Opinion ID: 349561
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Contact Visitation.

Text: 27 There can be no doubt that the necessity of assuring security must be balanced against the right to humane treatment of prisoners and that if contact visits (visits that permit inmates to touch their visitors) are incompatible with that need they must be sacrificed. The critical question is whether the two can coexist. We are persuaded that they can . . .  So said the court in Rhem v. Malcolm, 371 F.Supp. at 605. So said the trial judge in this case. So say we. 28 We have said that for convicted prisoners visitation privileges are a matter subject to the discretion of prison officials. McCray v. Sullivan, 5 Cir. 1975, 509 F.2d 1332, 1334; see also Newman v. State of Alabama, 5 Cir. 1977, 559 F.2d 283. We reserved, however, the question whether convicted prisoners have a constitutional right to visitation in some form. Martin v. Wainwright, 5 Cir. 1976, 525 F.2d 983, 984 n. 3. Here, the trial judge ordered the defendants to establish a program of contact visitation 9 for pretrial detainees, many of whom will have the charges against them dismissed. 29 The district court pointed out that the defendants have also failed to present direct evidence of the alleged threats to institutional security. 401 F.Supp. at 895. Nevertheless, the court's adoption of the language of the opinion in Rhem v. Malcolm on the subject of security risks strongly points to the Duval jail authorities having discretion to apply different procedures to inmates who represent security risks. Of course, prison authorities are under a duty to adopt reasonable measures to prevent visitors from smuggling weapons or contraband to prisoners, whether the prisoners are convicted or unconvicted and whether they are classified as maximum or minimum security risks. 30 The trial judge was well aware that the program of contact visitation would take time to put into effect. Moreover, he recognized the concern the defendants expressed as to their ability to comply with the court order in light of the structural limitations of the jail. Accordingly, he allowed the defendants a year within which to establish a program of contact visitation. This period seems reasonable to us; on a showing that an extension of time is necessary, the trial judge will be able to decide whether to grant or to deny the extension. 31 The trial court based its order, as we have noted, 10 on the physical conditions affecting visitation: visits were permitted only for two hours on one day a week; visits were confined to adult members of an inmate's immediate family; facilities consisted of three small scratched and cloudy visiting windows in each cellblock with malfunctioning speaker boxes. Inmates would crowd around these windows without supervision, a situation that resulted in (1) inequitable distribution of the available visiting time, and (2) a total lack of privacy in visitation. Inmates awaiting trial could not prepare their factual defenses, for witnesses could not visit the jail unless they were family members. 11 The jail officials did not distinguish between pretrial detainees and convicts, or between inmates who constituted security risks and those who did not. By contrast, more than 95 percent of the convicted felons in the Florida State Prison system were allowed eight hours a week of contact visitation with families. 401 F.Supp. at 884. 32 In sum, contact visits, especially to detainees, are an appropriate, humane remedy, within the court's constitutional exercise of its judicial power. Rhem v. Malcolm, 2 Cir. 1974, 507 F.2d at 338-39; O'Bryan v. County of Saginaw, E.D.Mich.1977, 437 F.Supp. 582; Jordan v. Wolke, E.D.Wisc.1977,75 F.R.D. 696; Forts v. Malcolm, S.D.N.Y.1977, 426 F.Supp. 464; Mitchell v. Untreiner, N.D.Fla.1976, 421 F.Supp. 886; Inmates, D.C. Jail v. Jackson, D.D.C.1976, 416 F.Supp. 119; Dillard v. Pitchess, C.D.Cal.1975, 399 F.Supp. 1225; see generally Comment, Confronting the Conditions of Confinement, 12 Harv.C.R.-C.L.L.Rev. 367, 373, 401 (1977); Note, United States ex rel. Wolfish v. Levi : The Limits of Administrative Discretion on Inmate Visitation, 3 New England J. Prison L. 291, 300-02 (1976). Moreover, the trial court did not thrust itself into prison administration, Bounds v. Smith, 1977, 430 U.S. 817, 832, 97 S.Ct. 1491, 1500, 52 L.Ed.2d 72, 86. The jail officials, not the trial court, will plan and supervise the contact visits. 33