Conjugal Visit To Inmates

Criminal Justice studies of positive deterrence methods can take months or even years to reach a positive result, where conjugal visitation can bring major improvement for inmates. Conjugal visits are visits allowed by the correctional facility where the inmate is allowed to engage in sexual activity with their partner. Previously, two of the most common complaints about conjugal visitations are that it contradicts the tough on crime stance and it is also expensive. From another perspective, the Criminal Justice System is ignoring the effects of the practice on individual’s progression in favor of the visitation privilege of the inmate and thus neglecting the inmate’s long-term needs rather than short-term improvement on their quality of life.

The facility was basically a for-profit plantation. Conjugal visitation was originally used as a strategy to control black inmates and ensure they work harder in the cotton fields. Inmates at the time didn’t receive monetary compensation, so conjugal visits were used as a positive reinforcement for inmates by correctional administration. They had stereotypes for black men which were used as incentives for the start of the conjugal visitation program. Their conjugal visits were only available to black men. One theory was that black men were promiscuous and could not control their sexual desires. The second was that black men had superhuman strength and that allowing them to receive conjugal visits would control their aggression both towards inmates as well as the correctional staff. At the time inmates did not have to be married to receive conjugal visits. Pimps would come on Sunday afternoons and bring prostitutes for inmates who did not have wives or girlfriends. It is said that the women would roam the camps and have sex with different black men, this went on for decades. Also the first buildings made specifically for conjugal visits were created in the 1940’s. Female inmates didn’t receive conjugal visit privileges until 1972. They didn’t have a main building used for conjugal visits until 1940, which they made by themselves out of scrap and lumber and painted them red because red paint was easiest to