Prison Visiting Policies and Practices

Schafer, N. E.

doi:10.1177/0306624x9103500308

Cited by 34 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…Processes for visiting jail detainees and prisoners vary according to each institution's requirements, but the standard procedures for entering a correctional institution entail presentation of official identification, a visual review of one's attire, and passage through a metal detector. They also may include the interdiction of personal belongings (such as purses and cell phones), compliance with a dress code, a physical search, and extensive periods of waiting (Schafer 1991, Bandele 1999. Once inside the facility, visitors are subjected to the same scrutiny, general withholding of information, required obedience of institutional rules, and periodic reminders of their subordinate status as are inmates.…”

Section: Direct Contact In Jails and Prisonsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Punishment Beyond the Legal Offender

Comfort

2007

Annu. Rev. Law. Soc. Sci.

242

184

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In the United States, lawbreakers are treated as social isolates, and the sentences imposed upon them are conceived of as affecting a discrete individual. However, people who commit or are suspected of committing crimes are generally embedded in kinship webs and social networks that draw others into the ambit of the state's punishment apparatus. Through their association with someone convicted of a crime, legally innocent people have firsthand and often intense contact with criminal justice authorities and correctional facilities, they experience variants of the direct and indirect consequences of incarceration, and they are confronted by the paradox of a penal state that has become the primary distributor of social services for the poor in the United States. Collectively, studies investigating punishment beyond the offender contribute to the understanding of the wide and multi-faceted impact of punitive sanctions and spotlight the importance of considering this full range of repercussions when evaluating the scope of the nation's policing, judicial, and correctional policies. 271 Annu. Rev. Law. Soc. Sci. 2007.3:271-296. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org Access provided by Auburn University on 02/02/15. For personal use only.

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Section: Direct Contact In Jails and Prisonsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Punishment Beyond the Legal Offender

Comfort

2007

Annu. Rev. Law. Soc. Sci.

242

184

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“…Schafer (1991) states that to maximize the maintenance of inmate and family relationships, visitation policies should be prioritized. Hairston (1991) suggests the need for family-oriented policies in jails and recommends that visitors be provided with literature about visitation.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Survey of Jail Visitors About Visitation Policies

Sturges

Al-Khattar

2009

The Prison Journal

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Little has been written about policies affecting the public who visit jails. As the number of jail inmates increases, many offenders' families are affected. For the majority, their first contact with the criminal justice system might be by visiting an inmate in jail. This study measured the levels of visitors' understanding and satisfaction with visitation policies at two county jails in a northeastern state. A total of 281 visitors from two county jails completed the surveys. Data from this study revealed that-to meet the needs of the visitors-attention should be given to methods of visiting, jail staff training, dissemination of visitation policies, and conditions of inmate incarceration. By addressing these issues, problems that visitors encounter while visiting inmates may be lessened, and their concerns about inmates may be decreased. These changes may lead to more amenable interactions between visitors and jail staff during visitation.

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“…Advocates of convenient and humane visitation conditions at prisons stress the documented correlation between family involvement and lower recidivism rates: 'The chances of exprisoners leading productive and law-abiding lives after release are much greater when they have strong and supportive family ties. Enabling families to stay intact and maintain links throughout a period of imprisonment is essential' (NACRO, 1994: 3; see also Bakker et al, 1978;Jorgensen et al, 1986;Schafer, 1991;Breen, 1995). Correctional officials themselves emphasize this link when purporting that visiting programs are 'intended as an avenue to develop and maintain healthy family and community relationships' (California Department of Corrections, 1999: 1), which upon release will ease the societal re-entry process and bolster post-incarceration 'success'.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

`Papa's House'

Comfort

2002

Ethnography

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Concerned about their partners' potential desensitization to carceral existence and their ensuing loss of ability to function outside of the penitentiary walls, women whose husbands, fiancés, or boyfriends are incarcerated attempt to involve their loved one in personal and family life by relocating various everyday activities into the prison visiting room. As kinship gatherings, family celebrations, and romance are conducted behind bars, the prison becomes `Papa's house', an alternative site for the performance of `private' behavior. This article draws upon intensive field observations in the visitor-waiting area of California's San Quentin State Prison and in-depth interviews with 50 women whose partners are incarcerated to examine the contradictory emotional and institutional processes that complicate and reshape relationships during periods of incarceration and thereby profoundly transform the nature of precisely what visitation is meant to maintain, namely family ties. The depiction of three ostensibly intimate occurrences - commensality, weddings, and spending the night together - shows that their importation into the correctional facility twists them according to penal criteria and establishes the penitentiary as a domestic satellite. Hence the peculiar predicament facing women battling the `institutionalization' of their mate: through their efforts to create strong inclusive bonds with their partner, they in fact partake in the paradoxical `institutionalization' of their own family life and thus extend the reach and intensity of the transformative effects of the carceral apparatus.

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Prison Visiting Policies and Practices

Cited by 34 publications

References 4 publications

Punishment Beyond the Legal Offender

Punishment Beyond the Legal Offender

Survey of Jail Visitors About Visitation Policies

`Papa's House'

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