Washington State is one of only four in the nation to allow what are commonly called conjugal visits. These Extended Family Visits (EFV), typically held in trailers, are available for immediate family members if approved, while regular visitation in the visits room can be accessed by anyone who fills out the paperwork and meets the criteria.
Overwhelming evidence shows the personal and societal benefits of prisoners being able to strengthen family bonds through EFV and other visits. Yet Washington Department of Corrections (WDOC) has deliberately created a policy that jeopardizes these benefits by imposing ideology-based restrictions.
Washington State banned smoking in prisons back in 2004. Chaos followed in its prison system. But prisoners weren’t only dealing with the emergence of a contraband tobacco market, associated debt and the violence that always follows prohibition. We also had to deal with the effect on our visitors. Prisoners whose family came in regularly were now faced with the question of how long their loved ones could stay without being able to smoke.
At that time, vapes were not an option. But smokeless tobacco products were banned, for prisoners and visitors—who cannot even bring nicotine patches or gum into the visits room.
Even now that more safer nicotine products are available elsewhere, prisoners can’t access them and the barriers for visitors remain extremely high. Vapes, heated tobacco products and snus are totally banned. And if someone visiting a prisoner for an EFV wants to use even NRT, they must have a doctor’s prescription. This must be filed with the approval paperwork each time they come in. Getting a prescription to wear a patch to a visit for 48 hours is rarely realistic.
“My grandma wouldn’t come up for trailers, because she was like, I am not coming up there and not smoking for two days!”
These barriers lead some would-be visitors to stay away, with devastating consequences for prisoners and their loved ones.
Chris Blackwell, a WDOC prisoner, never had an EFV with his grandmother, for example.
“My grandma wouldn’t come up for trailers,” he told Filter, “because she was like, I am not coming up there and not smoking for like, two days!”
She just recently passed away. So although Blackwell is due to be released soon, he will never see her again.
Meanwhile, in nearly 22 years of incarceration, Brandon Thomas still hasn’t received an EFV with his mother. “My mom’s said this,” he told Filter. “She told me she wanted to come see me at the [EFV], but she couldn’t smoke.”
Asked if being allowed to vape might change her mind, Thomas replied, “Oh yeah, I’m certain.”
Think about who goes to prison for a moment. It’s mostly poor people, and huge numbers of people with substance use disorders and other mental health concerns. All populations which smoke and experience nicotine dependency at very high rates. Prisoners’ families belong to those same populations.
Another, less immediate reason to allow safer nicotine products is the message it would send about relative risks to communities with high smoking rates.
Tony Greco, a WDOC prisoner for more than 20 years who was released in September, long had to navigate the obstacles posed by the anti-nicotine policy.
“My son chews,” he told Filter. “Out at the [EFV] trailer he’d always say, ‘I want a dip, Dad!’ At regular visits, to avoid the discomfort, he’d just have a fat dip in, and they’d never notice.” But getting caught violating prison policy like this could lead to future regular or EFV visits being denied.
Another, less immediate reason to allow safer nicotine products in visits is the message it would send about relative risks to communities with high smoking rates. It’s a message almost never heard in prisons.
“I smoked for 35 years,” Angel Hernandez, who has been in prison for more than three decades, told Filter. “I have family members who’ve died from emphysema. I’m okay with them taking our smokes—but I quit before they took them, so I get it.”
Hernandez said his visits weren’t really affected by the ban. “My people would come in anyway.” But he knew how hard it was for them. “I think [WDOC] should give our people patches if they want them when they come in. We could buy them from the inmate betterment fund and just give them to our people. Like condoms.”
Hernandez had heard of vapes. “All I know about them is what they tell me: They blow up in your pockets,” he smiled.
He was surprised to hear that vaping doesn’t produce smoke, and therefore doesn’t carry the cancer risk associated with smoke. After learning these things, he was amenable to the idea of vapes as a way to make things easier for our families.
WDOC “acknowledges the vital role families play in an incarcerated individual’s life, and the reentry process.”
Secondhand vapor is relatively harmless, but even if they don’t want our families vaping indoors, they could make a little pad right outside the visit rooms and at the EFV trailers.
WDOC “acknowledges the vital role families play in an incarcerated individual’s life, and the reentry process,” reads a statement on its website. “It is the goal of the Family Services Program to identify the challenges faced by families impacted by incarceration, and to provide support and services relative to family needs.”
The harms of the anti-nicotine visits policy aren’t ephemeral misunderstandings. They are tangible barriers to prisoners’ chances upon release, in direct conflict with WDOC’s stated goal of helping people reenter society as successfully as possible.
Both the visits room and the EFV entry process are unfriendly at best. Policy authorizes infringement on personal space when you enter the prison environment; they can search you and your belongings any time they want, and refusal will result in loss of visit privileges for at least six months and notification of your local authorities. That’s on top of what will happen to your family member in prison.
In these circumstances, you’re trying to build and preserve core relationships, which have often been damaged—and then you’re also denied your habitual way of coping with stressors. No wonder it’s often too much.
“I can tell when we’re out at the trailers, she wants to vape. I think if she were allowed, she’d have a better time and be less stressed.”
Greco said his family became stronger because of those challenges, though they’ve been severe.
“My daughter Shyla vapes, and it’s difficult for her when we’re out at the trailers for two days,” he said. “I can tell when we’re out there, she wants to vape. I think if she were allowed, she’d have a better time and be less stressed out there. Not having the things like that, that are part of their daily life, made it so they didn’t want to come as much.”
Having been released soon after our interview, Grevo hopes his main difficulty now will be finding time alone. His grandchildren will take plenty of energy.
Jake Cardwell, another prisoner, told Filter that he’s struggled with rebuilding family relationships. His parents are extremely supportive, but he said he’s betrayed the trust of his family, so understands when his sister says she doesn’t want to come for EFV. She has explicitly stated that she doesn’t want to come in because she can’t smoke, he said, although he feels that’s just an excuse.
“It’s hard because I know that’s not true, but I still feel it,” Cardwell said. “And when she does come for regular visits, I have a hard time coping with that. I think she hates me. Why not?”
“She wasn’t sure she could make it two days. By the end of the visit, she said she couldn’t do any longer. So now we’re just going to do 24-hour visits.”
Patrick Parnell, 33, is 12 years into his sentence. He has 26 years left. He’s currently excited about his recent acceptance into the EFV program. Despite his excitement, he wishes there were something available for his mother.
“This is our second EFV [coming up],” he told Filter. “Our first, we just scheduled a 24-hour visit because she smokes and she wasn’t sure she could make it two days. By the end of the visit, she said she couldn’t do any longer. So now we’re just going to do 24-hour visits.”
Parnell chewed before coming to prison, so understands. But he’d really like to spend more time with his mother. Asked about vaping, he said, “She would like to have some kind of nicotine out there. She would vape in a heartbeat. Anything would be good—even a patch would be better than nothing.”
These harms are not measured in deaths. But they have real impacts on families every day, including people who haven’t broken the law but who suffer because of the system. They are the harms that we can challenge.
The WDOC policy is clearly an overreach. State law defines smoking and vaping separately, and does not ban vaping indoors, or in most public places, or in places of employment. When British prisoners are allowed to vape, and not all United States prisons have smoking and vaping bans, an ideological, detrimental policy is ripe for change.
For some of us, release is imminent. For others, it’s still a long way down the road. For all of us, it is daunting, and we need our family and community ties if we’re to have a chance.
I am currently working toward release, seeking clemency action, and the prospect of getting out to people scares the daylights out of me. The time we can have with our families beforehand—to forge those bonds, to restore broken trust, to build bridges and develop communication—that time is cherished by us, and needed.
Photograph by Arif Syuhada via Pexels
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