Two women were were allegedly killed while visiting with their significant others in a California prison last year, putting the controversial practice of conjugal visits for inmates in the national spotlight.
Stephanie Brinson, 62, whose family knew her as Stephanie Dowells, was allegedly strangled in November by her husband David Brinson, 54, who is serving a life sentence for murder at Mule Creek State Prison in Northern California, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Her death came just months after Tania Thomas, 47, was also strangled while with her domestic partner Anthony Curry, also serving a life sentence in the same prison, according to NBC News. Curry was charged with her murder, Amador County District Attorney Todd Riebe told NBC.
The Amador County Sheriff’s Office and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation didn’t respond to inquiries from USA TODAY on Tuesday, and the Amador County District Attorney’s Office declined to comment.
Dowells’ death was shocking to family members, who questioned in interviews with news outlets why she was allowed to be unsupervised with Brinson, given his convictions. Examples of inmates killing their partners during conjugal visits have made headlines in other countries, but few have been publicized in the U.S.
Privacy away from watchful prison staff and access to an environment that simulates a home are key components of modern conjugal visits, which only exist in a few states in the U.S. and are the subject of controversy over their purpose and security issues they pose.
Here’s what to know:
What is a conjugal visit?
A conjugal visit allows an inmate to meet privately with a visitor for hours or days at a time, usually on prison grounds in a facility set up with a bed and often a kitchen. Though in popular culture they’re usually depicted as opportunities for inmates to have sex with their spouse, in some places the visits can also include other family members such as the inmates’ children.
The practice started in the U.S. in the early 1900s at Parchman, the Mississippi State Penitentiary. At the time, Parchman was segregated by race and the visits were authorized for Black inmates, who authorities thought were more likely to be motivated by sex and would work harder in the fields, reported the Columbus Dispatch, part of the USA TODAY Network.
The practice was expanded to 17 states by the 1990s. Usually called family visits, they’re set up to facilitate family bonding. Advocates for the programs have argued they reduce inmate-on-inmate sexual violence and help preserve family relationships, particularly for inmates to return to their families upon release.
Since then, support for conjugal visits plummeted and programs were ended in most areas. In 2014, Mississippi lawmakers cited babies born as a result of conjugal visits and costs to end them altogether. New Mexico followed suit shortly after, saying the state would save $120,000 per year and that its own research found no impact on recidivism.
Where are conjugal visits allowed?
There are now only four states that allow some kind of conjugal visit: California, Connecticut, New York and Washington. No federal prisons offer the visits.
Inmates have to meet certain requirements to be eligible for the visits, and usually only a few fit the bill. Before New Mexico did away with the visits, fewer than 150 of the state’s over 7,000 prisoners qualified, Reuters reported in 2014. The visits are called “extended family visits” in Connecticut and Washington, the “family reunion program” in New York and “family visits” in California. In Connecticut, the visits must include an inmate’s minor child and another adult in their immediate family.
“Only those who demonstrate sustained good behavior and meet specific program requirements are considered. These visits are designed to support positive family connections and successful rehabilitation,” California’s corrections department said in a statement after Dowells’ death.
Why conjugal visits are controversial and disappearing
As states have axed conjugal visit programs, they’ve highlighted concerns about security, pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections. Meanwhile, political conservatives say that the visits undermine the goal of punishment for convicted criminals, Florida criminal justice professor Stewart J. D’Alessio told Reuters in 2014.
In Rhode Island, lawmakers are considering a longshot bill to allow conjugal visits for the first time since a related program called “social furloughs” that allowed some inmates to go home for short periods of time stopped being granted years ago.
“Visitation is important to rehabilitation efforts and to maintaining family ties,” J.R. Ventura, spokesperson for Rhode Island’s corrections department, told the Providence Journal. “Unfortunately, it is also a primary method by which contraband, including but not limited to cell phones, drugs, escape paraphernalia, weapons, currency and gang related items, is smuggled into the facilities.”
Violence toward visitors by inmates in the U.S. appears to be rarely documented.
In 1995, a Washington state inmate who had been convicted of murder, Todd E. Hiivala, violently attacked his wife with a kitchen knife during a conjugal visit, the Spokane-based Spokesman-Review newspaper reported at the time. The trailer at Clallam Bay Prison where conjugal visits were held was equipped with kitchen knives, the prison said. Heather Hiivala was stabbed in the arms, neck and face before her husband was subdued by a gunshot to the shoulder by a prison guard, the outlet reported.
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