soap, lubricant, condoms, and towels.
Mississippi was the first state that implemented conjugal visits, exactly in the Mississippi State Penitentiary (Parchman). At first, it was done unofficially, but then by the 1950s, according to the Daily Jstor site it was in 1965, it had become official policy at Parchman Penitentiary. On the Daily Jstor site, it is also explained that after the policy was implemented unofficially for years, it was seen by administrators as an incentive for obedience and also a solution for something called the “Sex Problem” where it was a euphemism for prison rape. Criminologists at that time saw rape in prison as a symptom of the larger “problem of homosexuality” where the reason was that the physical deprivations of prison changed men into sexual deviants where men wanted to have sex with other men. So, by seeing this condition, one of the reasons why conjugal visits were allowed at that time was to remind men of their natural roles where it was not only as practitioners of normal sexuality, but also as husbands. According to the Criminal Defense Lawyer, it is also said that if inmates maintain their family and spouse relationships, it will decrease their interest in criminal activity and inmates who are allowed to have conjugal visits and family visits will be less prone to violence and other wrong-doings while they are incarcerated.
And even in 1962, the sociologists Columbus B. Hopper wrote that conjugal visits is a very important factor to boost inmate morale, reduce homosexuality and comprise an important factor in preserving marriages.
Do federal prisons and state prisons in the U.S. allow conjugal visits? According to Wikipedia, conjugal visits for inmates in federal custody are not allowed in the United States Federal Bureau of Prisons. How about in the state prisons? Prisoners who are incarcerated in state custody may be able to have conjugal visits, but it is governed by the law of the particular state. For now, there are only four states that permit conjugal visits including New York, California, Washington, and Connecticut. How about Mississippi which was the first state that implemented this program? In 2014, in another source in 2015, Mississippi and New Mexico ended conjugal visitation. In 1993, there were 17 states that had conjugal visitation programs. But then, in the 2000s, there were only 6 states that had this program including New Mexico, California, Connecticut, Washington, Mississippi and New York.
If inmates want to have conjugal visits, they need to meet certain requirements. For example, the inmates need to be free of any sexually transmitted diseases and the visitor will be checked about their background. Before and after an inmate and their visitor have a conjugal visit, they will be searched where it is done to make sure that the visitor or the inmate does not smuggle anything.
As explained on the Criminal Defense Lawyer site, states do not refer to “conjugal” visits anymore where they now mainly focus more on family time. In California, it refers to contact visits and in Washington and Connecticut, it is called extended family visit. Meanwhile in New York, it is called a family reunion program.
A bookworm and researcher especially related to law and citizenship education. I spend time every day in front of the internet and the campus library.
