Their initial extended visit was Staubitz's first chance to spend more than a few hours with her then-8-year-old daughter since she'd been born. "This was the first time that I'd been able to cook for my baby, get her ready for a bath, watch TV, play tag, sleep together," recalled Staubitz, a petite 41-year-old with dark, curly hair and hazel eyes.Staubitz said she has kept a clean prison record, and was selected to represent offender concerns at monthly meetings with prison administrators. Eligible for conditional release in 2018, she dreams of moving back to New York City and opening a food truck. Without the visits, she said she wouldn't have a strong relationship with her daughters to return to. "There's the phone. There's the postal service. But it's not the same as being able to talk alone, without officers watching," she said. "If it weren't for trailer visits, I wouldn't be the woman I am today."In 1993, overnight visits were allowed in 17 states, but the programs have since been terminated everywhere but California, New York, and Washington, largely due to concerns over safety, pregnancy, and the belief that they are unnecessary or extravagant. Even where they are allowed, extended visits are rare. In 2016, overnight visits were enjoyed by about 4,900 of the 52,245 people incarcerated in New York, and 692 of the 17,578 in Washington, according to statistics provided by the respective state prison systems. (California did not provide data by press time.) Connecticut recently phased out its program for new participants, although three families continue to visit. The federal prison system does not allow extended visits.Read more: 'Those Visits Were Everything': How Prison Visitation Cuts Devastate Families
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The effects of extended visitation have not been widely researched, but studies link the visits to better behavior and lower rates of sexual violence behind bars. Other research has shown that people who have extended visits tend to do better post-release as well, demonstrating higher likelihood of employment, more positive parole outcomes, and lower rates of recidivism. A 2012 Yale Law School overview of research found the visits "could be a powerful incentive for good inmate behavior." Staubitz attested to this incentive. "If that's the only way to see your kids? You're not going to mess that up," she said. "You need that."
Visits with their children may be particularly crucial for imprisoned women. According to the Sentencing Project, in state prisons, more than 60 percent of women have a child. The number of incarcerated women grew by more than 700 percent from 1980 to 2014, and women face a unique set of challenges behind bars. Nearly half report that they were physically or sexually abused before their incarceration. Once inside, they are less likely than incarcerated men to have a spouse or significant other waiting for them on the outside, visiting, sending packages and money, and providing emotional support. They face degrading conditions like not receiving enough pads to make it through their periods. And since there are fewer women's prisons, women are usually housed farther away from their families, meaning children might travel across the state just to see their mom for one or two supervised hours."If it weren't for trailer visits, I wouldn't be the woman I am today."
Private visitation programs haven't always been about maintaining family ties. They were first introduced at a Mississippi labor camp around 1918, when a warden provided weekly visits from prostitutes under the belief that black prisoners would work harder if incentivized by sex. Over time, the programs spread and took on a rehabilitative approach, but racism continued to play a prominent role in the United States prison system. Today, African Americans are incarcerated in state prisons at more than five times the rate of whites. As a result, the kids who disproportionately suffer from incarceration are rural, poor, and black.
"I don't think [family visitation programs are] fair to the children conceived and to the taxpayers," Mississippi State Rep. Richard Bennett told the New York Times before his state terminated extended visitation for both families and spouses in 2014. "You are in prison for a reason. You are in there to pay your debt, and conjugal visits should not be part of the deal."People do not always say it so explicitly, but Rep. Bennett's belief that incarcerated people do not deserve to interact with loved ones is far from rare. In many prisons across the country, even regular, supervised visits are difficult or impossible for families. Most prisoners and their families are from urban areas, yet prisons are located in remote towns many miles away. Children travel an average of 100 miles to visit their incarcerated fathers and 160 miles to visit their mothers—if their caretakers have time off and access to a car. A nonprofit provided Staubitz's daughters with free rides to the prison from their homes in Queens and Long Island, but programs like this are rare. Once visitors arrive, they may be subjected to long waits outside in the extreme heat or cold, confusing rules and dress codes, rude treatment, pat-downs and security checks, and lack of privacy."When you look at people who don't recidivate, who don't go back into the system, there's a couple of things that are basic: whether people have a job, whether people have place to live, whether people have a connection with their family."
The department halted implementation of the new rule after the ACLU of Mississippi argued it was unconstitutional. But even without the rule, family members like Davis can go months without being allowed to visit. Blake Feldman of the ACLU of Mississippi said the state frequently locks down entire sections of prisons, halting all visitation and phone calls for weeks or months. He gets desperate phone calls at least twice a week from family members cut off from their incarcerated loved ones.Not only does this hurt families, but it's "actually very dangerous," said Feldman. "To tell someone—when what they hold onto to emotionally and mentally survive incarceration is visiting with family—to tell them that if their neighbors do something wrong that the prison is going to take that away from them? You don't need a bunch of desperate incarcerated people to self-police."In many states, even phone calls with incarcerated loved ones can be cost-prohibitive. To accept calls, families must set up accounts with third-party companies that charge by the minute. In 2015, the Federal Communications Commission capped this cost at 11 cents a minute for in-state calls from prisons, and 14 to 22 cents for calls from jails. In February 2017, under its Trump-appointed chair, the commission announced it will no longer enforce the price cap.Strict rules, physical barriers, and cost make it nearly impossible for some incarcerated people to interact with their families. But programs like extended visitation really can make a difference in lives. Staubitz and her daughters are living proof."This was the first time that I'd been able to cook for my baby, get her ready for a bath, watch TV, play tag, sleep together."
She said her older daughter holds two jobs, including coaching a women's wrestling team at a community college, and her younger daughter works at a restaurant and is in her second year of college. They both live out of state and haven't had an extended visit in years, but are planning one this summer. "Both of my daughters have grown up to be beautiful, intelligent, and great little women, even against very difficult odds," she said. "I am so very proud of them. Words could never define what they mean to me."She credits their extended visits with building the relationships they have today. "We played Monopoly, watched TV, and just talked like we'd never done before," said Staubitz. The girls brought in bags of groceries and Staubitz cooked gigantic meals. Sometimes they joined the families staying in the other three trailers for a picnic. She said the visits felt "like you leave the sewer (your cell block) and enter paradise.""I remember watching her sleep and feeling so happy—so profoundly joyful to be a mom," she recalled of her first visit with her younger daughter. "Of course, I also felt like a failure underneath it all for being in prison, and not with my daughters. But, in the span of those two days and two nights, I'd put prison on the back burner and be the best mom I could be."Read more: The Devastating Consequences of Losing Your Parents to Mass Incarceration