Conjugal Visits: Not exactly what you think

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 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 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 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 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.

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,

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 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 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

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 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 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 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 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 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, 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

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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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

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 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. 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 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 a little break and we'll be back right after this. Alright, Chuck, 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 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 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 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 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.

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

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 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. 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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, 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 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, 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 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 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 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,

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, 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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, 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, 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 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 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, 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 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 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

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. 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 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 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

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 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 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, 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, 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 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 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 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,

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 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

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, 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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

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

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 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 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 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 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. 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

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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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

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 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 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

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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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, 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 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, 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 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 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