A man sits in his prison cell in an usually
good mood. Today is visiting day, but it’s not just
any visit. He’s going to get up close to his lover,
a young woman on the outside who he wrote to during his hefty sentence for robbery and
murder. Fast-forward a few hours and this same man
calmly walks out of his cell and approaches the mother of the woman, who’s waiting for
her in another room. He walks within a few yards of her and says,
“I have just killed your daughter.” Welcome to the world of conjugal visits. What we just told you is a true story. It happened in 2017 at a prison in Villa de
las Rosas, Argentina. The man was 39 and his girlfriend was 20. There are some additions to this dark story,
though, some very, very disturbing additions. The victim and the killer had had a child
together, a result of a previous conjugal visit. The two-month-old child was actually with
her when she went into his cell. Fortunately, the child was not hurt at all. But there’s something else, this guy had
killed his previous wife during another conjugal visit a few years earlier. He’d now killed two partners during such
visits. The mother of the second victim later said,
“I told Andrea when she was about to give birth that she should be careful of him because
he is a murderer.” As for the prison director, he told the media
that in spite of what the guy had done in the past he had every right to have a conjugal
visit. As you’ll see today, this ‘right’ is
a matter of huge controversy. Ok, so before we get into any more tales of
when things went wrong, let’s first look at why these visits exist in the first place. The word conjugal basically means “together”
and “wife”, so a conjugal visit is when a prisoner can be with his wife, up close. It usually means the legal spouse, but that’s
not always the case. It also means they have some privacy, often
for the reason that the couple wants to get it on. That’s why they will get a private room,
even one filled with soaps and towels and stuff. As for who’s allowed these special visits,
it all depends on the country. In those progressive Norwegian prisons, even
convicted killers will for the most part be afforded a nice little room where they can
kiss and make love. Other countries also have them, such as Germany,
Russia, Brazil, and Denmark. As you might already know, some prisons in
South America look a bit like small towns. Sometimes the prisoners seem to have the run
of things, and sometimes they might even live with their partner in the prison. If those almost anarchic prisons changed this,
there would be serious, bloody riots. In the US, things are a bit different. If you’re in federal prison, you won’t
be getting a conjugal visit ever. If you’re in state prison, it could be a
different matter depending on which state you’re serving time in. Back in the 90s, 17 states allowed them, but
after years of the public complaining that prisoners needed to be treated harsher, things
changed. Now such visits only exist in the states of
California, Connecticut, New York, and Washington. Why would a prison allow them at all, some
of you hardliners might think? You’re not alone in thinking that. For instance, the UK doesn’t allow them,
although very low-risk prisoners might get some home release time. Still, the larger part of the public there,
maybe spurred on by the tabloid media, is dead set against such visits. Ok, so before we talk more about the public,
let’s tell you a story. Back in the 1960s, Mississippi became the
first US state to allow conjugal visits. Before you start thinking, oh, how progressive
of Mississippi, you should hear why the state did it. In fact, we’ll let a prison guard from back
then explain in his own words. When asked by a professor why such visits
existed at the Mississippi prison, he replied, “Give ‘em pork, some greens, some cornbread,
and some poontang every now and then and they would work for you.” By ‘em, he was referring to the mostly black
prisoners who each day were sent out into the prison cotton fields and forced to work
like slaves. Basically, if they worked really hard they
were rewarded with a conjugal visit on Sunday. As one writer years later said, “Conjugal
visits are a good policy, and they got their start in America for the worst possible reasons.” He called the prison a “slavery-era plantation”
and explained that those visits were for nothing else but to increase productivity and put
more money in the hands of those that profited from the slave labor. Mississippi by the way, banned the practice
in 2014. That’s all very negative, but these days
things have changed. Prisoners in some states in the US may be
allowed those visits because they are seen as good for the prisoner’s mental health,
the stability of the prison, and a way of keeping families together. Still, it’s unlikely a prisoner will ever
get one if he or she doesn’t have an exemplary prison record. Plus, high-security prisoners or anyone on
death row will never have such a visit, or even anyone with a history of serious violence,
especially against women. In California, the prisoner will not only
have to have a squeaky clean prison record, but the prison will also do background checks
on his family. The visitor will have to wear certain clothes
and they will also be rigorously checked for any kind of contraband. It goes without saying that no booze is allowed,
neither are electronic devices. Ok, so what goes down on one of these visits
in the US? An officer in New York working at Green Haven
Correctional Facility in Stormville went on record and explained this. He said as part of the “Family Reunion Program”
or what he snidely called the “Felon Reproduction Program”, spouses and family can visit a
prisoner in a private visitation trailer. He said girlfriends were not allowed, but
prisoners got around this by saying their partner was a close relative. As for those trailers, they have a kitchen,
they have a bathroom; they have all sorts of things because the couple staying in them
will stay overnight. That officer said there’s a TV, a PlayStation,
and of course, you can take in lots of food. As for the DVDs on offer, nothing above a
G-rating is accepted. Maybe the prison thinks that by watching a
horror flick or a gangster flick the prisoner might find some inspiration to commit another
crime. When the visit is over, the inmate is tested
for drugs and alcohol, but seeing as he already has an exemplary record there’s little chance
he’d have smoked a blunt while watching “Muppets from Space.” Things generally don’t go wrong, although
the officer said this: “There was one time that an officer was
doing rounds, and heard people screaming and called an emergency response to go check it
out. It ended up being two people…” You’ll have to fill in the last word yourself,
because YouTube would demonetize us for doing it for you. According to the New York Times, just less
than half of conjugal visits in the state of New York are between spouses. That same article cited research that concluded
that those visits helped with a prisoner’s behavior, cut down on sexual attacks in prison,
and helped the prisoner reintegrate back into society after his release. Not everyone agrees or has a progressive mindsight. A Republican State Representative in New York
commented on how babies were made during such visits, something he didn’t like at all. He told the Times, “I don’t think it’s
fair to the children conceived and to the taxpayers. You are in prison for a reason. You are in there to pay your debt, and conjugal
visits should not be part of the deal.” Another person interviewed, the wife of a
prisoner in for aggravated assault, had a totally different opinion. She said, “I just want people to realize
it’s about the alone time with your husband. I understand they are in there for a reason. Obviously, they did something wrong. But they are human, too. So are we.” With those two opinions in mind, are conjugal
visits a good thing? Well, research in the US has indeed pointed
to the possibility that they may cut down on males sexually assaulting one another. It happens a lot, so anything that might cut
down on it would surely be welcomed. A report by the Justice Department in 2012
said this, “In 2011–12, an estimated 4.0% of state and federal prison inmates and 3.2%
of jail inmates reported experiencing one or more incidents of sexual victimization
by another inmate or facility staff in the past 12 months.” That’s a hell of a lot. We found an interview in which an inmate said
this, “I had no choice but to submit to being the inmate's prison wife. Out of fear for my life, I submitted to…” Again, we can’t go into details due to moderation,
but he submitted to many terrible things by force. Many scholars have written that conjugal visits
will help reduce these attacks and also reduce violence in other ways inside prisons. A study published in the American Journal
of Criminal Justice said this, “Those states that allow conjugal visits have a significantly
lower number of reported prison rape and other sexual violence in their prisons.” Another report concluded this, “The rate
of sexual violence in states that allow conjugal visitation is 57 incidents per 100,000 inmates,
whereas in states that do not allow conjugal visitation the rate is 226 per 100,000 inmates.” Still, right now it seems there is very little
chance of a mass expansion of conjugal visits in the US. For the most part, the public’s response
is a state-to-state echo of, “Do the crime, do the time” even if the polar opposite
of rehabilitation is happening in many prisons. It’s the same in the UK. Not long ago, some prisoners tried to appeal
to the courts by saying the prisons violated the law under “Article 8 of the Human Rights
Act: the right to family and private life.” Some European countries, such as France and
Spain, do allow such visits, but not the UK. This is what some of the interviewed British
public think about such visits: “Let them suffer. That is what prison is for… In fact, they should only speak to outsiders
through glass.” Talking about glass, should prisoners even
be allowed that close to visitors? In 2017, news reports said that just about
all US jails were ending face-to-face visits even though those charged were awaiting a
trial date and of course were innocent until proven guilty. In some jails, the inmates picked up a leaflet
talking about how they could make a video and it would be seen by their family. The leaflet read, “Reading a bedtime story
... Never miss another moment… Do you want to see your loved one more often?” And all this for just $12.99 per video... Things can of course go wrong when prisoners
get up close to visitors, as you heard in vivid detail in the introduction. We looked high and low for other instances
when a conjugal visit has turned into a bloody disaster and it seems there haven’t been
that many. In the US, we found an instance in 1995 when
a prisoner in Washington was shot by a guard because he was in the process of stabbing
his wife. The guy, who was actually in for murder, was
shot outside the conjugal-visit trailer. He was hit in the shoulder and not badly injured,
although his wife was in a serious condition after being stabbed in the arms, neck, and
face. The prison after that said it would review
its position on having knives in the trailers. And as we said, these days it’s very unlikely
a convicted killer will get such a visit. When we say these kinds of stories are few
and far between, we mean it. Conjugal visits have proven not to be any
kind of problem besides these cases that happened decades apart and in different countries. So, safety of the prisoner doesn’t seem
to be an issue. Budget is, as if the possibility of bringing
in contraband, although if the prisoner has been exemplary – and with this enticement,
you’d think many would try to be – he might think twice about breaking the rules. With that in mind, you have to look at what
just happened in Texas. Just recently the state stopped in-person
visits and limited mail due to the pandemic. The state thought it would see fewer drugs
in prisons, but that didn’t happen at all. According to the Marshall Project, the vast
majority of drugs were being brought in by guards. The Texas Tribune wrote, “Staff members
and prisoners say the problem is worse, and agency data shows guards are finding just
as many drugs and writing up even more prisoners for having them.” In one prison there were more drugs than ever,
because due to social distancing, guards were not searching each other. You can find similar reports in the UK that
say officers bring in possibly the largest amount of drugs, and even weapons and mobile
phones. We’re just making this point because many
anti-conjugal visit people are anti because of this reason, thinking these visits will
mean prisons will become awash with drugs. Err, they already are. Still, visits are a major reason for that,
too, so conjugal visits would have to be very controlled. What it really boils down to, though, is a
matter of public sentiment. Much of the public is against conjugal visits
simply because they believe prisoners have committed a crime and should have the right
to intimacy taken away from them, lest prison time becomes too easy. We wonder what you viewers think. Now you need to watch, “Insane Ways People
Have Smuggled Things Into Prison.” Or, have a look at, “Why Prisons Ban These
Everyday Items.”
