Corrections Community

I am the process of revising the inmate visitation policy and was looking around at other Facility’s to see how often they permit family and or friends to visit. Also to see if they even allow friends to visit, I say that knowing that some facility’s only permit immediate family to visit and I am curious as to the strengths and weaknesses to such a Policy.

I'm in Texas in Travis County Sheriff's Office.  We allow 2 visits a week with up to 3 people at a time and anyone can visit.  Our computer system retains all the visitors entered into the system since 1999 for any given inmate and we allow anyone on that list to visit (unles there is a protection order, etc.) Thus far it works for us. 

Hope this helps!

Here in Oklahoma, we as a private prison, go by Oklahoma Department of Corrections(ODOC), plus American Correctional Association (ACA) standards. We are in complinance with those. However; our facility has there own visiting times. As far as immediate family they are as follows:

Immediate Family Member – Spouse, Natural or Surrogate Parents, Grandparents, Father-In-Law, Mother-In-Law, Children (to include step-children and adopted children), grandchildren, siblings, aunt, or uncle.

We permit our Level 1 Inmates an hour a week (by appointment only) Non-Contact Visit. Level II receive 2 hours per week as does the miniumin fellows. Level III receive 4 hours per week, the miniumin fellows receives 6 hours. Level IV receive 6 per week, the miniumin fellows receive 8 hours. These are pretty good hours for the Inmates and their families. We have visits on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday between 9 am- 9 pm. Visits I believe is a detterent for an inmate not wanting to come back here as they are seperated from their friends and loved ones. The downside to any visitation is that contraband can be brought into the facility by the visitors.

I encourage you to go to the Oklahoma Dept of Corrections website for more infromation concerning visiting privileges.   http://www.doc.state.ok.us/