Abolish Prisons

Prison visits offer a lot of advantages. For incarcerated men and women in prison, getting visits from family, friends, clergy, and others is humanizing. It helps people remain connected with the world outside the prison. It gives them a reason to act responsibly, and helps maintain relationships that are often crucial to their welfare after release.

For family and friends on the outside, prison visits allow relationships to be maintained, parents to stay connected to their children, and marriages to weather the storm of imprisonment. It is difficult to see someone you love in prison, but most of the time it’s more difficult to have that person ripped out of your life completely.

Prison staff benefit from visits as well. If they have visitation rights to hold over someone, that person is much more likely to follow rules and go above and beyond to protect what little freedom they have. One of my friends moved from a prison where he had a good job, good friends, and quite a bit of freedom to a prison that was worse in almost every way exclusively because they offered trailer visits for married couples. A visit is a powerful thing.

A recent study from the Minnesota Department of Corrections illustrates another benefit of prison visits: a reduction in recidivism rates. They measured recidivism and visitation in a variety of different ways, and across the board found that as rate of visitations went up, rates of recidivism went down (way down).

So should we assume that because of this great news DOCs across the country are lining up to encourage visits?

Of course not. Arizona, for example, always a front runner for biggest jackass in the incarceration world, has recently enacted a one-time $25 fee for visitors over the age of 18. (Check out the full article here.) Freakin’ sweet, Arizona. Guess what socio-economic segment of the population is primarily going to be saddled with that little responsibility?

When Middle Ground, an inmate-advocacy group, challenged the fee, a judge supported the legislation and argued that those paying the fee will benefit from it since it will pay for prison upkeep. Is she confusing those who visit prisons with those who live there? Jeez Louise. Imagine if an argument like that was made for a hospital, or a retirement home. It’s a mad, mad, mad world.