Prisoner Visitation and Support

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Although most people cannot imagine spending years living with little or no contact with the outside world, it is a reality that prisoners across the country face on a day to day basis. The federal prison system houses more than 220,000 prisoners in over 119 federal and several 1000 more in 5 military prisons, many of whom are too far from their homes to get visits from family and friends at any point during their sentence. Ninety-eight percent of these prisoners will eventually be released back into society, and the quality of their contact with the outside world will often determine whether they will commit crimes again and return to prison. With few other opportunities for human contact, prisoners look to Prisoner Visitation and Support for a voice, encouragement, and a chance to reconnect with the world around them.

PVS visitors offer help and moral support to prisoners who seek contact with someone outside the immediate prison community to support them in their struggle to survive their incarceration, to live constructive lives and to maintain their self-esteem. For many such prisoners, their PVS visitor is their only contact with the outside world, and a friend in their time of confinement.

Although we seek to serve the needs of all prisoners who desire visits, our primary focus is on those individuals who:

• do not ordinarily receive visits from family and friends,
• want or need supportive human contact,
• are in solitary confinement, or on death row,
• are serving long sentences.

We offer friendship and a listening ear to help prisoners prepare to assume a useful place in society. We try to have visitors at all maximum-security U.S. penitentiaries, all federal medical centers, all federal women's prisons, and as many other federal and military prisons as possible.