Conjugal Visits: Preserving family bonds behind bars

[Jazzy]

Most of us assume that prison life precludes any private contact between inmates and their significant others. After all, that's one of the penalties of going to prison. But then what about conjugal visits? The term has an old-fashioned ring to it, evoking images of prisoners' wives sneaking into the big house while the guards turn a blind eye. But conjugal visits actually do take place in a handful of states as a means to preserve family relationships during the period of incarceration.

Modern Conjugal Visits
Although conjugal programs are still used as an incentive for good behavior, they are no longer applied as a means to increase work productivity. Today, the conjugal visit program is designed primarily to preserve family bonds. The idea is that supporting these bonds will strengthen the inmate's chances for rehabilitation and lessen rates of recidivism.

So, just where do these visits take place?
Inmates who qualify for visits are furnished with private, apartment-style settings within the prison walls.

Visits are not limited simply to spouses. In most states, up to three family members can be present at a visit. The time in the apartment allows the family unit to act as a whole. Internationally, the conjugal visit is seen as an important part of the prisoner's interaction with the outside world - a vivid reminder of life on the other side of the prison walls.

Source

Should prisoners have the right to conjugal visits? Why / Why not?

 

[DrLeftover]

Not all states have such a thing, and not all Federal prisons support them either due to lack of facilities or the types of programs in place.

 

[Jazzy]

Not all states have such a thing

That's correct. Currently, only six U.S. states allow prison conjugal visits within their prison systems: California, Connecticut, Mississippi, New Mexico, New York and Washington.

Original question: Should prisoners have the right to conjugal visits? Why / Why not?

 

[DrLeftover]

In the majority of cases, the prisoners eligible for the program are in the Hotel Graybar for an extended stay, many of them for some version of Natural Life, and there is no other incentive for them to 'be a good boy'.

Although the prison I worked at did not have conjugal visits, they did have "honor visits" which allowed several members of their family to come in, bring 'street food' which was inspected before being allowed in, and to spend time together in a less formal and less controlled situation than a one or two on one visit in the visitation room. Each eligible convict, usually "lifers" could earn two or three such visits a year depending on a variety of factors.

I remember one inmate who was doing a sentence of over a hundred and twenty years mandatory time (with no chance of any form of early release) who was very careful to keep himself eligible every chance he got.

"Good time" (earned days off the end of the sentence as a reward for good behavior and other programs) meant nothing to him, so what incentive did he have to do anything worthwhile in prison? Instead he could have spent most of his time spitting on guards and the like.

And from what I understand, most penitentiaries where convicts do Big Time have something similar, so it must work.