Beyond the Prison Walls: Re-Examining the Influence of Visitation on Re-Incarceration

Debate persists over how best to reduce recidivism among custodial populations. One method that may hold promise involves visitation. While many studies find visitation can protect against recidivism, this result is not consistent across the literature, necessitating replication studies. Replication studies are valuable since they can help confirm results from prior research. In an effort to replicate past scholarship on this topic, visitation’s effects on re-incarceration were examined using a cohort of ( N = 76,202) individuals released from South Carolina prisons between 2009 and 2023. Different measures of visitation were tested, including monthly rate of visitation, type of visitor, and recency of visit. Logistic regression models revealed higher rates of monthly visitations, in addition to visits from siblings, spouses, parents, and friends, reduced re-incarceration odds. These odds were further reduced the closer visits were to release dates. Policy implications are discussed.