September 29, 2020 • 46 mins
After reaching their peak, conjugal prison visits are all but gone in the U.S. Learn all about these frisky visits in today's episode.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of My
Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and
there's Jerry over there, and this is Stuff you Should Know.
Another prison edition. We're starting to fill it out a
(00:22):
little bit. I don't know. I don't remember even talking
about this in our prison episode. Did we There's just
no way we didn't mention it. Somehow we certainly didn't
go into depth. I remember wanting to do this for
a while, um and looking into it before and being like, oh,
it's not really a thing. Luckily you put um Julia
Layton on it and she did a little more digging
(00:44):
and it turned out it was, um kind of a
human rights criminology thing. Yeah, but you're sort of right
that it's not really much of a thing, which is sad.
I've learned. Yeah, I think so, I think any Yeah,
I think we'll get to it. But yes, I'm in
favor of um extended family visits, which may or may
(01:06):
not include sex. Yeah, I got that from uh now.
Hob Goblins and the Mystery Science Theater three thousand version
of hob goblins. It's it's pretty great. Just just go
check it out. It will show up eventually. Yeah. Well,
I mean you mentioned um sexy time, and I think
(01:29):
when you think of conjugal visits, m'st the ford. I mean,
that's originally what it was. And we'll get to the history.
But that's the first thing you probably think of, is
a time set aside at a certain place at a prison.
Probably not you know, a separate building at a prison
where uh, and you generally think of like a wife
(01:50):
going to have sex with her inmate husband. Yeah. And
in fact, I mean that's actually pretty good term for it,
because in in biology, to conjugate means to um become
temporarily united in order to exchange genetic material. Man, if
that's not a clinical term, I have never heard one before.
(02:13):
It there with mouth parts, I mean yeah, it does. Um,
everybody's heard of conjugal visits. I mean, like it's just
kind of like this legendary mythological thing. Like if you've
ever seen a Bugs Bunny cartoon from the forties, you
know about conjugal visits. You know what I mean. No,
I'm just kidding. But you can see it though, couldn't you?
Wouldn't that be like one of those random things whereas
an adult you went back and you're like, I can't believe,
(02:35):
like this is part of this cartoon. I think I
would be surprised if Bugs Bunny featured prison or sex.
So yeah, I'd be pretty surprised, all right, I guarantee
prisons made an appearance. But the thing is is, there
does seem to be like a huge misunderstanding about conjugal
visits or an understanding about them, but then a complete
lack of understanding about how much further these visits go
(03:00):
um and and actually I think that that kind of
has led to their decline because you need public support
to keep something like that up, because it's really easy
to get rid of if you are are so minded,
it's very easy to get rid of. And as you'll
see or you know or here, uh, that's been happening
over the course of the past twenty years in a
(03:21):
big way, and a big reason is because what you
mentioned earlier, what we're really talking about these days in
the United States, and we'll get to other countries. Other
countries are like bring it, do it six ways to
Sunday a couple of times a month, but no, like
we really have to watch. Um. They're they're called extended
(03:43):
family visits. UH. In New York they're called family reunion visits.
And it's really easy for a politician of a certain
kind of politician that doesn't want this kind of thing
going on, to just lump it in there as you know,
your taxpayer dollar are going toward uh, these hardcore criminals
(04:04):
just being able to have sex, and like, why would
we support that? They can go not the case, They
can say watch this, I'm physically conservative and tough on criminals.
And then the people say how much did you save?
And they go, yeah, well, let's get to that too.
So let's talk about, um, how we'll explain how how
much beyond what the public's understanding of conjugal visitor that
(04:27):
it goes. But let's talk about the origins of these things.
You want to Yeah, the basically racist origins. In Mississippi, uh,
Mississippi State penn In the early nineteen hundreds, there was
a for profit labor camp called Parchment Farm where the
UH warden basically said, you know what, Um, everybody knows
(04:49):
that that black men have an insatiable sex drive, and
that's one reason they're in here to begin with. So
if we get these guys having a little bit of
sex as an incentive, then they're gonna work harder for
us and increase our profits. That that's the origin of
conjugal visits period. Really, that's it. And so this warden
(05:12):
started this program UM at Parchment, which became I believe
the Mississippi State Penitentiary UM. And this was in what
en Uh yeah, nineteen eighteen is when he started bringing
in sex workers, right, and you just hit the nail
on the head as it were, UM on Sundays. Last
(05:33):
on Sundays, the warden would bring in UM sex workers
for to um lay with the inmates and do more
than just laying. Yeah, Like married, not a problem, Single,
not a problem. We got the shack out in the
back and uh, you know, I don't know if you
want to be like tenth on that list for the day,
(05:54):
but that's uh, that's how we're gonna do things around here. Yeah,
and like that, you were right about the racist origins
of it, because it wasn't until twelve years after that
program was instituted that it was extended to white inmates.
And then it wasn't another I think fifty four years
before it was finally extended to female to women femine
(06:14):
female inmates. UM. And along the way, what's crazy is
between that that gulf of time nineteen eighteen and in
nineteen seventy two when women were first became eligible in
Mississippi for conjugal visits, it underwent this kind of like
surprising enlightenment transition to where there was a nineteen sixty
(06:37):
six maybe study that was done on it, and in
the notes on the study, like some criminologist or or
um Corrections official basically said, you know, this is possibly
one of the most enlightened programs in in the entire
Corrections UM field, in the entire country Mississippi. What grew
(06:58):
out of their racist conjugal visit program became something like
genuinely enlightened, which was pretty interesting. Yeah, and we should
note that, UM in nineteen sixty three is when they
were not bringing in sex sex workers. At that point
you had to be married and it had to be
your spouse. Uh. And that's an important distinction. But for
you know, forty five years, it seems like they were
(07:21):
bringing in every Sunday sex workers too, too, I guess, um. Yeah,
to to incentivize these guys. Yeah, right, right, And so
I think that's where the transition came, where it became
enlightened as it went from an incentive to get them
to work harder because Parchment was a for profit prison
labor camp, which, by the way, if you're if you're like,
(07:42):
what is that, go watch the Ava du verne Um
documentary and the Thirteenth Amendment, one of the most mind
altering documentaries you will ever see. Really really well done,
but really kind of drives home the idea of prison
labor is an extension of slavery. But that was what
this was. This was Jim Crow slavery. It was legal
(08:03):
slavery after slavery was abolished, And so the whole thing
was to get these inmates to work harder. But then
over time they said, well, no, wait a minute, maybe
this is actually like good for society. Weirdly, it's going
to keep these family ties between the inmates and the
people they've been separated from, you know, just linked enough
(08:25):
that when they go back out on the outside, they're
not just gonna go back to a life of crime.
They're still gonna have these relationships that they had before
they went in. Yeah, and so you know, as as
everyone knows, as things go in Mississippi, they generally follow
in the rest of the United States. And extended visitation
is what they were calling it. Well, I guess they
call it conjugal visits. But um, in the sixties is
(08:47):
when it started to spread to more and more states
around the United States. I think California in South Carolina
had programs in the late sixties. New York and Minnesota
jumped on board in the seven these I think in
the eighties, Uh, some other states, New Mexico and Wyoming
got on board, and then I guess we would call
(09:08):
it the Golden Age of conjugal visits. In the early
nineties there were seventeen states that allowed some sort of
extended visitation. Yeah, but so that was the peak. And
one of the reasons the early nineties were the peak
was because about the early eighties, UM, the United States said,
you know what, this whole like rehabilitation thing that's kicked
(09:32):
off in the fifties, This idea that prison was meant
to rehabilitate people and turn them into better citizenis it
didn't work. And we think it's all a bunch of
who we and UM we're going to abandon that and
get tough on crime. And that's what happened. I mean
throughout the eighties and the nineties, we got super tough
on crime, super conservative about how we treat criminals and prisoners.
(09:54):
And the idea became, if you were in prison, you
were in there for a reason, and you you should
not have any kind of frills or um or moments
of joy. You're supposed to be in there to be punished,
maybe to reflect on what you did wrong, but at
the really ultimately this is punishment. And um, we're not
going to treat you like a human being any longer
(10:17):
you're a prisoner. It's a different kind of person. And
part of that is taking away conjugal visits. Right, And
that line of thinking, like you said, was a pretty
big sea change in and now we don't have crime. Right,
it worked. New Gingrich's plan worked. Should we take a boy,
I think we should take a break on New Gingrich. Right,
let's all take a break on New Ingra. Let's take
(10:38):
a little break and we'll be back right after this. Alright, Chuck,
(11:05):
so um, let's talk a little bit about like what
these things evolved too along the way, because if you're
just sitting there like, Okay, so prisoners can't have sex anymore,
that's really not the end of the world to me. Well,
prepare for your heart to bleed a little more than
it is right now, because over time, these conjugal visits
developed into order, like you said, called extended family visits
(11:28):
or family reunion visits, and they involved not just spouses, um,
but also kids. Um. The parents of the inmate might
come to visit, UM, siblings might come to visit, and
there was no sex involved. It was family time. Like
that was the point of the whole thing, was to
spend time with family. And Um. If you read some
(11:50):
of the accounts of the children of inmates who have
memories of going to these extended family visits, um, they
formed these are like the memories of their lifetime, Like
these are some of their best childhood memories. Ironically enough, Yeah,
and you know, the whole purpose here is is primarily twofold,
which is incentive. It's still an incentive to get inmates
(12:12):
to follow the rules because as you'll see as we
detail the stuff, um, you really really have to follow
the rules. Like very few prisoners are even eligible for
this kind of thing. Um. And then the other thing is,
you know, just to foster that family tie so once
you get out, you don't have that that cliche you
(12:33):
see in the movie where you come home from prison
and you have these strangers sitting in your house that
are your children, and there's at least some small modicum
of of a relationship of some sort of a tie
emotional tie with a parent and a child or like
you said, the parent of the inmate, or you know, spouses.
(12:55):
They're still involved obviously, So when they get out, the
idea is that they have of a support system. They're
waiting on them and not like, well now I have
the super awkward uh moment where I have to come
in and and get to know my teenage children, right,
or you know, like this is really hard on me.
I think I'm going to go back to crime or
(13:16):
go back to addiction or whatever. So the idea that
there's this structure that remains in place and solid during
their imprisonment, that the the thought is that that just
helps them ease into normal society afterwards. Yeah, like we
really need to drive that home because I think the
way I said it, there might be people saying, well,
so what if it's super awkward. You shouldn't have committed
(13:38):
the crime. It's not that it can be so awkward
enough putting that it can. It can cause someone like
you said, to not go home and to not want
to face their family that they don't know, and all
of a sudden, they're they're alone out there. And as
we'll see, we have statistics to back it up. Recidivism
is UH is a big problem in this really really helps.
(14:01):
It's also a bone head word. It is a bone
head word. The thing is too is also it's not
necessarily even just awkward for him, but there's there's expectations
that are on them when they come back home. They
have people that they're accountable to, which helps that transition
because you know, and you can imagine that the transition
that period immediately after prison life into normal society. I'm
(14:25):
not sure if it's weeks or months, maybe longer. Um
that is the the most difficult part of getting back
into society. And so have a family and a home
to go to that that just changes things. They make
movies about it, they do, and bugs money cartoons. So
here's UH, and we'll get to some of these stories
two in a second. But here's how it works depending
(14:46):
on where you are. Um, because it's different at every
prison in every state has their own. And I think
we should also point out that it's only state prisons
where it's even allowed at all, Like if you're in
federal prison, there isn't anything like that from what I
could find. Yeah, but um, they try to set it up.
I mean it depends on whether there's a uh like
(15:09):
a shack in the back or a trailer sometimes. Um,
I think they try to make them a little homier
these days, and what they're looking to do is sort
of recreate some sense of normalcy over the one to
four days that you're allowed to be with your family. Uh.
This one in Connecticut, McDougall Walker Correctional Institution. I think
it's the biggest prison in the New England area. They
(15:31):
have a full on, like two bedroom apartment with a
kitchen and they can bring in food and cook meals
together and watch movies. I think they they have like
stock DVDs and stuff like that. Um, but I think
you are allowed to even bring in Everything is heavily inspected,
of course, but you are allowed to bring in food
to cook like your favorite family meal. They're not just like, well,
(15:51):
here's what you got from the prison pantry. Yeah, that's
what I um saw as well. And I think more
than just um, I think that's part part an economical
decision too, because they also charge. Um there's you know,
it can be a nominal fee, like in I think
New York maybe or Washington. I think Washington, it's like
(16:11):
ten dollars a visit or something like that. But um,
you know, every penny counts in some of the budget
deficited prisons in the United States. UM, so they do
kind of count those pennies. But more more to the point,
the point of bringing in outside food is to create
that sense of normalcy for the family. Um. It's basically
(16:33):
like a staycation on prison grounds is what I what like,
ideally is what I got from from the research I did. Yeah,
and if if the prisoner's favorite dessert is uh, fingernail
file cake, that's what they're getting. That can't be helped
talk about a movie trope. Has that ever happened in
the history of the world. I don't know. We gotta
(16:55):
find out now, though you just threw down the gauntlet
like a prison a fingernail file being snuck in a
cake and that leading to an escape. I think it's
I think it's probably never happened. We'll find out. That
reminds me that I've been wanting to do an episode
on the Three Stooges that maybe a two parter. Okay,
that's a prepare for no women to listen. It's so great,
(17:18):
they're so good man. Yeah, it's kind of a dude's thing,
though maybe we'll change that with our episodes. There there
should have been a counterpart, Yeah, you know, I wonder
if there was. I'm sure they tried that out at
some point during the middle. Well, I think the idea
of a show with three women that are morons that
just kind of abuse each other physically was probably not
(17:40):
very realistic or believable, not like the real studoges. And
how realistic that was, right, man, Seriously, I watched that
sometimes still today and it's classic. Yes, it it really is,
and for a good reason. It's it's hilarious, but also
just so well choreographed and those dudes worked hard. We
should totally do a an episode on that. So. Um So,
(18:04):
while while you've got this staycation going on with your family,
with your children, with your wife or your husband, um,
and you're you're having a good time, you're relaxing. Um.
Every four hours, depending on where you are, there's probably
going to be a visit from a guard that says, hey,
I gotta search some stuff. Because it's it's important to
(18:27):
point out like this is not it's not like this.
This occurs on the prison grounds. It's part of prison.
It's just a modified part of prison. So there's plenty
of rules and restrictions that that are meant to keep
security tight, prevent contraband from being transferred from you know,
the visitors to the inmate um, and uh, to just
(18:49):
kind of keep things on the up and up basically, Yeah, like, uh,
for instance, you can't just waltz in there, like if
you've got a new uh sexy penpal in um he said, well,
I want to get a visit from this person. Now,
you can't just waltz in there as a first timer
and pop in and have a conjugal visit or even
a family visit, whatever you want to call it. You
(19:10):
have to have it. I mean, it depends on where
you are again, but like in New York, you have
to have been at least a visitor standard visitor, three
other times in the previous twelve months. So you have
to be someone they know, someone who has proven to
be you know, a real like connection in your life. Um,
(19:31):
you have to undergo health screening. And this is everyone
like kids, anyone that's gonna stay in this apartment. Um,
you're gonna get health screened. Obviously for conjugal visit, you're
gonna get STD tested. Um. Like you mentioned, it depends
on where you are. Lots of searches. Um. I don't
know if I know, California was every four hours, but
I imagine they'd like to spring those on you as well. Yeah,
(19:53):
I would guess so too. Not like they'll be back
in four hours for the next one. I could kind
of see like guards look king the other way or
going kind of easy on these things, Like I could.
I could. It just seems from every account that I've read,
it seems like an overbearing, mean guard is not the
kind of guard they would put on this detail. It
(20:14):
just doesn't seem like it fits this whole vibe because,
like you said, the the um, the people who are
eligible for this are like the the model of the
model inmates, like they've really worked for this. Yeah, so
only state prisons. Uh you are. They're currently only allowed
in seven states, down from it's heyday in uh the
(20:37):
early nineties of seventeen. And you have to or I
guess it's UM. They set it up so you're highly
incentivised to do other jobs and other programs in order
to get these conjugal visits. So you have to like
maybe do us Uh you're involved in a school or
a work based program, some kind of reentry program, and
you've got to show that you've done that and you've
(20:59):
been successful in that. Obviously the behavior like you can't
have any things on your violations in your in your prison,
uh stay at all, No, and certainly no recent ones.
Like I get the impression that you could have in
your past, but like you know, you probably couldn't have
in the last month or six months or some some
set amount of time. UM. And like you said, it
(21:20):
needs to be part of like this larger pattern of
UM working towards being rehabilitated, like being in a some
sort of school or diploma program or some sort of
work program something that basically combined with these family visits.
Says I'm thinking about how I'm going to behave on
the outside and it's going to be good. I'm gonna
(21:42):
wow you so that that these extended family visits are
kind of meant to support that and encourage that kind
of thing too. Yeah, And again, depending on the state
in the prison, Um, what you're in there for is
going to really matter. Um. Obviously, if you're convicted of
a ex crime domestic violence, any kind of violence against children,
(22:04):
you're not even going to be eligible. And the eligibility
is really low. Um. In two thousand thirteen, and this
was the last year that they could in New Mexico,
I think that they had conjugal visits. Only two of
state prison inmates qualified. In Mississippi. That same year it
was point zero zero seven nine percent in New York,
(22:27):
four percent in Washington. So the idea that you may
be sold on TV by an angry politician that you know,
all of these prisoners are just in there having the
time of their lives having sex is just false, right, Um.
But it's just so easy to fall for because people
don't you have to like look into this kind of stuff,
(22:48):
and who's going to do that. Nobody. So the weird
thing is, oh, yeah, so I forgot about us. Um
with an assist by Julia Layton's UM. But the thing
is is like those percentages and the fact that there's
only would you say, seven states now left at all UM,
and they're under they're under fire, as we'll see. But
(23:11):
the idea that UM the United States is kind of
slowly getting rid of its its UM extended family visit
system as part of prison life, that's that's a that's
weird as far as Western style democracies are concerned. UM.
Countries around the world, especially Western style democracies, but also
(23:31):
other ones allow for UM, if not extended family visits,
at the very least conjugal visits. So there's there's actually
you can it's easier to point out the Western democracies
that don't allow it than it is that allow it.
The ones that stand out in particular are Japan, New Zealand, UM,
(23:51):
and Ireland, and the UK are they They absolutely don't.
New Zealand doesn't because they view it as too much
of a security risk and it's a huge political hot
potato over there to even suggest that they should do it.
And then Japan, apparently their prison system is just like
in the Dark Ages, it's meant to penalize criminals. They
(24:12):
can sit there and think about what they did. Apparently,
Japan is under fire constantly by human rights organizations for
like using torture and stuff like that in their prisons. Yeah,
they're like real backwards when it comes to prison for sure. Um,
But the idea is that it's it's part of a
liberal democracy to have this kind of program as part
(24:34):
of your prisons at the very least, just to to
keep your prison population less violent. Supposedly. Yeah. Um, countries
around the world where uh, there was about to say lax,
but that's not true. I'm sure it's still very structured
and organized, but more permissive. Um. India. You they say
it as a right and not a privilege as a
(24:55):
human being. Um. Saudi Arabia allows a conjugal visit per
wife per month. You know what that means. It means
multiple wives equals multiple conjugal visits. That's right. Latin America,
they are pretty generous with them. Brazil, the only requirement
for visitors is good behavior. Um. Sometimes that can mean weekly.
(25:17):
You don't have to be married. They do allow sex
workers in Brazil to come in Canada. Not surprisingly, they
allow three day family visits every two months for most inmates.
Where else Germany. They basically it was sort of like
anyone can get a conjugal visit up until about ten
(25:38):
years ago when, and this is of course the kind
of thing you're going to see all over the news,
there was an inmate, a rapist and murderer, who actually
killed his girlfriend during a conjugal visit. So they'd said
nine ruined it for everybody. Yeah, although I don't think
that they got rid of it. I think that they
just changed the restrictions a little more. Yeah, and that
(25:59):
is a real liar, obviously a terrible sad, sad case.
But um, that is that is I didn't see anything
else where anything like that had ever happened. But see,
that's the thing that gets people right in the the
hypothalamust or something, and all of a sudden they're like,
get rid of it, Bannon, and kill a few prisoners
while you're at it, for my satisfaction, because I need
(26:20):
to calm down, right. But so Russia, Spain, France, Turkey, Qatar,
Costa Rica, Mexico, Denmark, Australia and Israel all have, um,
all have programs that include at the very least conjugal visits,
if not family visits and like you said, Brazil and
most of South America, but the US is not not
(26:42):
hanging in there very well. We're just kind of slowly
but surely, UM, getting rid of these things little by little.
And from what I can tell, we keep talking about,
you know, a politician pointing this out. All it takes
is one um determined politician and a couple of legislative
sessions and they're probably going to get their wish. And
(27:02):
that seems to be what's been happening around the United States. Yeah,
it doesn't seem like there is enough people on the
other side that really, really want to fight to keep
it going. Um. We've seen Julius in a couple of stories,
one from Vice and one from Medium where they talked
to real prisoners about the programs. And this one woman,
(27:26):
Bernadette stalbitz Um, she spent I think she had two
daughters in jail, in prison and was able to eventually
spend time with those girls and said, you know, these
fond memories playing tag, cooking chili, having long emotional conversations
into the night with their daughters that are now grown. Um,
(27:47):
these thirty six hour visits were treasured, and she said
if it weren't for these trailer visits, I wouldn't be
the woman that I am today. And that seems to
be the resounding message anytime you read these stories, is
that this is what made the different. It's for me
and doing my time, keeping sane and then doing the
right thing when I got out. Yeah, and if you
(28:07):
I mean, if you want to um, just kind of
get them touched in the heart by some of these
like read, uh, two point seven million kids have parents
in prison. They're losing their right to visit. That's a
headline UM for a Nation magazine article by Sylvia A. Harvey,
whose father was in prison, and she she was the
(28:28):
one I cited who said that some of her fondest
childhood memories are of these extended family visits. And she
interviews some some in profile, some other families who are
kind of trying to um, you know, keep their family
together while the father or the mothers in prison, but
are losing that because these um extended visitations are being
turned into just regular standard visitations. What most people think
(28:51):
like the arrested development, no touching, UM kind of visit,
like that's the Standard's what's called the standard visit and
they are not nearly satisfying because I think there's just
one thing we haven't really pointed out, Like, yes, it's
important to have these family connections, but the way that
these family connections are maintained is that in a standard
visit where say it's like thirty minutes maybe an hour, uh,
(29:12):
in a room with a bunch of other families and inmates,
a bunch of corrections officers like standing right over you,
you're not going to have the conversations that you would
normally have, not not anything illegal or whatever, but just personal,
deeply personal stuff. And so to have one day or
two days or three days together as a family, those
(29:33):
conversations start to come up because in those standard visits
you've got like an hour, you don't have time to
bring up touchy stuff that could result in hard feelings
because you know that there's not enough time to complete
that cycle to smooth out the hard feelings. That's one
of the great benefits of these extended family visits is
(29:53):
you can have these tough conversations. You can argue, you
can snipe, you can discipline your kids because you know
you have enough time to kind of work through it
and process it and then strengthen those family bonds on
on the other side of it. That's the vital importance
of these kind of visits, and that's why they're so effective. Yeah,
and I know our hearts are bleeding all over this episode. Fine,
(30:16):
but like I think you two, you would have to
have a zero heart to go beyond prison is for
punishment too. Prisonment is should be punishment for your entire family. Right,
that's a different thing. You know, these are children that
are suffering and that that may go down the wrong
path because if if not for stuff like this, like
(30:37):
there are a lot of other people involved, that it
would just help society as a whole if if a
little more empathy were involved. Yeah, and I think really
kind of that points out one of the big arguments,
which I think we should take a break and then
we'll talk about the arguments against. But one of the
arguments against Chuck is that, um, you know, people worry
that there's going to be children born to automatic scene
(31:00):
parents because the conjugal visits. It's like, well, what about
the kids whose parents are already in jail? And if
you follow that, you know, ellipses all the way to
the end. The response is, well, those kids, those kids
should have been born then if their parents are in jail.
That's what they're kind of saying when they're saying one
of the reasons to cancel these programs because we don't
(31:21):
want them, we don't want pregnancies to result. All right, Well,
let's take a break. We'll talk about that, uh, rehabilitation
and punishment and then data in the lack of right
after this. All right, So, you know, we brought it
(31:59):
up in the prisons upisode. We brought it up in
this episode. There are a couple of ways to look
at prison and confinement, which is, are we trying to
rehabilitate these people and were trying to make society better
as a whole. Are we trying to just punish people
and as hard as possible and we really don't care
if society is better as a whole? Right, great synopsis, Chuck,
(32:20):
Which side Elion? Well, here's the big reveal. So um
clearly on the side of extended family visits. But I'm
it's not even like a like, oh, I I really
get your point, I get the other side's point, or
I can see both sides, not even like that, it
seems to me and Layton goes to great um links
(32:45):
to kind of try to be diplomatic about it, but
it's still just like, you know, this is this saysn't
whole water at all. Um. The arguments against are basically
just gut reactions. It's like the same thing is um
a lot of arson investigation. It's like, well, you know
this feels a lot to me like arson put that
person in prison for life and maybe on death row.
Like that's the that's the same kind of correctional criminal
(33:10):
justice instinct that seems to be driving the cancelation of
these And I have a lot of problems with anything
that deeply impacts families negatively based on instinct rather than
data and science. I think you really need to go
to the trouble of producing your argument against in these
cases rather than just canceling them out right with very
(33:31):
little um problems from the public. Yeah, because there's there's
generally four arguments that are used against and to me,
each of them have a lot of holes in them.
Um cost, morality, security, and punishment cost. You know, they
(33:51):
they do charge people. Those costs are offsets some but
there's no like like you said, give me the data
when you interview some of these people and some of
these politicians ends that have said no, you know, this
is this costing us a fortune? And we're like, well,
all right, how much does it costing show us? And
they'll be like, well, we don't really have a spreadsheet
on that, but I'm sure it's a lot. Yeah, but
it literally say things like that like well, you know
(34:12):
it hits the budget though. So there's there's one thing
you can poke holes in morality. I mean, I think
that one falls apart immediately, because, uh, what is more
moral than families being able to spend time with one
another and strengthening a family bond, or at least attempting to.
But that's what I'm saying. They use that public image
of what a conjugal visit is and the idea that
(34:34):
you know, and it may any inmate can just have
sex with anybody they want during these visits, and then
they just don't explain what's actually being canceled. They just
call them conjugal visits and then that's that, right, because
STD transmission was one sided by um, who was it
Mississippi State Rep. Richard Bennett. Uh, and like you know,
where's the data or is our STDs being spread through
(34:57):
conjugal visits. They're not because there is no data, but
it's something very grabby on the news to hear. Um
security is another argument. But you know, show me that
you can you can manage security, like that's something you
can actually control, you know, whether it's um like maybe
not a camera in the bedroom, but you can have
(35:17):
cameras in the apartment. You can really watch them. You
can come in every two hours and inspect things. You know,
you can actually control security and make it a secure environment. Yeah,
and I also understand that the absence of evidence isn't proof,
but I would guess that if anybody had been harmed, hurt, killed, maimed,
abused during any of these one time, once in the
(35:40):
history of these things in the United States, we would
know all about it, and that would have been that
that would have canceled everything. Just like in Germany, it
hasn't come up. Like the fact that we didn't run
across it is is pretty significant to me. I'm surprised
they didn't lay it on Germany. I'm surprised the look
it happened here, look like it's all Merkel's fault. Um.
(36:03):
New Mexico was a state that that also had sort
of the same and the reasoning is generally the same
wherever you go, which was some kind of moral outrage. Uh.
In this case, there was um Michael Guzman who was
a prisoner in New Mexico that um, he was actually
a convicted murderer. So I'm really surprised that that he
(36:25):
was even allowed. I'm not sure how that happened. But
he conceived four children with different women, uh, different wives
in conjugal visits, so he was getting married to different
women in prison and having kids. And that was sort
of like the poster child in New Mexico for why
they shouldn't do stuff like that, right exactly, So that
(36:46):
one guy is basically the one thing that American extended
family visitation can hang its hat on for anybody who's
looking to get rid of those things. But then the
the other part of the moral thing, and I said
it earlier, the idea that it's up to Department of
Corrections officials or state representatives to decide whether a family
of an incarcerated person, whether these parents want to have
(37:09):
another kid or not. It has nothing to do with them.
It's not up to these prison officials to decide that
kind of family planning, and it's smacks of eugenics and
racism to to think that they that that's it's something
they talk about publicly. It's something they cite that you know,
we don't want people having, you know, kids even though
they're married, because the mom's just going to be a
(37:30):
single parent or the dad's going to be a single parent,
and um, it's just not something we're interested in. That
That one really gets my gets my goat. Yeah, the
thing that gets my goat is just the lack of
data and this gut reaction thing. The Department of Corrections
in New Mexico said they didn't see an upside and
they told local media that after two years of research,
(37:50):
we found that it did not affect recidivism rates. And
they said, oh, well, can I see the details of
the study, and they said, well, it was not so
much a study. The toural quote was we looked at
um individual inmates. There was no study. Oh well, where's
the report on it then? And this is, well, we
don't have one, right. I basically just went through a
(38:11):
couple of files before I came out here. You're a
local paper. I'm blown away that you asked any follow
up questions whatsoever, I think is what you're saying. But
here's the thing is, one side of this argument is
not studied. There are no reports, there's very little research
and data. The other side has a lot of data, actually,
and we know that I think it was I'm trying
(38:33):
to find who did the study that found Yeah, study
and there was a sixty seven percent decrease in recidivism
with programs like this installed. Yeah, the human the Minnesota
Department of Corrections also did a study that basically back
that up too. And the thing is is, um, if
you talk to prison officials typically and like the ones
(38:57):
who actually work in the prisons and criminologists, like people
who actually have degrees in studying this kind of stuff,
they say, no, this is actually a really good program
and it does have an impact on recitativism. Because UM,
while we're still compiling data on extended family visits uh
(39:17):
as as it stands, we do know that the family
is in a really important factor in this transition to
UM from prison to society, and so anything that could
strengthen that bond is a plus. The other thing we
didn't really talk about was the cost. People point to
the cost and cost savings and stuff. UM. I think
(39:38):
New Mexico before they shut theirs down, it was a
hundred and twenty thousand dollars a year for this program.
UM Washington State spends eighties six thousand dollars a year,
and both of those prison systems charged families to have
these visitations. So the idea that they don't work and
that they're expensive, and that there's a more a component
(40:00):
to them, there's basically no argument against. And then there's
data in favor of the argument for these things, and
yet they seem to be going the way of disco
in the United States sadly. Yeah, and not only UH.
I mean you can just talk about regular visits. There
was a study in two thousand eleven UM that found
the inmates who got just regular standard visits, these are
(40:21):
not conjugal, these are not extended or overnight family visits,
just visiting people in person while in prison were less
likely to return to prison than inmate who received no visits. Yea.
So they also very surprisingly to UM. And controversially, there
was a study that found that prisons in stare correctional
(40:43):
um UH systems in states that never had any family
visitation programs had four times more inmate on inmate sexual
assault than than prisons that don't, which apparently really flies
in the face of common wisdom, common consensus on what
the purpose of sexual assault in prison is that everybody
(41:05):
thinks it's power based. They're like, actually, there might be
a sexual aspect to it as well that had been
overlooked to this point. Yeah, like sexual desires not being
met um. And you're right that that is contrary to
everything we've ever heard about sexual assault in prison, I think. Yeah,
And while it's kind of rich to point to anecdotal data,
after just disassembling anecdotal data, there is um a lot
(41:31):
of sentiment, including among Washington States Department of Corrections, they
have a brochure for their family visitation UM that basically
says an isolated inmate is a dangerous inmate UM. So
that one of the sentiments that kind of was carried
along for family visitation and visitation in general is this
idea that it keeps prisoners in line in the prison,
(41:52):
which improves security in the prison as well. Yeah, see
our episode on or was that in the prisons episode
which were one on solitary, we did one on solitude
we did and we did a prisons one too. Yeah.
I mean that's we've got a nice little robust and
we're popular in prisons too, so yeah, we help prisoners
(42:13):
learn to read sometimes. Yeah, so they might be listening
to this right now. Yes, special shout out to all
the prisoners listening to this. Stay up. If someone is
listening to this with a family during their family visit,
Oh my gosh, I would really like to hear about that.
I think that's some T shirts right there. Yeah, yeah,
at the very least. So yeah, let us know and
we'll send you some T shirts because that's a that
(42:35):
is one heck of a specific listen. Uh. Well, like
you said, this is definitely going away though in a
big way in the US down to seven states now, Um,
I mean prison visits. I don't know if they're really
trying to get rid of them. COVID has given them
a big opportunity to do that because more and more
prison visit um policies or programs have revolved around like
(43:00):
zoom meetings and virtual meetings and stuff like that, and
with COVID, that's a UM I could see it being
used to be like do we really want to bring
Like there's a lot of costs associated with just regular visits.
You know, we could just set up a computer room
and have them going there and have little zoom meetings
with their family. Yeah, by which I mean is better
(43:21):
than nothing. But if these extended family visits are the
gold standard, and then standard visits are the whole hume
standard virtual visits, I mean yeah, I mean I've done
zoom hangouts before and they get old really fast, they do.
But I'll tell you what. Of course, my heart is
(43:42):
bleeding on this one. But like do those like every day? Yeah?
I wonder though if there's just as many restrictions around
those two, because I think you have to, you know,
demonstrate that you're in good standing in your prison too. Yeah.
So that's it that it's time you hear somebody trying
to cancel family extended family visitation in your state. Maybe
(44:05):
don't just say yeah, serves him right, It's like, think
about it. Maybe vote against it if you want to.
With this episode, touched you like an angel? Touched by
an angel? You got anything else? Nothing? Uh? Well, since
I said touched by an angel, of course as usual,
that means it's time for a listener mail. I'm gonna
call this one short and sweet factoid from a movie crusher.
(44:29):
I'm pretty sure Aaron Mazel is a movie crusher. Uh,
Josh and Chuck, good morning. Just listen to the episode
on Francis Perkins. I'm guessing you guys have seen the
movie Dirty Dancing. Well, Aaron, if you listen to our
shorty on the disappearing like disappearing like you know we have. Well,
there's a part where Johnny asked Baby what her real
name is. And I don't remember this in the movie,
(44:50):
but she said her response was Frances after the first
woman in the cabinet. So Baby in the movie Dirty
Dancing was named after Francis Perkins, right, amazing. Nobody puts
Francis in the cabinet. Well somebody did. Oh wait, yeah,
it didn't work. That's one of the best. That's seriously
are and that's one of the best facts I've ever
(45:12):
heard in my entire life. Best movie movie trivia ever. Yeah,
and very very much on the download. I think I
bet most people who are Dirty Dancing heads did not
catch that line. And know what I meant, you have
to know both of those things. He didn't. There's probably
a very small Now it might just be Aaron Mozzelle. Yeah,
(45:32):
that's to Aaron Moselle. Listen to mails in like a
week or two. She's got to get some sort of
trophy for that. Did I read another one from her? Yeah?
She was the one who wrote in with the s
y five k oh really Yeah, that's she may not
be a movie crusher, then maybe I'm just remembering from
that she probably is. I mean there's a lot of crossover,
right all right, Well, um, if you wanna let us
(45:55):
know something so astounding that you get put on list sooner,
mail twice in like a week, we want to hear it.
We're really ready for those kind of emails, go ahead
and send them off to Stuff podcast at i heart
radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production
(46:15):
of i Heeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts
for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of My
Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and
there's Jerry over there, and this is Stuff you Should Know.
Another prison edition. We're starting to fill it out a
(00:22):
little bit. I don't know. I don't remember even talking
about this in our prison episode. Did we There's just
no way we didn't mention it. Somehow we certainly didn't
go into depth. I remember wanting to do this for
a while, um and looking into it before and being like, oh,
it's not really a thing. Luckily you put um Julia
Layton on it and she did a little more digging
(00:44):
and it turned out it was, um kind of a
human rights criminology thing. Yeah, but you're sort of right
that it's not really much of a thing, which is sad.
I've learned. Yeah, I think so, I think any Yeah,
I think we'll get to it. But yes, I'm in
favor of um extended family visits, which may or may
(01:06):
not include sex. Yeah, I got that from uh now.
Hob Goblins and the Mystery Science Theater three thousand version
of hob goblins. It's it's pretty great. Just just go
check it out. It will show up eventually. Yeah. Well,
I mean you mentioned um sexy time, and I think
(01:29):
when you think of conjugal visits, m'st the ford. I mean,
that's originally what it was. And we'll get to the history.
But that's the first thing you probably think of, is
a time set aside at a certain place at a prison.
Probably not you know, a separate building at a prison
where uh, and you generally think of like a wife
(01:50):
going to have sex with her inmate husband. Yeah. And
in fact, I mean that's actually pretty good term for it,
because in in biology, to conjugate means to um become
temporarily united in order to exchange genetic material. Man, if
that's not a clinical term, I have never heard one before.
(02:13):
It there with mouth parts, I mean yeah, it does. Um,
everybody's heard of conjugal visits. I mean, like it's just
kind of like this legendary mythological thing. Like if you've
ever seen a Bugs Bunny cartoon from the forties, you
know about conjugal visits. You know what I mean. No,
I'm just kidding. But you can see it though, couldn't you?
Wouldn't that be like one of those random things whereas
an adult you went back and you're like, I can't believe,
(02:35):
like this is part of this cartoon. I think I
would be surprised if Bugs Bunny featured prison or sex.
So yeah, I'd be pretty surprised, all right, I guarantee
prisons made an appearance. But the thing is is, there
does seem to be like a huge misunderstanding about conjugal
visits or an understanding about them, but then a complete
lack of understanding about how much further these visits go
(03:00):
um and and actually I think that that kind of
has led to their decline because you need public support
to keep something like that up, because it's really easy
to get rid of if you are are so minded,
it's very easy to get rid of. And as you'll
see or you know or here, uh, that's been happening
over the course of the past twenty years in a
(03:21):
big way, and a big reason is because what you
mentioned earlier, what we're really talking about these days in
the United States, and we'll get to other countries. Other
countries are like bring it, do it six ways to
Sunday a couple of times a month, but no, like
we really have to watch. Um. They're they're called extended
(03:43):
family visits. UH. In New York they're called family reunion visits.
And it's really easy for a politician of a certain
kind of politician that doesn't want this kind of thing
going on, to just lump it in there as you know,
your taxpayer dollar are going toward uh, these hardcore criminals
(04:04):
just being able to have sex, and like, why would
we support that? They can go not the case, They
can say watch this, I'm physically conservative and tough on criminals.
And then the people say how much did you save?
And they go, yeah, well, let's get to that too.
So let's talk about, um, how we'll explain how how
much beyond what the public's understanding of conjugal visitor that
(04:27):
it goes. But let's talk about the origins of these things.
You want to Yeah, the basically racist origins. In Mississippi, uh,
Mississippi State penn In the early nineteen hundreds, there was
a for profit labor camp called Parchment Farm where the
UH warden basically said, you know what, Um, everybody knows
(04:49):
that that black men have an insatiable sex drive, and
that's one reason they're in here to begin with. So
if we get these guys having a little bit of
sex as an incentive, then they're gonna work harder for
us and increase our profits. That that's the origin of
conjugal visits period. Really, that's it. And so this warden
(05:12):
started this program UM at Parchment, which became I believe
the Mississippi State Penitentiary UM. And this was in what
en Uh yeah, nineteen eighteen is when he started bringing
in sex workers, right, and you just hit the nail
on the head as it were, UM on Sundays. Last
(05:33):
on Sundays, the warden would bring in UM sex workers
for to um lay with the inmates and do more
than just laying. Yeah, Like married, not a problem, Single,
not a problem. We got the shack out in the
back and uh, you know, I don't know if you
want to be like tenth on that list for the day,
(05:54):
but that's uh, that's how we're gonna do things around here. Yeah,
and like that, you were right about the racist origins
of it, because it wasn't until twelve years after that
program was instituted that it was extended to white inmates.
And then it wasn't another I think fifty four years
before it was finally extended to female to women femine
(06:14):
female inmates. UM. And along the way, what's crazy is
between that that gulf of time nineteen eighteen and in
nineteen seventy two when women were first became eligible in
Mississippi for conjugal visits, it underwent this kind of like
surprising enlightenment transition to where there was a nineteen sixty
(06:37):
six maybe study that was done on it, and in
the notes on the study, like some criminologist or or
um Corrections official basically said, you know, this is possibly
one of the most enlightened programs in in the entire
Corrections UM field, in the entire country Mississippi. What grew
(06:58):
out of their racist conjugal visit program became something like
genuinely enlightened, which was pretty interesting. Yeah, and we should
note that, UM in nineteen sixty three is when they
were not bringing in sex sex workers. At that point
you had to be married and it had to be
your spouse. Uh. And that's an important distinction. But for
you know, forty five years, it seems like they were
(07:21):
bringing in every Sunday sex workers too, too, I guess, um. Yeah,
to to incentivize these guys. Yeah, right, right, And so
I think that's where the transition came, where it became
enlightened as it went from an incentive to get them
to work harder because Parchment was a for profit prison
labor camp, which, by the way, if you're if you're like,
(07:42):
what is that, go watch the Ava du verne Um
documentary and the Thirteenth Amendment, one of the most mind
altering documentaries you will ever see. Really really well done,
but really kind of drives home the idea of prison
labor is an extension of slavery. But that was what
this was. This was Jim Crow slavery. It was legal
(08:03):
slavery after slavery was abolished, And so the whole thing
was to get these inmates to work harder. But then
over time they said, well, no, wait a minute, maybe
this is actually like good for society. Weirdly, it's going
to keep these family ties between the inmates and the
people they've been separated from, you know, just linked enough
(08:25):
that when they go back out on the outside, they're
not just gonna go back to a life of crime.
They're still gonna have these relationships that they had before
they went in. Yeah, and so you know, as as
everyone knows, as things go in Mississippi, they generally follow
in the rest of the United States. And extended visitation
is what they were calling it. Well, I guess they
call it conjugal visits. But um, in the sixties is
(08:47):
when it started to spread to more and more states
around the United States. I think California in South Carolina
had programs in the late sixties. New York and Minnesota
jumped on board in the seven these I think in
the eighties, Uh, some other states, New Mexico and Wyoming
got on board, and then I guess we would call
(09:08):
it the Golden Age of conjugal visits. In the early
nineties there were seventeen states that allowed some sort of
extended visitation. Yeah, but so that was the peak. And
one of the reasons the early nineties were the peak
was because about the early eighties, UM, the United States said,
you know what, this whole like rehabilitation thing that's kicked
(09:32):
off in the fifties, This idea that prison was meant
to rehabilitate people and turn them into better citizenis it
didn't work. And we think it's all a bunch of
who we and UM we're going to abandon that and
get tough on crime. And that's what happened. I mean
throughout the eighties and the nineties, we got super tough
on crime, super conservative about how we treat criminals and prisoners.
(09:54):
And the idea became, if you were in prison, you
were in there for a reason, and you you should
not have any kind of frills or um or moments
of joy. You're supposed to be in there to be punished,
maybe to reflect on what you did wrong, but at
the really ultimately this is punishment. And um, we're not
going to treat you like a human being any longer
(10:17):
you're a prisoner. It's a different kind of person. And
part of that is taking away conjugal visits. Right, And
that line of thinking, like you said, was a pretty
big sea change in and now we don't have crime. Right,
it worked. New Gingrich's plan worked. Should we take a boy,
I think we should take a break on New Gingrich. Right,
let's all take a break on New Ingra. Let's take
(10:38):
a little break and we'll be back right after this. Alright, Chuck,
(11:05):
so um, let's talk a little bit about like what
these things evolved too along the way, because if you're
just sitting there like, Okay, so prisoners can't have sex anymore,
that's really not the end of the world to me. Well,
prepare for your heart to bleed a little more than
it is right now, because over time, these conjugal visits
developed into order, like you said, called extended family visits
(11:28):
or family reunion visits, and they involved not just spouses, um,
but also kids. Um. The parents of the inmate might
come to visit, UM, siblings might come to visit, and
there was no sex involved. It was family time. Like
that was the point of the whole thing, was to
spend time with family. And Um. If you read some
(11:50):
of the accounts of the children of inmates who have
memories of going to these extended family visits, um, they
formed these are like the memories of their lifetime, Like
these are some of their best childhood memories. Ironically enough, Yeah,
and you know, the whole purpose here is is primarily twofold,
which is incentive. It's still an incentive to get inmates
(12:12):
to follow the rules because as you'll see as we
detail the stuff, um, you really really have to follow
the rules. Like very few prisoners are even eligible for
this kind of thing. Um. And then the other thing is,
you know, just to foster that family tie so once
you get out, you don't have that that cliche you
(12:33):
see in the movie where you come home from prison
and you have these strangers sitting in your house that
are your children, and there's at least some small modicum
of of a relationship of some sort of a tie
emotional tie with a parent and a child or like
you said, the parent of the inmate, or you know, spouses.
(12:55):
They're still involved obviously, So when they get out, the
idea is that they have of a support system. They're
waiting on them and not like, well now I have
the super awkward uh moment where I have to come
in and and get to know my teenage children, right,
or you know, like this is really hard on me.
I think I'm going to go back to crime or
(13:16):
go back to addiction or whatever. So the idea that
there's this structure that remains in place and solid during
their imprisonment, that the the thought is that that just
helps them ease into normal society afterwards. Yeah, like we
really need to drive that home because I think the
way I said it, there might be people saying, well,
so what if it's super awkward. You shouldn't have committed
(13:38):
the crime. It's not that it can be so awkward
enough putting that it can. It can cause someone like
you said, to not go home and to not want
to face their family that they don't know, and all
of a sudden, they're they're alone out there. And as
we'll see, we have statistics to back it up. Recidivism
is UH is a big problem in this really really helps.
(14:01):
It's also a bone head word. It is a bone
head word. The thing is too is also it's not
necessarily even just awkward for him, but there's there's expectations
that are on them when they come back home. They
have people that they're accountable to, which helps that transition
because you know, and you can imagine that the transition
that period immediately after prison life into normal society. I'm
(14:25):
not sure if it's weeks or months, maybe longer. Um
that is the the most difficult part of getting back
into society. And so have a family and a home
to go to that that just changes things. They make
movies about it, they do, and bugs money cartoons. So
here's UH, and we'll get to some of these stories
two in a second. But here's how it works depending
(14:46):
on where you are. Um, because it's different at every
prison in every state has their own. And I think
we should also point out that it's only state prisons
where it's even allowed at all, Like if you're in
federal prison, there isn't anything like that from what I
could find. Yeah, but um, they try to set it up.
I mean it depends on whether there's a uh like
(15:09):
a shack in the back or a trailer sometimes. Um,
I think they try to make them a little homier
these days, and what they're looking to do is sort
of recreate some sense of normalcy over the one to
four days that you're allowed to be with your family. Uh.
This one in Connecticut, McDougall Walker Correctional Institution. I think
it's the biggest prison in the New England area. They
(15:31):
have a full on, like two bedroom apartment with a
kitchen and they can bring in food and cook meals
together and watch movies. I think they they have like
stock DVDs and stuff like that. Um, but I think
you are allowed to even bring in Everything is heavily inspected,
of course, but you are allowed to bring in food
to cook like your favorite family meal. They're not just like, well,
(15:51):
here's what you got from the prison pantry. Yeah, that's
what I um saw as well. And I think more
than just um, I think that's part part an economical
decision too, because they also charge. Um there's you know,
it can be a nominal fee, like in I think
New York maybe or Washington. I think Washington, it's like
(16:11):
ten dollars a visit or something like that. But um,
you know, every penny counts in some of the budget
deficited prisons in the United States. UM, so they do
kind of count those pennies. But more more to the point,
the point of bringing in outside food is to create
that sense of normalcy for the family. Um. It's basically
(16:33):
like a staycation on prison grounds is what I what like,
ideally is what I got from from the research I did. Yeah,
and if if the prisoner's favorite dessert is uh, fingernail
file cake, that's what they're getting. That can't be helped
talk about a movie trope. Has that ever happened in
the history of the world. I don't know. We gotta
(16:55):
find out now, though you just threw down the gauntlet
like a prison a fingernail file being snuck in a
cake and that leading to an escape. I think it's
I think it's probably never happened. We'll find out. That
reminds me that I've been wanting to do an episode
on the Three Stooges that maybe a two parter. Okay,
that's a prepare for no women to listen. It's so great,
(17:18):
they're so good man. Yeah, it's kind of a dude's thing,
though maybe we'll change that with our episodes. There there
should have been a counterpart, Yeah, you know, I wonder
if there was. I'm sure they tried that out at
some point during the middle. Well, I think the idea
of a show with three women that are morons that
just kind of abuse each other physically was probably not
(17:40):
very realistic or believable, not like the real studoges. And
how realistic that was, right, man, Seriously, I watched that
sometimes still today and it's classic. Yes, it it really is,
and for a good reason. It's it's hilarious, but also
just so well choreographed and those dudes worked hard. We
should totally do a an episode on that. So. Um So,
(18:04):
while while you've got this staycation going on with your family,
with your children, with your wife or your husband, um,
and you're you're having a good time, you're relaxing. Um.
Every four hours, depending on where you are, there's probably
going to be a visit from a guard that says, hey,
I gotta search some stuff. Because it's it's important to
(18:27):
point out like this is not it's not like this.
This occurs on the prison grounds. It's part of prison.
It's just a modified part of prison. So there's plenty
of rules and restrictions that that are meant to keep
security tight, prevent contraband from being transferred from you know,
the visitors to the inmate um, and uh, to just
(18:49):
kind of keep things on the up and up basically, Yeah, like, uh,
for instance, you can't just waltz in there, like if
you've got a new uh sexy penpal in um he said, well,
I want to get a visit from this person. Now,
you can't just waltz in there as a first timer
and pop in and have a conjugal visit or even
a family visit, whatever you want to call it. You
(19:10):
have to have it. I mean, it depends on where
you are again, but like in New York, you have
to have been at least a visitor standard visitor, three
other times in the previous twelve months. So you have
to be someone they know, someone who has proven to
be you know, a real like connection in your life. Um,
(19:31):
you have to undergo health screening. And this is everyone
like kids, anyone that's gonna stay in this apartment. Um,
you're gonna get health screened. Obviously for conjugal visit, you're
gonna get STD tested. Um. Like you mentioned, it depends
on where you are. Lots of searches. Um. I don't
know if I know, California was every four hours, but
I imagine they'd like to spring those on you as well. Yeah,
(19:53):
I would guess so too. Not like they'll be back
in four hours for the next one. I could kind
of see like guards look king the other way or
going kind of easy on these things, Like I could.
I could. It just seems from every account that I've read,
it seems like an overbearing, mean guard is not the
kind of guard they would put on this detail. It
(20:14):
just doesn't seem like it fits this whole vibe because,
like you said, the the um, the people who are
eligible for this are like the the model of the
model inmates, like they've really worked for this. Yeah, so
only state prisons. Uh you are. They're currently only allowed
in seven states, down from it's heyday in uh the
(20:37):
early nineties of seventeen. And you have to or I
guess it's UM. They set it up so you're highly
incentivised to do other jobs and other programs in order
to get these conjugal visits. So you have to like
maybe do us Uh you're involved in a school or
a work based program, some kind of reentry program, and
you've got to show that you've done that and you've
(20:59):
been successful in that. Obviously the behavior like you can't
have any things on your violations in your in your prison,
uh stay at all, No, and certainly no recent ones.
Like I get the impression that you could have in
your past, but like you know, you probably couldn't have
in the last month or six months or some some
set amount of time. UM. And like you said, it
(21:20):
needs to be part of like this larger pattern of
UM working towards being rehabilitated, like being in a some
sort of school or diploma program or some sort of
work program something that basically combined with these family visits.
Says I'm thinking about how I'm going to behave on
the outside and it's going to be good. I'm gonna
(21:42):
wow you so that that these extended family visits are
kind of meant to support that and encourage that kind
of thing too. Yeah, And again, depending on the state
in the prison, Um, what you're in there for is
going to really matter. Um. Obviously, if you're convicted of
a ex crime domestic violence, any kind of violence against children,
(22:04):
you're not even going to be eligible. And the eligibility
is really low. Um. In two thousand thirteen, and this
was the last year that they could in New Mexico,
I think that they had conjugal visits. Only two of
state prison inmates qualified. In Mississippi. That same year it
was point zero zero seven nine percent in New York,
(22:27):
four percent in Washington. So the idea that you may
be sold on TV by an angry politician that you know,
all of these prisoners are just in there having the
time of their lives having sex is just false, right, Um.
But it's just so easy to fall for because people
don't you have to like look into this kind of stuff,
(22:48):
and who's going to do that. Nobody. So the weird
thing is, oh, yeah, so I forgot about us. Um
with an assist by Julia Layton's UM. But the thing
is is like those percentages and the fact that there's
only would you say, seven states now left at all UM,
and they're under they're under fire, as we'll see. But
(23:11):
the idea that UM the United States is kind of
slowly getting rid of its its UM extended family visit
system as part of prison life, that's that's a that's
weird as far as Western style democracies are concerned. UM.
Countries around the world, especially Western style democracies, but also
(23:31):
other ones allow for UM, if not extended family visits,
at the very least conjugal visits. So there's there's actually
you can it's easier to point out the Western democracies
that don't allow it than it is that allow it.
The ones that stand out in particular are Japan, New Zealand, UM,
(23:51):
and Ireland, and the UK are they They absolutely don't.
New Zealand doesn't because they view it as too much
of a security risk and it's a huge political hot
potato over there to even suggest that they should do it.
And then Japan, apparently their prison system is just like
in the Dark Ages, it's meant to penalize criminals. They
(24:12):
can sit there and think about what they did. Apparently,
Japan is under fire constantly by human rights organizations for
like using torture and stuff like that in their prisons. Yeah,
they're like real backwards when it comes to prison for sure. Um,
But the idea is that it's it's part of a
liberal democracy to have this kind of program as part
(24:34):
of your prisons at the very least, just to to
keep your prison population less violent. Supposedly. Yeah. Um, countries
around the world where uh, there was about to say lax,
but that's not true. I'm sure it's still very structured
and organized, but more permissive. Um. India. You they say
it as a right and not a privilege as a
(24:55):
human being. Um. Saudi Arabia allows a conjugal visit per
wife per month. You know what that means. It means
multiple wives equals multiple conjugal visits. That's right. Latin America,
they are pretty generous with them. Brazil, the only requirement
for visitors is good behavior. Um. Sometimes that can mean weekly.
(25:17):
You don't have to be married. They do allow sex
workers in Brazil to come in Canada. Not surprisingly, they
allow three day family visits every two months for most inmates.
Where else Germany. They basically it was sort of like
anyone can get a conjugal visit up until about ten
(25:38):
years ago when, and this is of course the kind
of thing you're going to see all over the news,
there was an inmate, a rapist and murderer, who actually
killed his girlfriend during a conjugal visit. So they'd said
nine ruined it for everybody. Yeah, although I don't think
that they got rid of it. I think that they
just changed the restrictions a little more. Yeah, and that
(25:59):
is a real liar, obviously a terrible sad, sad case.
But um, that is that is I didn't see anything
else where anything like that had ever happened. But see,
that's the thing that gets people right in the the
hypothalamust or something, and all of a sudden they're like,
get rid of it, Bannon, and kill a few prisoners
while you're at it, for my satisfaction, because I need
(26:20):
to calm down, right. But so Russia, Spain, France, Turkey, Qatar,
Costa Rica, Mexico, Denmark, Australia and Israel all have, um,
all have programs that include at the very least conjugal visits,
if not family visits and like you said, Brazil and
most of South America, but the US is not not
(26:42):
hanging in there very well. We're just kind of slowly
but surely, UM, getting rid of these things little by little.
And from what I can tell, we keep talking about,
you know, a politician pointing this out. All it takes
is one um determined politician and a couple of legislative
sessions and they're probably going to get their wish. And
(27:02):
that seems to be what's been happening around the United States. Yeah,
it doesn't seem like there is enough people on the
other side that really, really want to fight to keep
it going. Um. We've seen Julius in a couple of stories,
one from Vice and one from Medium where they talked
to real prisoners about the programs. And this one woman,
(27:26):
Bernadette stalbitz Um, she spent I think she had two
daughters in jail, in prison and was able to eventually
spend time with those girls and said, you know, these
fond memories playing tag, cooking chili, having long emotional conversations
into the night with their daughters that are now grown. Um,
(27:47):
these thirty six hour visits were treasured, and she said
if it weren't for these trailer visits, I wouldn't be
the woman that I am today. And that seems to
be the resounding message anytime you read these stories, is
that this is what made the different. It's for me
and doing my time, keeping sane and then doing the
right thing when I got out. Yeah, and if you
(28:07):
I mean, if you want to um, just kind of
get them touched in the heart by some of these
like read, uh, two point seven million kids have parents
in prison. They're losing their right to visit. That's a
headline UM for a Nation magazine article by Sylvia A. Harvey,
whose father was in prison, and she she was the
(28:28):
one I cited who said that some of her fondest
childhood memories are of these extended family visits. And she
interviews some some in profile, some other families who are
kind of trying to um, you know, keep their family
together while the father or the mothers in prison, but
are losing that because these um extended visitations are being
turned into just regular standard visitations. What most people think
(28:51):
like the arrested development, no touching, UM kind of visit,
like that's the Standard's what's called the standard visit and
they are not nearly satisfying because I think there's just
one thing we haven't really pointed out, Like, yes, it's
important to have these family connections, but the way that
these family connections are maintained is that in a standard
visit where say it's like thirty minutes maybe an hour, uh,
(29:12):
in a room with a bunch of other families and inmates,
a bunch of corrections officers like standing right over you,
you're not going to have the conversations that you would
normally have, not not anything illegal or whatever, but just personal,
deeply personal stuff. And so to have one day or
two days or three days together as a family, those
(29:33):
conversations start to come up because in those standard visits
you've got like an hour, you don't have time to
bring up touchy stuff that could result in hard feelings
because you know that there's not enough time to complete
that cycle to smooth out the hard feelings. That's one
of the great benefits of these extended family visits is
(29:53):
you can have these tough conversations. You can argue, you
can snipe, you can discipline your kids because you know
you have enough time to kind of work through it
and process it and then strengthen those family bonds on
on the other side of it. That's the vital importance
of these kind of visits, and that's why they're so effective. Yeah,
and I know our hearts are bleeding all over this episode. Fine,
(30:16):
but like I think you two, you would have to
have a zero heart to go beyond prison is for
punishment too. Prisonment is should be punishment for your entire family. Right,
that's a different thing. You know, these are children that
are suffering and that that may go down the wrong
path because if if not for stuff like this, like
(30:37):
there are a lot of other people involved, that it
would just help society as a whole if if a
little more empathy were involved. Yeah, and I think really
kind of that points out one of the big arguments,
which I think we should take a break and then
we'll talk about the arguments against. But one of the
arguments against Chuck is that, um, you know, people worry
that there's going to be children born to automatic scene
(31:00):
parents because the conjugal visits. It's like, well, what about
the kids whose parents are already in jail? And if
you follow that, you know, ellipses all the way to
the end. The response is, well, those kids, those kids
should have been born then if their parents are in jail.
That's what they're kind of saying when they're saying one
of the reasons to cancel these programs because we don't
(31:21):
want them, we don't want pregnancies to result. All right, Well,
let's take a break. We'll talk about that, uh, rehabilitation
and punishment and then data in the lack of right
after this. All right, So, you know, we brought it
(31:59):
up in the prisons upisode. We brought it up in
this episode. There are a couple of ways to look
at prison and confinement, which is, are we trying to
rehabilitate these people and were trying to make society better
as a whole. Are we trying to just punish people
and as hard as possible and we really don't care
if society is better as a whole? Right, great synopsis, Chuck,
(32:20):
Which side Elion? Well, here's the big reveal. So um
clearly on the side of extended family visits. But I'm
it's not even like a like, oh, I I really
get your point, I get the other side's point, or
I can see both sides, not even like that, it
seems to me and Layton goes to great um links
(32:45):
to kind of try to be diplomatic about it, but
it's still just like, you know, this is this saysn't
whole water at all. Um. The arguments against are basically
just gut reactions. It's like the same thing is um
a lot of arson investigation. It's like, well, you know
this feels a lot to me like arson put that
person in prison for life and maybe on death row.
Like that's the that's the same kind of correctional criminal
(33:10):
justice instinct that seems to be driving the cancelation of
these And I have a lot of problems with anything
that deeply impacts families negatively based on instinct rather than
data and science. I think you really need to go
to the trouble of producing your argument against in these
cases rather than just canceling them out right with very
(33:31):
little um problems from the public. Yeah, because there's there's
generally four arguments that are used against and to me,
each of them have a lot of holes in them.
Um cost, morality, security, and punishment cost. You know, they
(33:51):
they do charge people. Those costs are offsets some but
there's no like like you said, give me the data
when you interview some of these people and some of
these politicians ends that have said no, you know, this
is this costing us a fortune? And we're like, well,
all right, how much does it costing show us? And
they'll be like, well, we don't really have a spreadsheet
on that, but I'm sure it's a lot. Yeah, but
it literally say things like that like well, you know
(34:12):
it hits the budget though. So there's there's one thing
you can poke holes in morality. I mean, I think
that one falls apart immediately, because, uh, what is more
moral than families being able to spend time with one
another and strengthening a family bond, or at least attempting to.
But that's what I'm saying. They use that public image
of what a conjugal visit is and the idea that
(34:34):
you know, and it may any inmate can just have
sex with anybody they want during these visits, and then
they just don't explain what's actually being canceled. They just
call them conjugal visits and then that's that, right, because
STD transmission was one sided by um, who was it
Mississippi State Rep. Richard Bennett. Uh, and like you know,
where's the data or is our STDs being spread through
(34:57):
conjugal visits. They're not because there is no data, but
it's something very grabby on the news to hear. Um
security is another argument. But you know, show me that
you can you can manage security, like that's something you
can actually control, you know, whether it's um like maybe
not a camera in the bedroom, but you can have
(35:17):
cameras in the apartment. You can really watch them. You
can come in every two hours and inspect things. You know,
you can actually control security and make it a secure environment. Yeah,
and I also understand that the absence of evidence isn't proof,
but I would guess that if anybody had been harmed, hurt, killed, maimed,
abused during any of these one time, once in the
(35:40):
history of these things in the United States, we would
know all about it, and that would have been that
that would have canceled everything. Just like in Germany, it
hasn't come up. Like the fact that we didn't run
across it is is pretty significant to me. I'm surprised
they didn't lay it on Germany. I'm surprised the look
it happened here, look like it's all Merkel's fault. Um.
(36:03):
New Mexico was a state that that also had sort
of the same and the reasoning is generally the same
wherever you go, which was some kind of moral outrage. Uh.
In this case, there was um Michael Guzman who was
a prisoner in New Mexico that um, he was actually
a convicted murderer. So I'm really surprised that that he
(36:25):
was even allowed. I'm not sure how that happened. But
he conceived four children with different women, uh, different wives
in conjugal visits, so he was getting married to different
women in prison and having kids. And that was sort
of like the poster child in New Mexico for why
they shouldn't do stuff like that, right exactly, So that
(36:46):
one guy is basically the one thing that American extended
family visitation can hang its hat on for anybody who's
looking to get rid of those things. But then the
the other part of the moral thing, and I said
it earlier, the idea that it's up to Department of
Corrections officials or state representatives to decide whether a family
of an incarcerated person, whether these parents want to have
(37:09):
another kid or not. It has nothing to do with them.
It's not up to these prison officials to decide that
kind of family planning, and it's smacks of eugenics and
racism to to think that they that that's it's something
they talk about publicly. It's something they cite that you know,
we don't want people having, you know, kids even though
they're married, because the mom's just going to be a
(37:30):
single parent or the dad's going to be a single parent,
and um, it's just not something we're interested in. That
That one really gets my gets my goat. Yeah, the
thing that gets my goat is just the lack of
data and this gut reaction thing. The Department of Corrections
in New Mexico said they didn't see an upside and
they told local media that after two years of research,
(37:50):
we found that it did not affect recidivism rates. And
they said, oh, well, can I see the details of
the study, and they said, well, it was not so
much a study. The toural quote was we looked at
um individual inmates. There was no study. Oh well, where's
the report on it then? And this is, well, we
don't have one, right. I basically just went through a
(38:11):
couple of files before I came out here. You're a
local paper. I'm blown away that you asked any follow
up questions whatsoever, I think is what you're saying. But
here's the thing is, one side of this argument is
not studied. There are no reports, there's very little research
and data. The other side has a lot of data, actually,
and we know that I think it was I'm trying
(38:33):
to find who did the study that found Yeah, study
and there was a sixty seven percent decrease in recidivism
with programs like this installed. Yeah, the human the Minnesota
Department of Corrections also did a study that basically back
that up too. And the thing is is, um, if
you talk to prison officials typically and like the ones
(38:57):
who actually work in the prisons and criminologists, like people
who actually have degrees in studying this kind of stuff,
they say, no, this is actually a really good program
and it does have an impact on recitativism. Because UM,
while we're still compiling data on extended family visits uh
(39:17):
as as it stands, we do know that the family
is in a really important factor in this transition to
UM from prison to society, and so anything that could
strengthen that bond is a plus. The other thing we
didn't really talk about was the cost. People point to
the cost and cost savings and stuff. UM. I think
(39:38):
New Mexico before they shut theirs down, it was a
hundred and twenty thousand dollars a year for this program.
UM Washington State spends eighties six thousand dollars a year,
and both of those prison systems charged families to have
these visitations. So the idea that they don't work and
that they're expensive, and that there's a more a component
(40:00):
to them, there's basically no argument against. And then there's
data in favor of the argument for these things, and
yet they seem to be going the way of disco
in the United States sadly. Yeah, and not only UH.
I mean you can just talk about regular visits. There
was a study in two thousand eleven UM that found
the inmates who got just regular standard visits, these are
(40:21):
not conjugal, these are not extended or overnight family visits,
just visiting people in person while in prison were less
likely to return to prison than inmate who received no visits. Yea.
So they also very surprisingly to UM. And controversially, there
was a study that found that prisons in stare correctional
(40:43):
um UH systems in states that never had any family
visitation programs had four times more inmate on inmate sexual
assault than than prisons that don't, which apparently really flies
in the face of common wisdom, common consensus on what
the purpose of sexual assault in prison is that everybody
(41:05):
thinks it's power based. They're like, actually, there might be
a sexual aspect to it as well that had been
overlooked to this point. Yeah, like sexual desires not being
met um. And you're right that that is contrary to
everything we've ever heard about sexual assault in prison, I think. Yeah,
And while it's kind of rich to point to anecdotal data,
after just disassembling anecdotal data, there is um a lot
(41:31):
of sentiment, including among Washington States Department of Corrections, they
have a brochure for their family visitation UM that basically
says an isolated inmate is a dangerous inmate UM. So
that one of the sentiments that kind of was carried
along for family visitation and visitation in general is this
idea that it keeps prisoners in line in the prison,
(41:52):
which improves security in the prison as well. Yeah, see
our episode on or was that in the prisons episode
which were one on solitary, we did one on solitude
we did and we did a prisons one too. Yeah.
I mean that's we've got a nice little robust and
we're popular in prisons too, so yeah, we help prisoners
(42:13):
learn to read sometimes. Yeah, so they might be listening
to this right now. Yes, special shout out to all
the prisoners listening to this. Stay up. If someone is
listening to this with a family during their family visit,
Oh my gosh, I would really like to hear about that.
I think that's some T shirts right there. Yeah, yeah,
at the very least. So yeah, let us know and
we'll send you some T shirts because that's a that
(42:35):
is one heck of a specific listen. Uh. Well, like
you said, this is definitely going away though in a
big way in the US down to seven states now, Um,
I mean prison visits. I don't know if they're really
trying to get rid of them. COVID has given them
a big opportunity to do that because more and more
prison visit um policies or programs have revolved around like
(43:00):
zoom meetings and virtual meetings and stuff like that, and
with COVID, that's a UM I could see it being
used to be like do we really want to bring
Like there's a lot of costs associated with just regular visits.
You know, we could just set up a computer room
and have them going there and have little zoom meetings
with their family. Yeah, by which I mean is better
(43:21):
than nothing. But if these extended family visits are the
gold standard, and then standard visits are the whole hume
standard virtual visits, I mean yeah, I mean I've done
zoom hangouts before and they get old really fast, they do.
But I'll tell you what. Of course, my heart is
(43:42):
bleeding on this one. But like do those like every day? Yeah?
I wonder though if there's just as many restrictions around
those two, because I think you have to, you know,
demonstrate that you're in good standing in your prison too. Yeah.
So that's it that it's time you hear somebody trying
to cancel family extended family visitation in your state. Maybe
(44:05):
don't just say yeah, serves him right, It's like, think
about it. Maybe vote against it if you want to.
With this episode, touched you like an angel? Touched by
an angel? You got anything else? Nothing? Uh? Well, since
I said touched by an angel, of course as usual,
that means it's time for a listener mail. I'm gonna
call this one short and sweet factoid from a movie crusher.
(44:29):
I'm pretty sure Aaron Mazel is a movie crusher. Uh,
Josh and Chuck, good morning. Just listen to the episode
on Francis Perkins. I'm guessing you guys have seen the
movie Dirty Dancing. Well, Aaron, if you listen to our
shorty on the disappearing like disappearing like you know we have. Well,
there's a part where Johnny asked Baby what her real
name is. And I don't remember this in the movie,
(44:50):
but she said her response was Frances after the first
woman in the cabinet. So Baby in the movie Dirty
Dancing was named after Francis Perkins, right, amazing. Nobody puts
Francis in the cabinet. Well somebody did. Oh wait, yeah,
it didn't work. That's one of the best. That's seriously
are and that's one of the best facts I've ever
(45:12):
heard in my entire life. Best movie movie trivia ever. Yeah,
and very very much on the download. I think I
bet most people who are Dirty Dancing heads did not
catch that line. And know what I meant, you have
to know both of those things. He didn't. There's probably
a very small Now it might just be Aaron Mozzelle. Yeah,
(45:32):
that's to Aaron Moselle. Listen to mails in like a
week or two. She's got to get some sort of
trophy for that. Did I read another one from her? Yeah?
She was the one who wrote in with the s
y five k oh really Yeah, that's she may not
be a movie crusher, then maybe I'm just remembering from
that she probably is. I mean there's a lot of crossover,
right all right, Well, um, if you wanna let us
(45:55):
know something so astounding that you get put on list sooner,
mail twice in like a week, we want to hear it.
We're really ready for those kind of emails, go ahead
and send them off to Stuff podcast at i heart
radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production
(46:15):
of i Heeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts
for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H
Stuff You Should Know News
Hosts And Creators
Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
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