“The Prison System Doesn’t Make It Comfortable to Visit”: Prison Visitation From the Perspectives of People Incarcerated and Family Members

• Author: Breanna Boppre,Dana Dehart,Cheri J. Shapiro
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00938548221094823
• Published date: 01 October 2022
• Date: 01 October 2022
• Subject Matter: Articles

CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND BEHAVIOR, 2022, Vol. 49, No. 10, October 2022, 1474 –1494.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/00938548221094823

Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions

© 2022 International Association for Correctional and Forensic Psychology

1474

“THE PRISON SYSTEM DOESN’T MAKE IT

COMFORTABLE TO VISIT”

Prison Visitation From the Perspectives of People

Incarcerated and Family Members

BREANNA BOPPRE

Sam Houston State University

DANA DEHART

CHERI J. SHAPIRO

University of South Carolina

While extensive research documents the causes and impacts of incarceration, the effects on families are under discussion.

Prison visitation is one mechanism to help families communicate and bond, yet the institutions and restrictive policies often

create distinct barriers and stressors. This qualitative descriptive study examines experiences and perceptions of visitation

through focus groups with 77 people incarcerated and interviews with 21 family members in one southeastern U.S. state.

Using thematic analysis, three major themes were developed through qualitative coding of participants’ responses: financial

and time-related burdens, stress from rules and regulations, and familial interactions. Our findings highlight that although

visitation can help maintain social bonds among families, the barriers, processes, and procedures overshadow the visit itself.

The weight of such stressors is especially felt by immediate family members and women who visit. The findings are discussed

in light of implications for correctional policy and future visitation research.

Keywords: prison visitation; families; incarceration; qualitative; impacts of incarceration

The United States is currently the world leader in incarceration with a rate higher than

any other nation in the world (Walmsley, 2014). The incarceration rate in the U.S. has

increased sevenfold from 1970 to 2010 and is largely attributed to punitive policy shifts

AUTHORS’ NOTE: We would like to thank the individuals who participated in this study for sharing their

experiences. We thank Cheyenne Johnson for her assistance in compiling articles for the literature review. We

thank Dr. Rebecca Stone for her insight and feedback. Finally, we thank the associate editor and reviewers for

their helpful and constructive comments to strengthen this article. The authors disclosed receipt of the following

financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The project was supported by

grant number 2012-IJ-CX-0034 from the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, National

Institute of Justice (NIJ). Points of view in the document are those of the authors and do not necessarily repre-

sent the official position or policies of NIJ. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to

Dana DeHart, College of Social Work, University of South Carolina, 1512 Pendleton St., Columbia, SC 29208;

e-mail: dana.dehart@sc.edu.

1094823CJBXXX10.1177/00938548221094823Criminal Justice and BehaviorBoppre et al.

research-article2022

Boppre et al. / PRISON VISITATION 1475

during the “Get Tough on Crime” era in the 1970s to the early 2000s (Clear & Frost, 2013).

Strict sentencing laws widened the threshold for prison admissions and sentence lengths for

nonviolent and violent offenses (Pfaff, 2017; Tonry, 2016). The social costs of mass incar-

ceration are widely documented and extend to communities and families (see Kirk &

Wakefield, 2018 for a review). Each of the 1.4 million people incarcerated in the United

States (Carson, 2020) leaves behind a family system. A recent nationally representative

study found that an estimated 45% of the U.S. population (113 million adults) has had a

family member incarcerated (Elderbroom et al., 2018).

A growing body of literature has documented the adverse effects of incarceration on

families, including increased financial burdens (DeHart et al., 2018; Pleggenkuhle et al.,

2018; Tasca et al., 2011), mental and physical health deficits (DeHart et al., 2018; Elderbroom

et al., 2018), negative social and behavioral outcomes (Foster & Hagan, 2009; Tasca et al.,

2011), and disruption of family bonds (Beckmeyer & Arditti, 2014; Elderbroom et al.,

2018). There are specific implications for relationships between incarcerated parents and

their children. Recent reports indicate that nearly half of state prisoners (47%) and more

than half of federal prisoners (58%) are parents to an estimated 1.5 million children

(Maruschak et al., 2021). Parental incarceration, especially maternal incarceration, has

adverse impacts on children, including mental health issues, lower educational perfor-

mance, and increased likelihood for system involvement (Burgess-Proctor et al., 2016;

Tasca et al., 2011).

One hidden process underlying families’ experiences with incarceration is visitation.

Details of what occurs in individual facilities, including processes and interactions during

visitation, are “out of sight, out of mind” due to the physical distance of facilities, lack of

transparency, and limited ability to document due to strict rules and regulations (Armstrong,

2014; M. L. Comfort, 2003). Given the importance of visitation, its effects have been stud-

ied extensively using quantitative methods since the 1990s, revealing distinct impacts on

people incarcerated, in particular. More detailed research into visitation processes has been

examined through a range of methodologies, including reviews of codified policies (Boudin

et al., 2013) as well as ethnographies (i.e., Aiello & McCorkel, 2018; M. L. Comfort, 2003;

Hutton, 2016). Yet, few studies examined the direct experiences and perceptions of those

who visit in prison across various relationships beyond immediate families (Christian &

Kennedy, 2011).

While prison visitation helps families maintain social bonds, the experience of visitation

is prefaced by distinct stressors, such as location of facilities and restrictions on clothing

and physical touch (M. Comfort, 2008; Pleggenkuhle et al., 2018). This qualitative study

examines the visitation process from the perspectives of people incarcerated and family

members with incarcerated loved ones in a southeastern state. This study contributes to the

literature on prison visitation through in-depth narratives on visitation processes across

familial relationships.

BACKGROUND

Given the overwhelming size of the prison population in the U.S., it is important to

understand processes that affect those individuals who are incarcerated. Prisonization

(Clemmer, 1958; Haney, 2012) occurs as those who are incarcerated adjust to the “pains

of imprisonment” or deprivation of their autonomy, security, access to goods, and relation-

ships (Sykes, 1958). Incarcerated people may feel powerless under the myriad of rules and