Prison Visitation Research Articles

Examining Perceptions and Attitudes of Prison Visitation on Behavior Change and Recidivism in Nairobi County, Kenya

This study investigates the impact of prison visitation on perceptions, attitudes, behavior change, and recidivism rates among incarcerated individuals. Utilizing a mixed-methods approach, data was gathered through surveys, interviews, and official records from a sample of incarcerated individuals and their visitors. The analysis focused on understanding the role of visitation in shaping attitudes towards rehabilitation and family support and its influence on post-release behavior. Findings reveal a significant correlation between the frequency and quality of visitation and positive behavioral changes among inmates. Inmates who received regular visits reported higher levels of motivation for rehabilitation, improved mental health, and increased feelings of connection with their families and communities. Moreover, visitation played a pivotal role in strengthening family bonds and social support networks, which are crucial factors in successful reintegration post-release. Furthermore, the study explored the perceptions and experiences of both inmates and visitors regarding the visitation process, including logistical challenges, emotional dynamics, and barriers to maintaining contact. Understanding these perspectives is essential for enhancing visitation programs and addressing systemic issues that hinder family engagement in the correctional system. The study also examined recidivism rates among participants and found a notable decrease among those who received frequent and meaningful visitation compared to those who did not. These findings underscore the significance of visitation programs in reducing recidivism and promoting successful reentry into society. In conclusion, this research highlights the importance of fostering supportive relationships through visitation programs to facilitate positive behavior change and reduce recidivism rates among incarcerated individuals. Implementing policies that prioritize and improve access to visitation can contribute to more effective rehabilitation efforts and ultimately lead to safer communities.

The future of prison visits? An autoethnographic perspective on the developments of the digitisation of prison visits during COVID-19

This article explores the current status, evolution, and envisaged future of prison visits, analysing the shift in paradigm from traditional models to an increasingly digital format that demands specific policy amendments and fosters an empathetic approach towards incarceration. The discourse begins with an in-depth examination of the current prison visitation models, delving into the strengths, weaknesses, and potential of both in-person and video visitations. This exploration uncovers the critical shortcomings of in-person visits, such as limited accessibility due to geographical and logistical constraints, and the rising potential of video visits to bridge these gaps. Simultaneously, we highlight the challenges in implementing video visitation systems, focusing on issues such as equitable access to technology, appropriate surveillance, and privacy regulations. It underscores the need for considering both sides of the coin, i.e., the convenience and feasibility of video visits versus the potential risks to the privacy and dignity of incarcerated people and their families. The article then delves into the policy considerations necessary to ensure a smooth transition to video visitations, exploring regulatory and statutory amendments needed to safeguard incarcerated individuals' rights and ensure a more humane prison system. The analysis uncovers a pressing need for a robust framework that not only respects privacy rights and promotes familial ties but also supports an important goal of prisons – effective rehabilitation of incarcerated people. Proposing an idealised future model for prison visits, the discourse presents a hybrid approach that skilfully combines the strengths of both in-person and video connections. This innovative model reimagines the future of prison visits, suggesting a shift from punitive and impersonal methods to empathetic and relationship-focused practices that align with contemporary understandings of rehabilitation.

‘I don’t want them to see me like that’: Negotiating Motherhood Through Prison Visitation

Scholars have highlighted the significant challenges faced by system-involved mothers in adhering to dominant motherhood ideologies. However, a research gap persists regarding the decision-making process of incarcerated mothers concerning child visitation. This study delves into the intricate dynamics of mothers’ decision-making surrounding visitation, shedding light on the interplay between maternal identity, prison environments, and societal norms of motherhood. Through qualitative interviews with forty formerly incarcerated mothers, the study reveals a spectrum of strategies employed by mothers to uphold their maternal identities, including navigating stigma, shielding their children from perceived risks, and engaging in self-sacrificial behaviors in line with societal expectations.

Double jeopardy for families of prisoners in Kashmir: A focus on prison visiting experiences

This analysis delves into the challenges faced by women prisoners’ families in Kashmir during the prison visitation process. Drawing on 51 interviews with incarcerated women and their families, this article elucidates the difficulties in establishing and maintaining communication with the prisoners. Despite the pivotal role families play in the visitation process and rehabilitation of prisoners, there is a notable absence of consideration of the challenges from the familial perspective in extant discourse. In the context of Kashmir, the visitation process is intricately complicated, as logistical and political challenges intertwine to add layers of complexity to the procedure. Further, there exists negligible research that considers the perspective of families visiting their loved ones in prison. The article explores the double jeopardy families face due to financial strain, long travel distances, strict prison procedures, lockdowns due to the pandemic and political instability. The analysis illustrates the gendered complexities involved in sustaining connections with women prisoners amid practical and emotional constraints.

Behind the gray walls: an examination of prison visitation among older inmates

ABSTRACT Research on prison visitation has primarily focused on the visitation experiences among the inmate population as a homogenous group, overlooking the complex experiences and needs of older inmates. Although there is extensive research on correlates and consequences of in-prison visitation, most studies have not considered differential patterns in visitation based on age, beyond the handful of studies that have assessed differences based on ‘young’ versus ‘old.’ Using data from inmates incarcerated in Florida, we explored how the trends and factors associated with in-prison visitation varied across inmate age groups. Consistent with prior research, we found that older inmates received far fewer visits than younger, although inmates who were 70 and older received more visits than inmates aged 50–69. We also identified factors that influenced whether older inmates were visited. Specifically, older Hispanic and white inmates were more likely to be visited than Black older inmates, and those housed in a facility closer to their homes were more likely to be visited. Marital status, pre-incarceration employment, and education levels did not influence visitation among older inmates. We document differences in the visitation experiences of inmates based on their age and that grouping inmates into one category may be masking important differences.

The experiences of men in prison who do not receive visits from family or friends: A qualitative systematic review.

Visits present an opportunity for prisoners to preserve family ties and reduce isolation, but not all receive visits from family or friends whilst incarcerated. To locate, appraise and synthesise qualitative data on the experiences of adult male prisoners (aged 18years+) who do not receive prison visits from family or friends. Nine electronic databases were searched from the date of their inception until March 2023. The quality of included studies was assessed using the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme checklist for qualitative studies, and data from the studies were synthesised using the thematic synthesis method. Eighteen studies from seven countries (the USA, the UK [England, Northern Ireland & Scotland], Canada, Netherlands and the Philippines) were eligible for inclusion. Three main themes emerged: (1) reasons for not receiving visits, (2) harmful effects of not receiving visits and (3) the value of volunteer visitor programmes. Practical problems were cited as interfering with visiting opportunities, but also some prisoners or families chose not to meet in prison. Loneliness and depression were extensively described as effects of not receiving visits. Qualities associated with volunteer visitors included raised self-esteem, improved mood and personal growth. Narratives of the experiences of adult men in prison without visits from family or friends suggest that not only the practical difficulties of imprisonment affect visiting; barriers that prisoners themselves impose would merit further exploration, as would family and relationship dynamics during incarceration and the emotional impact of prison visits, for both prisoners and their families. There are suggestions of therapeutic as well as humanitarian benefits from volunteer visiting programmes. There is a gap in the literature about any specific effect on rebuilding family relationships.

Towards family preservation: A systematic jurisdiction analysis of prison visitation policies during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Towards family preservation: A systematic jurisdiction analysis of prison visitation policies during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Searching for the unexpected – understanding information-seeking behaviours of people new to prison visits

Often, when an offender is sentenced their family and friends find themselves in a state of uncertainty. At this point, family and friends of prisoners need support and often find themselves alone to navigate and learn the correctional system to gain visitation approval. It is unknown how people new to visitation learns the rules and processes of prison visits to gain visitation access. This study explores 21 prison visitors’ information-seeking behaviour to understanding how people new to prison visitation learns to navigate the system to obtain visitation approval and identify any factors that might imped their ability to information-seek, thus delaying or preventing visitation. Using Flexible Pattern Matching Analysis we identified five factors that can occur prior to individual’s need to information-seek, and one key factor that was common during the visit experience that can impact peoples ‘ability to information seek’. Implications for prison visitation policy and practice are discussed.

Experiences of prison visitation by women: qualitative insights from Kashmir

Among many of the activities concerned with the “collateral consequences of incarceration,” visitation has been quite a challenge. In particular, women visitors face several challenges while visiting a carceral space. Using semi-structured interviews with women having a family member incarcerated, we explore the experiences of women visitors visiting a prison in Kashmir. The paper employs a qualitative methodology to understand the experiences of these women visitors. The paper tries to understand the ways in which the prison regime dictates and directs their lives. The paper emphasizes the fact that the effects of incarceration are tremendously bore by these women who jeopardize their own economic and social capital in order to maintain ties with an incarcerated individual. These women are claimed to be the “other victims of crime” and are treated as quasi-inmates inside the carceral spaces. These women live lives marked with stigma and suspicion as they are often assumed to have known about the crime. Thus, they suffer from courtesy stigma and the taint of being equally involved in the crime. The findings reveal that these women face difficulties in visiting their incarcerated kin, endure emotionally intense experiences, and the traumatic experience of prison visitation, ironically, acts as a blessing in disguise. They become increasingly absorbed into the correctional facility, suffer the anxiety of waiting and frustration to meet institutional dictates, and elation or despair that stays with them after spending time with their loved ones in prison.

Rethinking prison visitation for children with incarcerated parents: Lessons from the Australian Capital Territory

Children of incarcerated parents experience a range of vulnerabilities which have led to them being dubbed the ‘invisible victims’ of the criminal justice system. This article discusses the needs of children with incarcerated parents using recent literature describing children’s experiences during prison visitation suspensions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. We then critically examine the human rights-based communications framework, as well as the challenges faced by children of incarcerated parents, in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). We recommend corrective services around Australia retain alternative contact methods and consider introducing in-cell communication technology.

“I really wanna put eyes on these guys”: Caregiving in prisons, pandemic, and protest

AbstractIn this article we use our collaborative work with a support group for families of incarcerated people in upstate New York—including participant observation, interviews and focus groups from 2019‐2020—to highlight how COVID‐19 exacerbated challenges they already faced in caring for kin across walls. We focus specifically during the summer of 2020 when New York state prison visitation was closed to prevent the spread of COVID, showing how families struggled to stay connected and also organized to fight the carceral system. We suggest that through these acts of resistance and care, people on the outside caring for incarcerated kin during the pandemic can be understood as what Joy James calls the “captive maternal.” Understanding these women as “captive maternals” within a system structured by racial capitalism renders explicit the way the logics of captivity extend beyond the walls of prisons and jails to shape the experiences of their kin on the outside. It reveals these women to be not simply compassionate individuals caring for people they love, but rather as resistors fighting through their acts of care the logics of abandonment, disposability, and anti‐blackness on which contemporary American society is built, and which people nationwide were protesting.

Brian Thomas Lawrence

A small animal vet who gave up a promising athletic career to pursue his studies. Alongside being a practitioner, his love of animals also led him to become a prison visitor.

Factors associated with successful reintegration for male offenders: a systematic narrative review with implicit causal model

ObjectivesThis systematic review explored factors associated with successful reintegration into the community for male offenders and investigated which factors may be causally related to reintegration.MethodsDatabase searches were conducted in November 2021; a narrative synthesis and associated causal model with directed acyclic graph (DAG) was used to analyse the factors of reintegration.ResultsThirty-four studies met the inclusion criteria. Risk-Need-Responsivity–based interventions had the strongest evidence for reducing post-release offending. Fourteen good-quality studies met the inclusion criteria. The DAG shows six exposure variables (prison visits, witnessing victimisation, recovery perception, risk assessment, in-prison treatment, and pre-prison health) which link to several post-release outcomes (criminal justice outcomes, drug use, mental health, housing, and reintegration barriers) and confounding variables (demographics, offending history, prior reintegration barriers, substance misuse and attitudes).ConclusionsThe review identified factors that may be causally related to reintegration for male offenders and warrant further empirical investigation.

A Sisterhood: The Collective Resilience Born in the Periphery of Prison

The collateral consequences of incarceration and prison visitation, transcend the boundaries of prison and transform women's lives. Through an intersectional approach, this research uncovers in what capacity degradation and secondary prisonization shape women's lives, and what coping mechanisms women form in response to the difficulties of visitation. Existing research has yet to identify visitors' relationships to one another and how these relationships aid in fostering coping strategies and resilience within the carceral realm. To fill the gaps, I employed qualitative research to explore the process of visitation, processing procedures, challenges of visitation, staff relations, and women's support systems. Findings indicated visitors are subject to an environment of gendered, racist, and classist oppression that varies in degree depending on social heirarchy and status. However, as a manifestation of resilience, women construct coping mechanisms in the form of information and support networks that aid in the dismantling the prevailing culture of scarcity of information and the degradation of free women by prison staff. These marginalized women habitually resist carceral domination through informal interpersonal support systems.

Unraveling the Black Box of Prison Visitation: Incarcerated Individuals’ and Visitors’ Conversations and Feelings During Visitation Hour

The nature of prison visits is likely to explain differences in visitation effects, but has received little research attention. Unique survey data of the Dutch Prison Visitation Study enable us to provide a first systematic account of the nature of visits, by describing the topics of conversation and experienced feelings of both incarcerated individuals ( n = 787) and visitors ( n = 662). Results indicate much variation in feelings (positive and negative) and topics of conversation (emotional and problem-solving topics), a strong link between topics and feelings, and show that visitors have more negative visitation experiences than incarcerated individuals. These insights into the nature of visits help to uncover the black box of prison visitation and provide directions for future research.

Receiving Visits and the Relative Timing of Inmates’ Infractions: Investigations into how Inmates’ Behavior Change Before and After Visits in Dutch Prisons

Objectives This study tests the relative timing of inmate infractions in the weeks before and after a visit. Method Our sample is a cohort of 823 male inmates who participated in the Dutch Prison Visitation Study (DPVS) (2017) and had visitation and misconduct data. Using two-level random effects logistic regression models, we examined week-to-week associations between infractions and prison visits, including visits from partners, family, friends, and official visitors. Results The probability of an infraction is comparable to average levels in anticipation of visits, increases up to 18 percent in the weeks immediately following visits, and then returns to baseline levels. This pattern is found for contraband infractions, but no effects were found for aggressive infractions. Strongest effects were found for family and official visits. When inmates are visited frequently, the risk of infractions postvisit is similar to average levels. Conclusions The findings show that visits can have harmful effects on inmate infractions. These effects seem to stem from increases in contraband infractions. More research is needed to further understand the mechanism behind visits’ effects.

An Examination of Racial and Ethnic Variation in the Effect of Prison Visitation on Recidivism

Over the past decade, a growing number of scholars have explored the effect of prison visitation on individuals’ post-release behavior. Findings from this work generally indicate a link between in-prison visits and reductions in recidivism. Yet whether the effect of visitation on recidivism operates similarly across race and ethnicity remains largely unexplored. In the current investigation, we draw on data from the Florida prison system, to examine associations between visitation and recidivism, including whether the effect of visitation is similar across race and ethnic groups. Our findings contribute to research and theorizing on prison visitation by further unpacking the visitation-recidivism link. We conclude by discussing the broader policy implications of our findings.

Is Reduced Visitation a Collateral Consequence of Restrictive Housing?

Theory and logic suggest that placement in restrictive housing (RH) may affect prison visitation, which may be counterproductive given the potential benefits of visitation. The goal of this paper is to examine the potential correspondence between RH and visitation. We use data on incarcerated people in Ohio to conduct two related analyses. One analysis assesses whether the first incident of short-term disciplinary segregation impacts prison visits shortly after segregation. The second analysis examines longitudinal patterns of RH stays and visits to understand the interplay of the two throughout a prison term. Findings suggest that disciplinary segregation might reduce the odds of visitation immediately. RH early in a prison term may also operate to “cut off” future visitation. These results highlight an important knowledge gap and suggest that more research is needed that disentangles how RH may lead to the dissolution of social ties. Implications for research are discussed.

A Service Evaluation of the National High Secure Deaf In-Reach Service

AimsThe National High Secure Deaf Service at Rampton Hospital provides inpatient assessment, treatment and rehabilitation for D/deaf* males living with a range of difficulties including complex responses to trauma, mental health difficulties and/or learning disabilities. In 2011, the Deaf Prison In-Reach Service was established in conjunction with Yorkshire Specialist Commissioning Group and Nottinghamshire NHS Trust aiming to provide specialist support to D/deaf prisoners. * ‘D’ = Deafness as a culture, ‘d’ = deafness as a medical disability.MethodsThe team evaluated the service to raise awareness of the specific needs of D/deaf prisoners by identifying and describing characteristics, demographics, trends and patterns within existing data as well as highlighting the nature of offences, prevalence of trauma and length of time over tariff. A secondary aim was to identify areas for development to adequately meet the needs of D/deaf prisoners.ResultsAfter reviewing data for 29 prisoners (female = 3, male = 26), the most common source of support offered by the DPRIS was signposting (over 50%), followed by direct individual work (with nursing or psychology), assessment and consultancy.Since 2011, the DPRIS has assessed 30 individuals and completed over 717 prison visits for assessments and interventions. Whilst this has been acknowledged as a small number, it has been attributed to the difficulties locating D/deaf prisoners and lack of awareness regarding the DPRIS. Currently, referrals to the DPRIS come from prison healthcare staff, but this fails to address the wider specialist needs of this population: basic communication needs, occupational needs and risk reduction work. It also excludes individuals unknown to healthcare.Direct engagement with the DPRIS included: focused risk reduction work, anger management, mental health monitoring, and 1:1 psychology work. Prior to involvement from the DPRIS, five individuals declined to engage in prison therapy. With support from the DPRIS, two were transferred to more appropriate placements, one was recommended for transfer (not transferred) and one received mental health monitoring (nursing). One continued to decline which could be attributed to potential (lack of) motivation/readiness.This evaluation supports the need for specialist interventions to ensure equitable access to recovery and rehabilitation.ConclusionWhat Next?It is hoped that the unique needs of this population will be communicated amongst professionals and steps will be made to address these as previously recommended in reports from the BDA (2016) and the Howard League.

“The Prison System Doesn’t Make It Comfortable to Visit”: Prison Visitation From the Perspectives of People Incarcerated and Family Members

While extensive research documents the causes and impacts of incarceration, the effects on families are under discussion. Prison visitation is one mechanism to help families communicate and bond, yet the institutions and restrictive policies often create distinct barriers and stressors. This qualitative descriptive study examines experiences and perceptions of visitation through focus groups with 77 people incarcerated and interviews with 21 family members in one southeastern U.S. state. Using thematic analysis, three major themes were developed through qualitative coding of participants’ responses: financial and time-related burdens, stress from rules and regulations, and familial interactions. Our findings highlight that although visitation can help maintain social bonds among families, the barriers, processes, and procedures overshadow the visit itself. The weight of such stressors is especially felt by immediate family members and women who visit. The findings are discussed in light of implications for correctional policy and future visitation research.