Conjugal visits, like so many practices and institutions in the so-called land of the free United States, have a racist history behind their inception.
The phrase “conjugal visit” has recently been on the minds of many true crime followers, not just prisoners, since news broke of David Brinson, 54, allegedly strangling his wife Stephanie Dowells, 62, in November of 2024 at Mule Creek State Prison in Northern California, during one of the controversial visits. Brinson was serving a life sentence for quadruple murder. A pattern seems to be setting up at Mule Creek State Prison, as Anthony Curry, another inmate serving a life sentence, was charged for murder in the strangulation death of his domestic partner, Tania Thomas, 47, during a conjugal visit months earlier, reports USA TODAY. Dowells’s death has gained nationwide attention as many, including her loved ones, question how prison officials could leave anyone alone with a convicted murderer for hours at a time with no surveillance.
But what exactly is a “conjugal visit”? Called family visits in New York and California, conjugal visits allow inmates to spend hours or sometimes days with a visitor in a trailer or an apartment outfitted with a bed and often a kitchen, that is usually located on prison grounds. The practice is meant to facilitate bonding between a prisoner and their partner, children, and/or parents. Proponents of family visit programs argue that they reduce sexual violence incidents between inmates and help preserve the inmate’s connection to their family, according to USA TODAY. Washington and Connecticut also allow conjugal visits.
While some conjugal visits nowadays can include children and other family members, pop culture is generally correct in its depiction as an opportunity for inmates to have sex with their spouses. However, the prisoner’s race is no longer a determining factor like it was at the practice’s inception in the US.
You see, the notion of permitting inmates to have sex was borne from the racist hyper-sexualization of Black men stereotype. The Mississippi State Penitentiary, which was segregated under Jim Crow, instituted conjugal visits in the early 1900s as a means of controlling Black prisoners. The Parchman Farm, which opened in 1903 as a series of work camps on 1,600 acres of farmland, used the Black inmates for free labor, reports The Columbus Dispatch. The arrangement was akin to enslavement and the warden at the time reportedly thought sex was an appropriate incentive to encourage Black men to work harder in the Parchman fields. As a result, Black prisoners were afforded time with spouses or, more often, prostitutes on Sundays.
The murders of Dowells and Thomas, allegedly, at the hands of their imprisoned lovers has no doubt added to the scrutiny of conjugal visits, but let’s be honest, this practice has been controversial since its racist inception at the Mississippi State Penitentiary.
