Protect Family Visitation in Correctional Facilities

Family visitation is one of the most important connections between people in custody and the outside world. Visits help families stay together through a sentence, support children who have an incarcerated parent, and give people in custody a concrete reason to prepare for a successful return home. Correctional professionals widely recognize that maintaining family ties supports safer facilities and better re-entry outcomes.

Despite this, visitation is sometimes reduced or eliminated as a routine disciplinary or administrative measure, or restricted indefinitely without a clear path to reinstatement. When visits disappear, the people most directly affected are often children, spouses and parents who have done nothing wrong.

We recognize that correctional facilities face real safety and operational demands, and that there are circumstances in which limits on visitation can be legitimate - for example, documented security incidents, contraband concerns or staffing emergencies. This petition does not ask agencies to ignore those realities. It asks that restrictions be proportionate, time-limited and reviewable, rather than automatic or indefinite.

What this petition asks for:

• Treat family visitation as a component of rehabilitation and facility safety to be protected, not a privilege to be routinely withdrawn as a first-resort sanction.
• Where legitimate safety or operational circumstances require limits, use proportionate alternatives first - adjusted scheduling, reduced frequency, supervised or non-contact visits, or temporary postponement with a defined review date - rather than indefinite elimination.
• Put visitation-restriction criteria in writing, tell affected families what the restriction is and how long it is expected to last, and provide a clear, accessible process to request review and reinstatement.
• Conduct a review of current visitation-restriction practices and publish the resulting standards.

This petition proposes a policy change. It is not a statement of current law, and it does not claim that any particular facility's existing practice is unlawful.