visitation rights

Florida Corrections considers replacing visits

September 11, 2018 by Timothy Hicks

The Florida Department of Corrections (DOC) is considering limiting inmates’ visits, claiming that there is not enough funding to cover the amount of staff it takes to oversee jail visiting rooms.
According to the Tampa Bay Times, the DOC in Florida is allowing a private contractor to implement a program that will charge inmates and their families a fee to have video phone calls to their families.

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That attempt has frustrated family members and caused great concern. According to the article, one woman whose husband is serving a 25-year-to-life sentence said, “They’re reducing our days so they can they can make money on video visitation.”
The woman, who the Tampa Bay Times identifies as Jewie Tryon, also said, “Money is what motivates these people.” Inmates who are in contact with their families through visits are less likely to want to get into more trouble in jail, according to the Times. According to DOC spokeswoman Michelle Gladys, the video calls are not meant to replace in-person visiting but, to supplement them. “We value in-person visitations, we absolutely do. But given our current [financial] situation, this is our best option for safety reasons,” Gladys expresses her concerns to families for their worries and offers assurance that things won’t change drastically.

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Committee recommends better youth treatment

March 20, 2018 by John Lam

A committee made sweeping recommendations on the use of pepper spray, shackling, visitation rights and vegetarian meal options for incarcerated youths.

“This time around was historic; we are advocating for changes that have never been addressed before,” said Israel Villa, a formerly incarcerated youth and program and policy coordinator for Motivating Individual Leadership for Public Advancement.

The Executive Steering Committee of the State Board of State and Community Corrections held a panel with youth advocates in November in preparation for a Feb. 8 meeting, when the full board will vote on revising statewide regulations for incarcerated youth.

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“Executive Steering Committee meetings are designed to provide direction and…identifying critical issues, providing direction to workgroups that propose revisions and making a final recommendation to the full board,” the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange reported.

The executive committee recommended the following:

Facilities must document the use of pepper spray on youth.

This requirement is a step in the right direction but using pepper spray should not be tolerated, said Sara Kruzan, a formerly incarcerated youth and program coordinator at Healing Dialogue and Action.

New regulations would require individualized assessment before the use of shackles on young detainees.

“I’m concerned about who will be making that discretion regarding shackles and why we are still OK with shackles being used on our youth,” said Kruzan.

Facilities should be required to process requests for vegetarian meals

Supportive adults should not be barred from visiting incarcerated youth because of adults’ conviction history.

These regulations should guide facilities to treat youth in a trauma-informed manner, rather than with a punitive approach, said Kruzan.

“In my case, my trauma was never acknowledged, and the phrase ‘child sex-trafficking survivor’ was never used. No one knew how to handle me, so I was criminalized.”

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Distance Determines if Prisoners Receive Visits

April 1, 2016 by Kevin Sawyer

Research indicates prisoners who are visited by family and friends are less likely to return to incarceration.
Distance plays a major role in why many prisoners’ visits are infrequent and in many cases why others do not receive visits at all, according to Prison Policy Initiative (PPI) research. The study exposes how less than one-third of state prisoners are visited by loved ones during an average month.
“Distance from home is a strong predictor for whether an incarcerated person receives a visit,” said Bernadette Rabuy, the Oct. 2015 study author. “I hope this report gives policy makers more reasons to change the course of correctional history.”
When someone is imprisoned far from home it impacts their visitors in many ways, one of which is by discouraging them from visiting, it was reported.
“We found that among incarcerated people locked up less than 50 miles from home, half receive a visit in a month, but the portion receiving visits falls as the distance from home increases,” the study says.
Prison Policy Initiative said it found “the breakdown of how far people in state prisons reported being locked up (is determined by their distance) from their home communities.”
Distance % visited last month
Less than 50 miles 49.6%
50-100 miles 40.0%
101-500 miles 25.9%
501-1,000 miles 14.5%
Based on a survey covering 14,500 state prisoners done by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the initiative calculated the proportion of inmates housed at various distances from family and friends:
Distance Proportion
Less than 50 miles 15.7%
50-100 miles 20.9%
101-500 miles 53.2%
501-1,000 miles 7.9%
Over 1,000 miles 2.2%
According to a Yale Law School report, “Prison Visitation Policies: A Fifty State Study,” “Thirty jurisdictions (including California) promote or encourage visitation at the outset of their policy directives or regulations.”
However, the Yale study noted these states “are not necessarily the ones in which visitation is most liberally permitted, and indeed some have policies that severely limit visitation.”
The Yale study said 32 jurisdictions place limitations on the number of approved visitors a prisoner may have.
“In contrast, California affirmatively places no limit on the number of approved visitors,” the Yale study says. Citing prison regulations, the study said, “‘Limitations shall not be placed on the number of visitors approved to visit an inmate.’”
The initiative’s study also said distance is not the only factor that affects prisoners’ families or friends’ decision to pay them a visit. It said harassment by prison staff is a deciding issue too.
“States such as California and Massachusetts should stop their unnecessary and dehumanizing strip and dog searches of visitors,” the initiative’s study said.
The Yale study says all states provide prison visitation, and each state screens visitors and places limitations on visiting times and determines who is allowed to visit.
“All states provide a substantial level of discretion to each prison’s warden or superintendent in implementing the policy directives,” the Yale study said.
The Yale study commented, “Many inmates are incarcerated far away from friends and family; sheer distance serves as a major barrier to visitation.”

PPI’s “Correctional Control: Incarceration and Supervision by State” is the first report to aggregate data on all types of correctional control nationwide.

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