Prison visitation is a privilege – not a right – and policies vary widely from state to state despite evidence that visits reduce violence and recidivism, a recent survey reports.
A major factor in visitation is a prisoner’s security classification.
The nearly unrestrained discretion officials have in implementing prison visitation regulations makes clear how consequential these choices are to a prisoner’s incarceration and life after release, according to Prison Visitation Policies: A Fifty State Survey, the study by three Yale Law School students.
Visiting guidelines are established by at the directors’ level of state departments of corrections, according to the survey. Courts have given prison administrators wide latitude in regulating visitation.
New York State’s maximum-security prisons allow up to six-hour visits 365 days a year and overnight conjugal visits about every two months. California prohibits overnight conjugal visits for prisoners serving life sentences. North Carolina permits no more than one visit per week for two hours per visit, including legal and clergy visits.
New York and California advocate more lenient visitation guidelines in order to “preserve, enhance and strengthen family ties as a result of incarceration,” according to the survey.
Indiana, Minnesota, Oregon, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin use a form of virtual video visitation.
The survey revealed higher security prisoners and those in “administrative segregation” face additional barriers to visitation, such as requirement of ‘no-contact.’
Amending guidelines to allow greater access to visitors may be the most practical approach to advancing policies intended to reduce prison violence and lower recidivism rates, according to the survey.
Participation in visiting programs could be a powerful incentive for good behavior and strengthening family ties, which may ease the transition to home upon release, the survey concludes.