Cell Phones and “Excessive Contact”: The Contradictory Imperatives Facing California’s Parole-Eligible Lifers

• DOI: 10.1177/0887403418778205
• Published date: 01 March 2020
• Date: 01 March 2020
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0887403418778205

Criminal Justice Policy Review

2020, Vol. 31(2) 159 –181

© The Author(s) 2018

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DOI: 10.1177/0887403418778205

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Article

Cell Phones and “Excessive

Contact”: The Contradictory

Imperatives Facing

California’s Parole-Eligible

Lifers

Nazgol Ghandnoosh1

Abstract

A growing literature emphasizes that U.S. correctional systems have remained

committed to rehabilitative goals despite their turn toward incapacitation and

punishment. Although past research has documented this commitment in prisons

and parole supervision agencies, less is understood about how it is manifested in the

discretionary parole release process. This article explores whether and how parole

boards encourage people serving parole-eligible life sentences (“lifers”) to maintain

ties to friends and family outside of prison, and the results of such encouragement.

Interviews, ethnographic fieldwork, and parole-hearing transcripts reveal that

California’s parole board encourages such rehabilitative ties through comments

at parole hearings and through its parole-eligibility criteria. But to sustain these

relationships, some lifers engage in misconduct to bypass restrictive prison policies

by using contraband cell phones or engaging in physical contact with visitors that is

deemed “excessive.” When detected, these disciplinary infractions become a stated

cause of parole denials.

Keywords

life sentences, parole, cell phones, conjugal visits, misconduct

1The Sentencing Project, Washington, DC, USA

Corresponding Author:

Nazgol Ghandnoosh, The Sentencing Project, 1705 DeSales St. NW, 8th Floor, Washington,

DC 20036, USA.

Email: Nghandnoosh@sentencingproject.org

778205CJPXXX10.1177/0887403418778205Criminal Justice Policy ReviewGhandnoosh

research-article2018

160 Criminal Justice Policy Review 31(2)

Introduction

As the prison population began growing at an unprecedented rate in the 1970s, many

policies strained incarcerated individuals’ ties to their family members and friends

outside of prison. Policymakers built prisons far from urban communities, mandated

increases in sentence lengths, and approved costly phone service contracts, which con-

tinue to challenge the maintenance and creation of intimate relationships from prison

(Christian, Mellow, & Thomas, 2006; Naser & Visher, 2006). These changes have

occurred despite a vast body of research establishing that such relationships generally

foster rehabilitation by promoting rule compliance during incarceration and criminal

desistence afterward (for a review, see Visher & Travis, 2003). Despite this research,

only half of incarcerated parents maintain contact with their children through calls and

letters, while fewer than one quarter do so through visits, and these rates drop for those

serving longer sentences (Connor & Tewksbury, 2015; J. P. Lynch & Sabol, 2001).

Long sentences are especially damaging for romantic relationships (Massoglia,

Remster, & King, 2011).

However, a growing literature emphasizes that correctional systems have remained

at least partially committed to rehabilitative goals despite their turn toward incapacita-

tion and punishment during the era of mass incarceration. Prisons continue to offer

rehabilitative programs (Phelps, 2011), and parole supervision agencies continue to

promote rehabilitative ideals (Goodman, 2012; M. Lynch, 2000)—though all in dimin-

ished form. Less is understood about whether and how parole boards support rehabili-

tative goals in the discretionary release process. This article examines how, to what

extent, and with what consequences parole boards encourage incarcerated individuals

to maintain ties to family members and friends outside of prison.

Past research on parole boards indicate that they are politicized entities (Kinnevy &

Caplan, 2008) that have increased requirements for releasing people on parole

(Ghandnoosh, 2017a). By their own account, in making release decisions, parole boards

prioritize several immutable factors that incarcerated people can never change—such

as the nature of the offense—over evidence of rehabilitation (Ruhland, Rhine, Robey,

& Mitchell, 2016). Research is also mixed on whether rehabilitation positively affects

parole decisions (Morgan & Smith, 2005; Tewksbury & Connor, 2012), although lack

of rehabilitation—as measured by disciplinary violations or failure to complete pro-

grams that may not even be offered—has been found to delay parole (Huebner &

Bynum, 2008; Morgan & Smith, 2005; Tewksbury & Connor, 2012). Overall, these

studies suggest that parole boards expect applicants to demonstrate rehabilitation via

means that prisons do not necessarily enable and that they are more likely to penalize

failure to meet these expectations than to reward instances of success.

This article is based on 2 years of ethnographic fieldwork at Parole Lifers Now

(PLN),1 a southern California group whose members advocated for the parole release

of family members or romantic partners who were serving parole-eligible life sentences

(“lifers”). In addition to participant observation, the study includes interviews with 10

incarcerated individuals and 40 others affiliated with PLN, as well as an in-depth exam-

ination of dozens of parole-hearing transcripts and other official documents. These data