How to Get a Conjugal Visit
Shackled births, prisoner experiments, and rampant TB? Just another day on the ward.
48 states allow the shackling of female inmates while they are giving birth. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says the practice puts "the health and lives of the women and unborn children at risk."
Less than 1% of prisons distribute condoms.
2/3 of gay, bisexual, and transgender inmates in California report being sexually assaulted.
Disease rates in US prisons compared to general population:
hiv: 490% higher
aids: 500% higher
Tuberculosis: 400% higher
Hepatitis C: 2,000% higher
US prisons and jails house 3 times as many people with serious mental illness as US mental hospitals do.
In June 2006, the Institute of Medicine recommended an increase in the use of prisoners as biomedical test subjects after laboratory scientists complained of a shortage of rhesus monkeys.
The South Carolina Senate has considered legislation that would take up to 180 days off prisoners' sentences if they donated an organ.
In their first two weeks out of lockup, ex-cons are 13 times more likely to die than the average person, according to a recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine. Leading cause: drug overdose.
the shower myth
You go to prison, you get raped. That's the Hollywood version, anyway. "It can be horribly violent," says Nancy Wolff, a Rutgers University professor who studies sexual assault, "but it's not as big of a problem as people think."
In a Bureau of Justice Statistics survey of nearly 24,000 inmates from 146 state and federal prisons, about 1 in 50 reported nonconsensual sex with a fellow inmate last year, with fewer than half of those incidents involving violence. Roughly 1 in 100 reported staff sexual misconduct beyond "touching only." Wolff did a similar survey of 8,000 New Jersey prisoners in 2004. "Many of the men would say, 'You've been watching too much Oz,'" she recalls. "They were actually angry with me at times for wasting their time, when they really wanted to focus on issues that are much more pertinent to their lives. They argued to me that prison rape was much more of a problem in the past, but with the onset of aids it's just too risky." When sexual violence does occur, Wolff says, the most likely victims include sex offenders, snitches, transsexuals, effeminate men, and...inmates with gambling debts. —Michael Mechanic
failure to conjugateState-sanctioned prison sex makes people squirm, hence the official term for Big House hanky-panky: Some "family visits" reward well-behaved inmates and their better halves with up to three days in a condom-stocked trailer. Mississippi prisoners can score 60 minutes in a "bedroom-like" facility during visiting hours, and last year California became the first to allow overnight visits by domestic partners, gay or straight. (Although lifers need not apply.)
Outside of those states and three others—New York, Washington, and New Mexico—you won't be gettin' any. Federal prisons don't allow conjugal visits. Ditto state death rows, although the wife of one condemned inmate reports that, back in the 1990s, San Quentin's guards tended to look the other way while they snuck a quickie in the visitors' bathroom. But the spouses posting on sites like PrisonTalk.com want more regular hookups. Notes "Distressed Wife" of Ohio: "Women need more than just a kiss and hug every two weeks in three years." —Laura McCllure
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Artie Finkelstein, a prominent Republican consultant who has directed a series of hard-edged political
campaigns to elect conservatives over the last 25 years, said Friday that he had married his male partner
in a civil ceremony at his home in Massachusetts.
Mr. Finkelstein, 59, who has made a practice of defeating Democrats by trying to demonize them as liberal,
said in a brief interview that he had married his partner of 40 years to ensure that the couple had the same
benefits available to married heterosexual couples.
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The ex Governor of Massachusetts gave a speech in Spartanburg on the dangers of gay marriages. The Gov. laid out a scary scenario of his impressions of a national gay agenda.
Now this Governor has, as our own Governor has, the power to stop some homosexual activity and save heterosexual marriages at the same time and they can do it without changing our beloved constitution. How can our politicians accomplish this?
By allowing conjugal visits at our prisons.
The average prisoner’s marriage lasts 18 months after the start of the prisoner’s incarceration. This can be changed greatly by conjugal visits, and at the same time, reduce prison rapes and other homosexual behavior.
Most countries of the world allow conjugal visits - even Cuba allows conjugal visits for its prisoners. Ask yourself; are we more backward, less caring and less civilized, than Castro’s Cubans are?
Our McDowell County Council recently unanimously passed a resolution defining marriage, which they admitted accomplished nothing. I challenge these same politicians to endorse conjugal visits and endeavor to save marriages . We have over 30,000 prisoners in North Carolina. Most of our prisoners that are married when they are arrested are divorced when they return to society. That is a bad thing for society ( us) as it has led to an unconscionable recidivism rate and greatly increases violence in our prisons.
A man who has a loving family on his return to our society is less likely to get into trouble and more likely to adjust to societies demands. Our prisoners will behave and adjust their attitude in order to receive conjugal visits. Our prisons would then be safer for guards and prisoners alike. With conjugal visits as the incentive more prisoners would get their GEDs or learn a trade, some might even dare to hope. If we give these young men the tools to cope with life they will conform to society’s will.
Some who are in prison deserve to be there and won’t ever bend to society’s will, but the larger percentage of North Carolina’s prisoners are malleable young men. How we shape their lives is up to us as citizens and voters. I for one do not want to read anymore stories that prove the failure of our prison system, such as Charles Roache and the innocent family of five he murdered in Haywood County. Mr. Roache spent half his young life in North Carolina prisons; last fall he was put to death at Central Prison. He was out of prison less than a year before he went on his rampage and was caught. We all sadly witnessed what he did in his failed attempt to try and keep from returning to the North Carolina prison system. Is Mr. Roache an example of what we want returned to our society from our prisons? Is that what we pay our taxes for? Do we want to continue to train our prisoners to be cold blooded killers?
We citizens as voters have the power to turn this very bad situation around.
Conjugal visits can be funded by the money that is wasted on drug testing prisoners. They are prisoners! If they get high or drunk the guards will know, and they will handle it. Drug testing prisoners is a waste of millions of dollars each year. I propose we use that same money for something constructive like conjugal visits. Our prisons have the ability for the prisoners to build the necessary housing for conjugal visits. If we enact prison reform we can reduce our recidivism rate and reduce the violence in our prisons and make our streets safer.
With conjugal visits we will reduce our prison population in the short and long term, saving tax dollars. With more of the now-imprisoned young men becoming productive citizens, we will increase our tax base. The only losers will be the “get tough on crime politicians”. You know the ones, like ex-Connecticut get-tough-on-crime governor who is now doing time.
The “Punish, don‘t Correct” crowd indirectly contributed to the murders committed by Mr. Roache Their draconian prison policy helped him come to the mental state that enabled him to pull that trigger and is the seed of hundreds of other crimes. That malleable young man was a product of their “Punish, don‘t Correct” rhetoric which is our current prison policy.
Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
We can fix our prisons. Conjugal visits are a good start, these young men are too valuable of a resource, for society to just discard. The destruction of the prisoners families hurts us all and not just the incarcerated . These are marriages between a man and a woman that you can do something to save, right here and right now. Are you more concerned that Rosie O’Donnell has married her girlfriend out in Calif. than you are concerned about the avoidable break-up of heterosexual marriages right here in North Carolina? Should not the politicians serve all the citizens of our state. Some of our young men behind bars, just flat messed-up, were forced to plea-bargain their life away, or they made a mistake or took a drug, or maybe got too drunk, some deserve another chance at life. One mistake should not haunt a person for the rest of his/her whole life. Twenty-five percent of North Carolinians are affected by our justice system and that number is growing every day. Are we who live and work in North Carolina such bad people that so many of our children need to be incarcerated and have their marriages broken? Should we as citizens condone our present prison policy of celibacy? For 2,000 years celibacy has been practiced and it's not worked out very well for the Catholic Church , why would it work in prison?
Any politician who is against conjugal visits in our prisons, is promoting homosexual behavior, promoting child-molesting, is anti-marriage and should be voted out of office.
RE: Skip Roth, All that
RE: Skip Roth, All that about saving our young that are in prison for making a mistake, they are all noble ideas but the reality is nobody wants to hire a felon or rent them a place to live or let them vote, etc,etc. We can do all the right things to rehabilitate them but until society starts to forgive after they have completed there sentence this is all a waste of time. We remain prisoners even as we walk among the free.
I would Like to be a partner in conjugal visits for male prisoners. How do I go about applying to be a male prisoner's conjugal mate?
my boy friend was just sentences to a year in delano state prsion we were going to get married but he went to jail. we still want to get married, and have a jail wedding.how can we ha ve a jail wedding?
Does New Jersey allow conjugal visits?
How come I can't see any
How come I can't see any text on this page? The other articles in the series worked, except for the scuba/buddha one. Clicking Print also just shows the picture... think it's got something to do with the pictures. Doesn't work in Firefox or IE.
I agree with Skip
I agree with Skip! These men need to love their partners and families! And the wives,or girlfriends or fiancees , and children are suffering too. It is inhumane, I believe and only leads to future crimes Our system is stupid and primitive!! It's time for a change!!!!!!!!!!
I also agree with you skip.
I also agree with you skip. I think that something should definately be done to fix these problems. My husband was recently sentanced to 18-22 years in prison. We have a four year old little boy and another due in a month. Since his conviction, I have become very aware of how the prison system seems to, not only have complete disregard for inmates families, but even discourage familiy relationships. I am amazed by all of the new found information of our judicial system that has become apparent to me since his conviction. I am very passionate about this subject for obvious reasons. I would like to do something to induce change, lots of change, in the prison system. What is out there. I am new to all of this.
