As stable family relationships have, elsewhere, been associated with desistance from crime, the contribution of conjugal visiting to these should be better researched.Ĭonjugal visit consensual sex in prisons imprisonment prisoners private visiting.īales, W. The balance of evidence about conjugal visiting is positive, but there is little of it. There is little evidence of adverse effects, although two qualitative studies raise concerns about the visiting partner's sense of institutionalisation or coercion.
Other studies were of prisoner, staff or partner attitudes. Studies with in-prison behaviour as a possible outcome suggest small, if any, association, although one US-wide study found significantly fewer in-prison sexual assaults in states allowing conjugal visiting than those not. The three before-and-after study of partnership qualities suggested benefit, but conjugal visiting was within a wider family-support programme. The only study of health benefits found a positive association with maintaining sexual relationships. Seventeen papers were identified from 12 independent studies, all but three of them from North America. Two of us independently extracted data from included papers, according to a prepared checklist. All included papers were quality assessed. Our aim was to find evidence from published international literature on the safety, benefits or harms of such visits.Ī systematic literature review was conducted using broad search terms, including words like 'private' and 'family', to maximise search sensitivity but strict criteria for inclusion - of visits unobserved by prison staff and away from other prisoners. Only some countries permit private conjugal visits in prison between a prisoner and community living partner. In particular, family and intimate relationships are affected. Imprisonment impacts on lives beyond the prisoner's.
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