Visiting

Though wide-ranging research concludes that maintaining family relationships through prison visits is the best way to reduce recidivism rates, it’s rare that prison policies and practices genuinely support family connections. Around the country prison visitation policies vary greatly; some are supportive of families, others are almost punitive. One only has to watch the visitors come and go from a prison to realize that the lives of thousands of law-abiding people from all walks of life are also affected when someone in their family strays beyond the boundaries of the law. When prisons enact family-friendly visitation programs, make the prison visitation environment as safe and comfortable as possible, and eliminate visitation policies and practices that dehumanize families, everyone benefits. For the past fifty years, Americans have been eager to lock the criminals up and throw away the key, but this attitude has proven to be very shortsighted and excessively costly by all measures. And it turns out that incarceration is a family affair that results in many kinds of suffering for the incarcerated guilty and, equally, for the innocent family members who love them.