conjugal visit meaning in sentence

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Everything You Should Know About Conjugal Visits in California

May 9, 2024 Written by Jill Harness and Edited by Peter Liss

Conjugal visits are regularly referenced in movies and TV shows ,  but  they  almost seem unreal.  After all, why should people serving time for crimes be allowed to have sex when they’re supposed to be punished? But that’s one of the big misconceptions about what the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation calls “Family Visits.” The official name isn’t just a creative euphemism code for “sex visits” -the real reason the state allows these types of inmate visitation is to provide those behind bars with a way to stay close to their families. “Studies show this kind of visitation program has profound benefits not only to inmates but also to the general public in the form of reduced crime rates and lowered taxes,” explains attorney Peter Liss.

What are Conjugal Visits?

A conjugal visit is where an inmate  has the opportunity to  see their family with some slight level of privacy and intimacy. One of the big misconceptions about these visits is that they are purely designed to allow prisoners to have sex. While that may be how the program started and may be  part  of the experience for married couples, the true purpose of the visits is to allow prisoners the chance to spend time with their families. Notably, in New York, where inmates can visit with extended family members, only 48% of these meetings were with a spouse.

Even when the visit is with a spouse, most inmates say that while the chance to have sex with their partners was  nice , the family visit was more about being intimate with the person they love for anywhere from 30 to 40 hours. Considering that standard prison visits require all conversations to be monitored by guards, and partners are only permitted to kiss at the start and end of the visit, the chance to have private discussions for 24 hours and spend the night in bed together is a welcome change.

The History of Conjugal Visits

Conjugal visits were initially introduced in Mississippi state in the early 1900s. At the time, inmates were essentially just  used as slaves , even physically beaten if they broke the rules or failed to work hard enough.  To provide positive encouragement for those who worked hard and followed the rules , the prison brought prostitutes for the best inmates every Sunday. Eventually, the prison also started allowing prisoners’ wives and girlfriends to visit.

The idea eventually caught on, and over the years, many other states adopted the  idea  of letting wives spend time with their inmate husbands, with over 1/3 of states in the United States eventually enacting some  type of   conjugal  visit program.  Unfortunately, with the push to “get tough on crime” that took place in the 90s, many states got rid of these types of programs, which were seen as “being soft on crime” by giving prisoners “sex visits” when they should be being punished. Nowadays, the only four states that offer conjugal visits are California, Connecticut, New York, and Washington.

Do You Have to be Married for a Conjugal Visit?

“You do not have to be married to qualify for a conjugal visit,” explains Liss, “however, each state offering these programs has a different list of qualifying immediate family members.” Here is how each location defines “immediate family member:”

• In California,  you do not have to be married for a conjugal visit.  You can spend time with any immediate family member, including  include  spouses, registered domestic partners, siblings, children, or parents.
• In New York, visitors can be children, spouses, parents, grandparents, or foster parents/legal guardians. Notably, New York does not seem to include domestic partners and married couples must be legally wed for at least six months to qualify for a conjugal visit.
• In Connecticut, the “extended family visit” must include  a full  family, meaning the inmate’s child must be present and be accompanied by their other parent, legal guardian, or one of the inmate’s parents.
• In Washington, the term “immediate family” is more expanded than  other  states, as it includes children, stepchildren, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, spouses, registered domestic partners, siblings, parents, stepparents, grandparents, great-grandparents, uncles, and aunts of the incarcerated person.

How do Family Visits Work in California?

Inmates who qualify for family visits can spend up to 40 hours in an apartment located on prison grounds with their immediate family members. These apartments are equipped with toiletries, sheets, and condoms.

Prisoners are allowed no more than four visits per year. “Unfortunately, because of the program’s popularity and the limited number of prison apartment spaces,” explains Liss, “I believe prisoners are more likely to be able to participate only twice a year.”

Visiting family members will not be strip-searched, though the prisoner will. While the visit is mostly unsupervised, the area will be searched as often as every four hours.

Visitors must follow many rules , including what they wear. For example, no one can wear blue jeans, and women cannot wear short dresses,  short  skirts, strapless tops, or form-fitting clothing.

Can Lifers Get Conjugal Visits in California?

Not all prisoners are eligible for the program. Anyone on death row, who is serving a life sentence, or who was convicted of a sex offense is ineligible. Additionally, inmates must have a record of good behavior, and anyone on disciplinary restrictions cannot participate. Those eligible must apply through their correctional counselor.

What are the Benefits to Family Visits?

There are many benefits, but the biggest is a  dramatic reduction in recidivism rates . One study in New Mexico (which recently discontinued conjugal visits) showed that prisoners who participated in extended family visits had 70% less chance of ending up in prison than those who did not participate.

Family visits are, therefore, more effective than education in keeping former felons out of prison. “I believe the effectiveness of these programs is logical, considering they help maintain relationships between inmates and their loved ones,” says Liss. “These relationships are critical in helping convicts readjust to life outside prison after release.”

Though many people consider these programs to be a waste of taxpayer money, it’s been shown that every $1 spent on  education in prisons saves taxpayers $5 annually due to the reduced cost of housing prisoners. “Since visits with family members cost less than education programs and are even more effective at reducing crime rates, maintaining these programs is a no-brainer in my opinion,” Liss says.

Reducing recidivism rates is not the only benefit of conjugal visits. By encouraging prisoners to be good to earn time with their loved ones, prisons can reduce violence and dangers to other inmates and guards -which could further reduce the tax rates associated with incarceration. More savings can also be realized because the more prisoners are model citizens, the more likely they are to be eligible for early release programs, where they can enjoy a complete family reunion outside of the prison.

There is also evidence that conjugal visits reduce prison rape . One study found that sexual violence in prison occurred at a rate of 226 per 100,000 prisoners in states without these programs while occurring at a rate of 57 per 100.000 prisoners in states with family visits.

Alternative Sentences are Still Preferable

Of course, being allowed to continue living with your family is better than any conjugal visit. Maintaining your family life is much easier if you prove your innocence or are given an  alternative  sentence  ,  such as probation. “Your choice of criminal lawyer makes such a drastic difference in the outcome of your case,” explains Liss. “If you choose me as your attorney, I can help you fight your charges and secure the best possible outcome for your case.” If you have been accused of any crime, please call  (760) 643-4050  to schedule a free initial consultation at the Vista office of Peter M. Liss.

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Attorney Peter M. Liss, (760) 643-4050 380 S Melrose Drive #301 Vista, CA 92081

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About the Legal Information on This Website

I rely on my experience as a top defense lawyer in my area to personally review all information on this site; however the information offered here should not substitute as legal advice. If you have been arrested or charged with a crime in Vista, please contact a qualified defense attorney.

Conjugal Visits

Why they’re disappearing, which states still use them, and what really happens during those overnight visits..

Although conjugal, or “extended,” visits play a huge role in prison lore, in reality, very few inmates have access to them. Twenty years ago, 17 states offered these programs. Today, just four do: California, Connecticut, New York, and Washington. No federal prison offers extended, private visitation.

Last April, New Mexico became the latest state to cancel conjugal visits for prisoners after a local television station revealed that a convicted killer, Michael Guzman, had fathered four children with several different wives while in prison. Mississippi had made a similar decision in January 2014.

A Stay at the “Boneyard”

In every state that offers extended visits, good prison behavior is a prerequisite, and inmates convicted of sex crimes or domestic violence, or who have life sentences, are typically excluded.

The visits range from one hour to three days, and happen as often as once per month. They take place in trailers, small apartments, or “family cottages” built just for this purpose, and are sometimes referred to as “ boneyards .” At the MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution in Connecticut, units are set up to imitate homes. Each apartment has two bedrooms, a dining room, and a living room with a TV, DVD player, playing cards, a Jenga game, and dominoes. In Washington, any DVD a family watches must be G-rated. Kitchens are typically fully functional, and visitors can bring in fresh ingredients or cooked food from the outside.

In California, inmates and their visitors must line up for inspection every four hours throughout the weekend visit, even in the middle of the night. Many prisons provide condoms for free. In New Mexico, before the extended visitation program was canceled, the prisoner’s spouse could be informed if the inmate had tested positive for a sexually transmitted infection. After the visit, both inmates and visitors are searched, and inmates typically have their urine tested to check for drugs or alcohol, which are strictly prohibited.

What Everyone Gets Wrong

Conjugal visits are not just about sex. In fact, they are officially called “family visits,” and kids are allowed to stay overnight, too. In Connecticut, a spouse or partner can’t come alone: the child of the inmate must be present. In Washington, two related inmates at the same facility, such as siblings or a father and son, are allowed to arrange a joint visit with family members from the outside. Only about a third of extended visits in the state take place between spouses alone.

The Insider’s Perspective

Serena L. was an inmate at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in New York from 1999 to 2002. During that time, she qualified for just one overnight trailer visit. Her 15-year-old sister, who lived on Long Island, persuaded a friend to drive her to the prison. “I remember her coming through the gate, carrying two big bags of food, and she said, ‘I got your favorite: Oreos!’ ” Serena says. “It was like a little slumber party for us. When I was first incarcerated, we had tried to write to each other and talk to each other by phone, but there was lots we weren’t really emotionally able to come to terms with until we had that private space, without a CO watching, to do it.”

The (Checkered) History

Conjugal visits began around 1918 at Parchman Farm, a labor camp in Mississippi. At first, the visits were for black prisoners only, and the visitors were local prostitutes, who arrived on Sundays and were paid to service both married and single inmates. According to historian David Oshinsky, Jim Crow-era prison officials believed African-American men had stronger sex drives than whites, and would not work as hard in the cotton fields if they were not sexually sated. The program expanded in the 1940s to include white, male inmates and their wives, and in the 1970s to include female inmates.

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Controversy and Conjugal Visits

Conjugal visits were first allowed as incentives for the forced labor of incarcerated Black men, the practice expanding from there. Is human touch a right?

“The words ‘conjugal visit’ seem to have a dirty ring to them for a lot of people,” a man named John Stefanisko wrote for The Bridge, a quarterly at the Connecticut Correctional Institution at Somers, in December 1963 . This observation marked the beginning of a long campaign—far longer, perhaps, than the men at Somers could have anticipated—for conjugal visits in the state of Connecticut, a policy that would grant many incarcerated men the privilege of having sex with their wives. Conjugal visits, the editors of The Bridge wrote, are “a controversial issue, now quite in the spotlight,” thanks to their implementation at Parchman Farm in Mississippi in 1965. But the urgency of the mens’ plea, as chronicled in The Bridge and the Somers Weekly Scene , gives voice to the depth of their deprivation. “Perhaps we’re whistling in the wind,” they wrote, “but if the truth hits home to only a few, we’ll be satisfied.”

The men at Somers wrote of conjugal visits as something new, but in fact, Parchman had adopted some version of the practice as early as 1918. Parchman, then a lucrative penal plantation , sought to incentivize Black prisoners, who picked and hoed cotton under the surveillance of armed white guards, by allowing them to bring women into their camp. The visits were unofficial, and stories from the decades that followed are varied, ranging from trysts between married couples to tales of sex workers, bussed in on weekends. The men built structures for these visits out of scrap lumber painted red, and the term “ red houses ” remained in use long after the original structures were gone. The policy was mostly limited to Black prisoners because white administrators believed that Black men had stronger sexual urges then white men, and could be made more pliable when those urges were satisfied.

This history set a precedent for conjugal visits as a policy of social control, shaped by prevailing ideas about race, sexual orientation, and gender. Prisoners embraced conjugal visits, and sometimes, the political reasonings behind them, but the writings of the men at Somers suggest a greater longing. Their desire for intimacy, privacy and, most basic of all, touch, reveals the profound lack of human contact in prison, including but also greater than sex itself.

Scholar Elizabeth Harvey paraphrases Aristotle, who described the flesh as the “medium of the tangible,” establishing one’s “sentient border with the world.” Touch is unique among the senses in that it is “dispersed throughout the body” and allows us to experience many sensations at once. Through touch we understand that we are alive. To touch an object is to know that we are separate from that object, but in touching another person, we are able to “form and express bonds” with one another. In this context, Harvey cites the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty, who described all touch as an exchange. “To touch is also always to be touched,” she writes.

When Parchman officially sanctioned conjugal visits in 1965 after the policy was unofficially in place for years, administrators saw it as an incentive for obedience, but also a solution to what was sometimes called the “ Sex Problem ,” a euphemism for prison rape . Criminologists of the era viewed rape in prison as a symptom of the larger “ problem of homosexuality ,” arguing that the physical deprivations of prison turned men into sexual deviants—i.e., men who wanted to have sex with other men. In this context, conjugal visits were meant to remind men of their natural roles, not merely as practitioners of “ normal sexuality ,” but as husbands. (Framing prison rape as a problem of ‘homosexuals’ was commonplace until Wilbert Rideau’s Angolite exposé Prison: The Sexual Jungle revealed the predation for what it was in 1979.)

Officials at Parchman, the sociologist Columbus B. Hopper wrote in 1962 , “consistently praise the conjugal visit as a highly important factor in reducing homosexuality, boosting inmate morale, and… comprising an important factor in preserving marriages.” Thus making the visits, by definition, conjugal, a word so widely associated with sex and prison that one can forget it simply refers to marriage. Men—and at the time, conjugal visits were only available to men—had to be legally married to be eligible for the program.

But for the men at Somers, the best argument for conjugal visitation was obvious—with one telling detail. The privacy afforded by the red houses at Parchman, Richard Brisson wrote “preserve some dignity to the affair,” creating “a feeling of being a part of a regular community rather than … participating in something that could be made to appear unclean.” For lovers secluded in bedrooms, “[t]here is no one about to mock them or to embarrass them,” he wrote. This observation suggests the ubiquity of surveillance in prison, as well as its character.

Carceral institutions are intended to operate at a bureaucratic remove; prisoners are referred to by number and were counted as “ bodies .” Guards must act as ambivalent custodians of these bodies, even when the nature of their job can be quite intimate. Prisoners are routinely strip-searched and frisked; they must ask permission to exercise any movement, to perform any bodily function. This is as true today as it was in Somers, where men frequently complained that they were treated like children. “You are constantly supervised, just as if you were a one-year-old child,” Ray Bosworth wrote in 1970 .

But guards are not parents, and the tension between dutiful ambivalence and intimate supervision often manifests as disgust. On a recent visit to Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, a maximum-security women’s prison in upstate New York, prisoners complained of being ridiculed during strip searches, and hearing guards discussing their bodies in the corridors.

This attitude extends to rules regulating touch between prisoners and visitors. Writing about San Quentin State Prison in California in the early 2000s, the ethnographer Megan L. Comfort described a common hierarchy of visits , each with its own allowable “degree of bodily contact.” Death Row cage visits allowed for hugs in greeting and parting, while a contact visit allowed for a hug and a kiss. The nature of the kiss, however, was subject to the discretion of individual guards. “We are allowed to kiss members of our families, hello and goodbye, but the amount of affection we may show is limited by the guard,” James Abney wrote for the Somers Weekly Scene in 1971.  “If he feels, for instance that a man is kissing his wife too much or too passionately, then he may be reprimanded for it or the visit may be ended on the spot.”

When Somers held its first “ Operation Dialogue ,” a “mediated discussion” among prisoners and staff in May 1971, conjugal visits were a primary concern. By then, California (under Governor Ronald Reagan) had embraced the policy—why hadn’t Connecticut? Administrators argued that furloughs, the practice of allowing prisoners to go home for up to several days, were a preferable alternative. This certainly would seem to be the case. In August 1971, the Scene quoted Connecticut Correction Commissioner John R. Manson, who criticized the skeezy, “tar-paper shacks” at Parchman, concluding that furloughs were “ a less artificial way for inmates to maintain ties with their families .” But to be eligible for furloughs, men were required to be within three or four months of completing their sentence. In the wake of George H.W. Bush’s infamous “ Willie Horton ” campaign ad in 1988, a racially-charged ad meant to stoke fear and anti-Black prejudice in which a violent attack was blamed on Liberal soft-on-crime policies (specifically scapegoating Michael Dukakis for a crime committed on a prison furlough that predated his tenure as governor), prison furloughs were mostly abolished. They remain rare today, still looming in the shadow of the Horton ad.

Conjugal visits are considered a rehabilitative program because, as Abney wrote, it is in “society’s best interest to make sure that [a prisoner’s] family remains intact for him to return to.” Unspoken is the disregard for people serving long sentences, or life, making conjugal visits unavailable to those who might need them the most.

The campaign for conjugal visits continued throughout the 1970s. Then, in 1980, in a sudden and “major policy reversal ,” the state of Connecticut announced that it would instate a “conjugal and family visit” program at several prisons, including Somers. Subsequent issues of the Scene outline the myriad rules for application, noting that applicants could be denied for a variety of reasons at the discretion of prison administrators.

The earliest conjugal visits at Somers lasted overnight but were less than 24 hours in total. Men could have multiple visitors, as long as they were members of his immediate family. This change signaled a new emphasis on domesticity over sex. Visits took place in trailers equipped with kitchens, where families cooked their own meals. Describing a similar set-up at San Quentin more than two decades later, Comfort wrote that the trailers were meant to encourage “people to simulate an ordinary living situation rather than fixate on a hurried physical congress.”

By the early 1990s, conjugal visitation, in some form, was official policy in 17 states. But a massive ideological shift in the way society viewed incarcerated people was already underway. In a seminal 1974 study called “What Works?”, sociologist Robert Martinson concluded that rehabilitation programs in prison “ had no appreciable effect on recidivism .” Thinkers on the left saw this as an argument for decarceration—perhaps these programs were ineffective because of the nature of prison itself. Thinkers on the right, and society more broadly, took a different view. As (ironically) the Washington Post observed, the findings were presented in “lengthy stories appearing in major newspapers, news magazines and journals, often under the headline, ‘ Nothing Works! ’”

Martinson’s work gave an air of scientific legitimacy to the growing “tough-on-crime” movement, but the former Freedom Rider, who once spent 40 days at Parchman, spawned punitive policies he couldn’t have predicted. In 1979, Martinson officially recanted his position. He died by suicide the following year.

In Mistretta v. United States (1989), the court ruled that a person’s demonstrated capacity for rehabilitation should not be a factor in federal sentencing guidelines because, they wrote, studies had proved that rehabilitation was “an unattainable goal for most cases.” It effectively enshrined “nothing works” into law.

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“Nothing works” gave rise to harsher sentencing, and more punitive policies in prisons themselves. In 1996, the state of California drastically reduced its conjugal visitation program . At San Quentin, this meant conjugal visits would no longer be available for people serving life sentences. To have benefitted from the program, and then have it taken away, was a particular blow to prisoners and partners alike. One woman told Comfort that she was in “mourning,” saying: “To me, I felt that it was like a death. ”

We don’t know how the men at Somers might have felt about this new era, or the heyday of conjugal visits that came before it. There are no issues of the Weekly Scene available after 1981 in the American Prison Newspapers collection, which is just after the visits began. But their writing, particularly their poetry, offers some insight into the deprivation that spurred their request. In 1968, James N. Teel writes, “Tell me please, do you ever cry, / have you ever tried to live while your insides die? ” While Frank Guiso , in 1970, said his existence was only an “illusion.” “I love and I don’t, / I hate and I don’t / I sing and I don’t / I live and I don’t,” he writes. But for others, disillusionment and loneliness take a specific shape.

“I wish you could always be close to me,” Luis A. Perez wrote in a poem called “ The Wait ” 1974:

I will hold your strong hand in my hand, As I stare in your eyes across the table. Trying to think of the best things to say, I then notice how I will not be able. I will long for your tender embraces, For your long and most desirable kiss. As I sleep cold for warmth of your body, You my love, are the one I will miss…

Today, only four states—California, Connecticut, Washington and New York—allow conjugal visits. (Mississippi, where Parchman is located, ended conjugal visitation in 2014 .) Some argue that Connecticut’s Extended Family Visit (EFV) program, as it is now called, doesn’t actually count , because it requires a prisoner’s child to be there along with another adult . There is also some suggestion that Connecticut’s program, while still officially on the books, has not been operational for some time.

The COVID-19 pandemic gave further cause to limit contact between prisoners and visitors, engendering changes that don’t appear to be going away anytime soon.

Somers was reorganized as a medium-security facility and renamed the Osborn Correctional Institution in 1994. A recent notice on the facility’s visitation website reads: “​​Masks must be worn at all times. A brief embrace will be permitted at the end of the visit .”

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What Is A Conjugal Visit?

A conjugal visit is a designated period in which a prison inmate is allowed to be in private with a visitor. The visit allows extended, intimate contact, including sexual relations, between a prisoner and a visitor. In this way it is different to a supervised, regular prison visit, such as a contact visit, where hugging is permitted, and a non-contact “box” visit, where a screen separates the prisoner and visitor. The key aims of conjugal visits include preserving an inmate’s family ties, promoting the inmate’s reintegration into society on release, curbing recidivism and lessening prison violence. Victoria is the only state or territory in Australia which allows conjugal visits to prisoners.

Legislation

Section 38 of the Corrections Act 1986 states:

“(1)     The Secretary may in accordance with the regulations by instrument approve contact visiting programmes under which a prisoner’s family and friends may visit and have physical contact with the prisoner.

(2)     The Secretary may in accordance with the regulations by instrument approve residential visiting programmes under which a prisoner’s family may stay with the prisoner in the prison.”

In this section, “family” is defined as a “near relative” or any other person who has a long standing close personal relationship with the prisoner. “Near relative” is a partner, parent or grandparent (or a partner’s), child or grandchild (or a partner’s), or a sibling (or a partner’s).

Conjugal visits are run by Corrections Victoria , a unit of the Department of Justice and Community Safety, at five prisons: Beechworth, Fulham, Loddon, Marngoneet and Tarrengower. The visits are in two categories: one focuses on a prisoner’s intimate partner relationships and the other on their relationships with children.

To be eligible for a conjugal visit, an inmate must be a medium and minimum-security prisoner serving a sentence of at least 18 months. Visitors must be on an approved visitors list, which the prisoner compiles and which can have up to 10 names at any one time. The conjugal visits are conducted in a motel-type setting. Beechworth prison provides family visits at a dedicated property near the prison.

Should conjugal visits be allowed?

The debate over whether conjugal visits should be allowed depends on the lens through which the visits are viewed. The goals of imprisonment are generally recognised as retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation and protection of society – how do conjugal visits fit within this paradigm? Do inmates forgo their right to spend intimate time with loved ones on account of being in prison?

Proponents say that in prisons across the globe, conjugal visits achieve their key aims. Such visits are permitted in countries including Brazil, Canada, Russia and Germany. In several states in the United States, conjugal visits were instigated to lessen the strain on families caused by the long absence of a jailed parent. Prison authorities allow sexual relations which they say has an added benefit of preventing homosexuality in prisons and affairs by wives.

Supporters say conjugal visits are necessary for a humane prison system, and refer to the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners , which state:

“61. The treatment of prisoners should emphasize not their exclusion from the community, but their continuing part in it…

• Special attention shall be paid to the maintenance and improvement of such relations between a prisoner and his family as are desirable in the best interests of both.
• From the beginning of a prisoner’s sentence consideration shall be given to his future after release and he shall be encouraged and assisted to maintain or establish such relations with persons or agencies outside the institution as may promote the best interests of his family and his own social rehabilitation.”

They say prisons will remain unpleasant, and imprisonment will still confer a social stigma, even if conjugal visits are allowed.

Opponents say deprivation from contact should an accepted component of punishment for prisoners. They also point to the expense and administrative burden of allowing conjugal visits, such as the additional screening required of visitors and assessing the validity of marriages. Further, the fairness of allowing conjugal visits for some prisoners and not others has been questioned.

Safety concerns have also been raised. In Germany in 2010, an inmate murdered his girlfriend and attempted suicide during a visit. In the Australian Capital Territory, conjugal visits were established in 2011 but were scrapped after only 10 visits due to fears of compromised security.

Opponents also say it is important for public confidence that politicians do not appear soft on crime.

For advice on any legal matter, please contact Armstrong Legal .

This article was written by Sally Crosswell

Sally Crosswell has a Bachelor of Laws (Hons), a Bachelor of Communication and a Master of International and Community Development. She also completed a Graduate Diploma of Legal Practice at the College of Law. A former journalist, Sally has a keen interest in human rights law.

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Definition of conjugal visit noun from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary

conjugal visit

• Many prisons still prohibit conjugal visits.

Take your English to the next level

The Oxford Learner’s Thesaurus explains the difference between groups of similar words. Try it for free as part of the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary app

I can’t comment on everything in the bonus facts, but I think the low (1.2%) re-offending rate for murder can be put down to two things: (1) they receive very long sentences (if not actually executed!), and so leave prison in their old age, and (2) they were more likely to have committed a crime of passion, rather than be career criminals. For that matter, I read that, at Devil’s Island, the murderers looked down on the thieves. Murder might be a worse crime, but it was usually the only one they committed, while the thieves were habitual criminals. (That might be a reason behind the high re-offending rate for stealing cars and receiving stolen goods.)

You might want to look that up because it is actually not correct. Depending on the severity of the crime murder can carry as little as a 5 year sentence, and remember it is not uncommon to serve as little as one quarter of the issues sentence. Also, execution is remarkably rare with many US states banning it or in moratorium. For a detailed state by state list of murder recommended sentences see this wiki:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_punishments_for_murder_in_the_United_States

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Definition of conjugal

• matrimonial

Examples of conjugal in a Sentence

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'conjugal.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Middle French or Latin; Middle French, from Latin conjugalis , from conjug-, conjux husband, wife, from conjungere to join, unite in marriage

1545, in the meaning defined above

Phrases Containing conjugal

• conjugal rights
• conjugal visit

Dictionary Entries Near conjugal

Cite this entry.

“Conjugal.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/conjugal. Accessed 4 Jun. 2024.

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[ kon -j uh -g uh l ]

conjugal vows.

Synonyms: connubial , nuptial , matrimonial

Synonyms: marital

/ ˌkɒndʒʊˈɡælɪtɪ; ˈkɒndʒʊɡəl /

conjugal rights

• A descriptive term for the relationship between married persons. A conjugal family is the same as a nuclear family , composed of married parents and their children. Conjugal relatives (in-laws) trace their relations through the marriage of their respective blood relatives.

Discover More

Derived forms.

• conjugality , noun
• ˈconjugally , adverb

Other Words From

• conju·gali·ty noun
• conju·gal·ly adverb
• non·conju·gal adjective
• non·conju·gal·ly adverb
• noncon·ju·gali·ty noun
• un·conju·gal adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of conjugal 1

Example Sentences

For one thing, the landfills will thank you for not burdening them with old, working toasters that no one wants just because they aren’t new, conjugal toasters.

The Conjugal Coat of Arms was approved this year by the Queen and is being shown publicly for the first time today.

Conjugal visits are allowed in Peruvian prisons if couples register as common-law partners, as the two lovebirds are.

For example, he authorized conjugal visits for prisoners for the first time in the state and broadened environmental protection.

Contrast this vision of conjugal kink with traditional Christianity, which tends to treat sex as, at best, a necessary evil.

They're supposed to be within marriage, for purposes that are, yes, conjugal... but also procreative.

I conceive that the strictest union of affection is requisite to conjugal felicity.

Wearing apparel, furniture, jewelry, even legal expenses incurred in regaining her conjugal rights have been included.

This conjugal annoyance is the only one that makes you beside yourself with joy.

She rose with a smile to guide the young and guileless apprentice to conjugal arts through the labyrinth of her palace.

You are the luckiest of men in having successfully managed to escape from this first dangerous pass in conjugal life.

About This Word

What does  conjugal mean.

Conjugal means relating to marriage, but it is perhaps best known for its use in conjugal visit , in a which prisoner is allowed to visit privately with their spouse for the purpose of having sexual relations.

Otherwise, conjugal is often used in legal or religious contexts in discussions about particular aspects of marriage.

Example: Gary and Sam got married in 1990 and have been living in conjugal bliss ever since.

Where does  conjugal come from?

The first records of conjugal come from the 1500s. It comes from the Latin conjugālis , from conjunx , meaning “wife” or “husband.” Conjunx comes from the Latin verb conjungere, meaning “to unite.”

Conjugal is generally used to describe any situation related to married people. For example, it is used in the phrase conjugal family , meaning “a family composed of married parents and their children” (the term is synonymous with nuclear family ). It is used in some phrases in much the same way as the word marital would be, such as conjugal bliss and conjugal vows.

The conjugal in conjugal visit still refers to marriage— conjugal visits are typically reserved for married partners. However, due to the meaning of the term, conjugal has become associated with sex, such as in phrases like conjugal relations.

Did you know ... ?

What are some other forms related to conjugal ?

• nonconjugal (adjective)
• conjugality (noun)
• conjugally (adverb)

What are some synonyms for conjugal ?

• matrimonial 

What are some words that share a root or word element with conjugal ? 

• conjunction

What are some words that often get used in discussing conjugal ?

• relationship

How is  conjugal used in real life?

The formality of conjugal means it’s rarely used in casual contexts. An exception is conjugal visit , which is used literally to refer to prison visits as well as in other ways (especially attempts to be humorous) to refer to a sexual encounter in which one person visits another for the specific purpose of sex.

Alhamdulillah. colorful weddings everywhere.A big congratulation to all that make it this year on reaching this lovely milestone of conjugal bliss. We pray that favour and luck may follow you all the days of your unions. Best wishes for the future 🙌 — Mallam (@acceptkt) December 28, 2019

Local names for periwinkle include ‘bachelor’s buttons’ in Somerset and ‘fairy-paintbrush’ in Cornwall. Periwinkles have long been associated with conjugal love. In Gloucestershire, they were often used as the ‘something blue’ in a bride’s apparel. #FolkloreThursday pic.twitter.com/hIJq30dUFm — The English Garden (@TEGmagazine) March 26, 2020

Colombia: The Department of Justice and the National Institute of Prisons will offer public apologies to a former inmate who was denied a conjugal visit from her same-sex partner 21 years ago on the basis of "immorality". She now resides in Boston, MA. https://t.co/fbDDgY0VwB — El Duquito (@Blabbeando) December 6, 2017

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One Conjugal Visit

By nancy mullane.

How long could your relationship last without a kiss? Without more than a kiss? Could you last a year? Two? What about ten? Twenty? In prison, couples are forced to keep their relationships alive in visiting rooms, with 2 second hugs. One two. Let go. So they write letters and make phone calls. Many break up.

But there’s another option. If you’re married or in a domestic partnership, you might be eligible for something called a family visit, also known as a conjugal visit, or on the inside, a booty call. It means a couple can be together, inside prison, alone or with their children for extended visits. They can have privacy and they can have sex.

Back in the 90’s, 17 states allowed prisoners to have these conjugal visits. But things have changed. Earlier this year, Mississippi and New Mexico both ended conjugal visits in their prisons and today only three states, New York, Washington and California allow inmates to have this kind of intimacy.

I’m standing with Myesha Paul at the gate at San Quentin, the prison just north of San Francisco. Because her husband, Marcello Paul is locked up in a California prison, they still qualify for a conjugal visit and she’s letting me tag along.

Myesha is middle aged with short, bleached blond hair and a no-nonsense look in her eye. She’s wearing baggy red sweatpants and a sweatshirt that’s too big. She knows the spoken and unspoken rules to one of these visits. The officers guarding the prison have told another woman who’s come for a visit she has to go back to her car and change before she’ll be allowed inside.

“Her t-shirt is fitting real tight, so yeah, they’re gonna make her change all that,” Myesha says watching the woman walk away. “You go through a lot comin’ up her. It got to the point where I just come up in sweat pants. Baggy sweat pants. Too much of a hassle. I’m not puttin’ on anybody else’s clothes. Leggings are comfortable but they’re not for up in here.”

“Why not,” I ask.

“They’re a little too revealing. They don’t want you to have anything that’s form fitting and although we come with hips and all that, so it’s kinda hard to find that don’t fit around, you know?” Myesha laughs, looking down at her full body. “I just buy some men’s sweat pants and make it work.”

“So when you’re inside, do you bring different clothes to wear for when you’re alone?” I ask.

“Mostly just shorts or comfortable pajamas,” Myesha says. “I don’t usually get dressed.”

Even in California not all prisoners qualify for these intimate visits. Prisoners convicted of a sexual crime or a violent crime against a minor or a member of their family and those serving life sentences are denied conjugal visits. Except for what happens behind closed doors during these officially sanctioned private visits, sex is totally illegal in prison.  That means tens of thousands men and women locked up in prisons throughout in America may never be able to sleep next to their partner or have sex, ever again.

As Myesha waits outside the gate, I ask her to describe the process for going inside the prison for a conjugal visit. Looking at the door stamped VISITOR, Myesha says, “I’m waiting for the family visit coordinator to come. (Officer) Foster. He’ll come and he’ll take me in there,” she says looking past the door into a space where officers will check her belongings. “He’ll get my bags and go through them instead of the metal detector. Then I go through the metal detector. I also go inside and pick out some movies, dominoes, that type of thing. Then he’ll grab my stuff, put it in the trunk, and take me down to see my husband.”

Watching Myesha pass through security, I imagine this prison approved sex will happen someplace prison-like, in a tiny room with a bare mattress. They’ll give them an hour.

Turns out, it’s not like that at all.

After passing through a metal detector Officer Foster helps Myesha carry her duffle bag and personal things to the car. It’s his job to escort the previous visitor out, and turn right back around and drive Myesha, in. One in, one out.

It’s a long drive around the edge of the prison, through a big gated checkpoint and up to a small one-story building surrounded by chain-link fence that’s topped with razor wire. An officer looks down from a watchtower nearby.

Marcello Paul, a big man with dreadlocks, gold capped teeth and a beaming smile walks to the opposite side of the locked gate and waits.

When it’s opened, Marcello and Myesha give each other a quick hug, and help carry the bags and pre-ordered food into the apartment.

While Myesha puts the food into the refrigerator, Marcello gives me a tour of the two-bedroom apartment.

There are cabinets with dishes, cups, bowls and plates, a microwave, sink and stove. There’s a table where Marcello says they say grace and play games. In the living room is a puffy black couch and chair. Marcello says it’s black leather. It’s not really leather, but it’s nice.

There are two bedrooms. The first has a worn double mattress on a metal frame. Marcello says he does a pre-clean to make sure everything is intact and washed, and then two days later, when it’s time to go, he cleans everything again, so it’s just the same as when they came in.

Turning from the first bedroom, is a bathroom with a door on it. That’s no small thing inside prison where toilets are public.

Looking into the spare room, a portable baby crib leans against the wall. Some couples bring their children along on a family visit. Myseha and Marcello don’t have any shared children so they spend their weekends alone.

In the middle of the room is a double bed, metal springs sticking out the edge of the mattress. But it’s the large round wet spot in the middle of the mattress we’re both looking at. Marcello says he’ll turn the mattress over and lay down a lot of blankets on top of the mattress.

Standing with Marcello, looking around, if it weren’t for the two officers standing in the middle of the room, it’d seem like a pretty normal apartment.

The officer tells me it’s time to go. Marcello and Myesha get just 48 hours together in the apartment. Once a month.

Myesha says they’ve been together 14 years. They met and fell in love while Myesha, a home health care worker, was taking care of Marcello’s mom. Marcello had committed a robbery before they met and gotten away with it. But eventually, it caught up with him and he was sentenced to 10 years. He’s done five of them.

I think about them all weekend.

Monday morning, I go back and meet up with Myesha as she’s coming out. We sit in her car and talk. She says the weekend with Marcello, “was good. It’s always good. Just don’t like going home.”

“Why?” I ask.

“I’m leaving my husband behind,” Myesha says. “We sat outside and played dominoes on Saturday. After that we went in and watched TV, watched movies.” She says they started with The Wire.

She tells me they pulled the bed into the living room so they could lie together while they watched. They cooked burgers and tacos. They listened to music. And sure, she says, they had sex. I ask if they ever have a conjugal visit when they don’t have sex. Myesha pauses, then says, “No. I mean we might have a conjugal visit where we don’t have as much sex as the one before. But no.”

But she says, for her a conjugal visit really isn’t about the sex. It’s about the smaller, quieter things, like Marcello waking her up in the morning, “It feels good,” she says, “because I don’t get that at home. Ya know. At home I’m sleeping by myself, unless my grandbaby or one of my kids wanna sleep with me. But they’re grown. But they still do sleep with me sometimes. But other than that, ya know, I’m waking myself up in the morning, or the alarm clock is waking me up, or my grandson comes and wakes me up. It’s good to have my husband waking me up.

“It’s the nicest thing about being married,” I say, “isn’t it? Waking up?”

“Yeah,” Myesha says, “Together.”

“Not alone,” I say, “You look up and there’s that person.”

“Yeah. I think he watches me through the night,” Myesha says, “ I know he do cause sometimes I wake up and he’s looking at me. And I do the same to him. Sometimes he’s sleeping and he wakes up and I’m watching him.”

While we’re sitting in her car, talking, her cell phone rings. It’s Marcello calling to make sure Myesha gets home safe.

Even though conjugal visits aren’t allowed in most US prisons, in many countries they’re common. Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Israel, Russia, Spain, and Saudi Arabia all allow inmates and their partners to have conjugal visits. Mexico considers them a universal privilege and even allows families to move into prisons and live with their imprisoned relative.

All photos courtesy Nancy Mullane.

Edited By: Sally Herships

Produced By: Kaitlin Prest

Advisory Panel Scholar: Hadar Aviram

Music Composed by: Lawrence English

• Categories: Courts ,
• Criminal Justice ,
• Human Rights ,
• Personal/Family
• Tagged As: can i have sex in prison , conjugal visit , conjugal visits , episodes and events , families in prison , family and the law , family law , family visits , Get on the Bus , Inside San Quentin , Kaitlin Prest , life of the law , Nancy Mullane , prison , prison and family , Sally Herships , San Quentin , San Quentin State Prison , sex , sex in prison , visitation

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Conjugal in a Sentence  🔊

Definition of Conjugal

of or relating to marriage, or the relationship of spouses

Examples of Conjugal in a sentence

The inmate received weekly conjugal visits from his wife.  🔊

The conjugal retreat was focused on married couples who needed to refresh their relationships.  🔊

The bride and groom were looking forward to conjugal bliss for the rest of their lives.  🔊

A common conjugal argument revolved around the couple’s finances.  🔊

Before they got married, the pastor conducted conjugal counseling for engaged couples.  🔊

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Conjugal visit.

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con-ju-gal visit 0 rating rating ratings Private conjugal visit 0 rating rating ratings Shanna Turner con-jugal visit 0 rating rating ratings Rozella Aufderhar

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Meaning of conjugal in English

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• as husband and wife idiom
• be an item idiom
• be shacked up idiom
• have something going with someone idiom
• hear wedding bells idiom
• matrimonially
• ménage à trois
• seven-year itch
• situationship

conjugal | Intermediate English

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Trump press conference livestream: Watch as former president discusses conviction

One day after he was found guilty on all 34 counts in his New York criminal  hush money trial , former President Donald Trump is expected to give a press conference Friday morning.

USA TODAY is providing live coverage of Trump's press conference, which is scheduled to begin Friday at 11 a.m. ET in Trump Tower. You can watch live at the embedded video live at the top of the page or on USA TODAY's YouTube channel .

Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, was found guilty by a jury Thursday of falsifying business records to hide a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election. He is the first former U.S. president to be convicted of a crime.

Donald Trump's guilty verdict: How will it hit his reelection bid? Is his political fallout here?

“This is just a disgrace,”  Trump told reporters  in the hallway outside the courtroom after he was convicted. “We didn’t do anything wrong. I’m an innocent man.”

Prep for the polls: See who is running for president and compare where they stand on key issues in our Voter Guide

It was the closure to a more-than six weeks-long trial, the first criminal trial in U.S. history against a former president.

Will Trump go to jail? Can he be president? What’s next after guilty verdict?

Donald Trump was convicted Thursday on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in his New York state hush money case.

Key takeaways

Summary is AI-generated, newsroom-reviewed.

• Donald Trump has been convicted on 34 felony counts in New York but is unlikely to face jail time.
• He can still run and serve as president and faces additional charges in Florida, D.C. and Georgia.
• Polls suggest his conviction could affect his margin of support in the presidential race.

Did our AI help? Share your thoughts.

Donald Trump was convicted Thursday on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in his New York state hush money case, becoming the first former U.S. president to be tried and found guilty of a crime.

The 12-person jury unanimously agreed on the verdict after deliberating for two days, finding that Trump falsified records to cover up a $130,000 payment before the 2016 election to an adult-film actress to keep her quiet about an alleged sexual encounter with him years earlier.

Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee in this year’s presidential race.

Trump New York hush money case

Donald Trump is the first former president convicted of a crime .

Can Trump still run for president? Yes. He is eligible to campaign and serve as president if elected, but he won’t be able to pardon himself . Here’s everything to know about next steps , what this means for his candidacy and the other outstanding trials he faces .

What happens next? Trump’s sentencing is scheduled for July 11. He faces up to four years in prison, but legal experts say incarceration appears unlikely. Trump has 30 days to file notice of an appeal of the verdict and six months to file the full appeal.

Reaction to the verdict: Trump continued to maintain his innocence , railing against what he called a “rigged, disgraceful trial” and emphasizing voters would deliver the real verdict on Election Day.

The charges: Trump was found guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records . Falsifying business records is a felony in New York when there is an “intent to defraud” that includes an intent to “commit another crime or to aid or conceal” another crime.

Donald Trump found guilty in historic New York hush money case

A New York jury on Thursday found Donald Trump guilty on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records — the first time a former U.S. president has been convicted of a crime.

The jury reached its verdict in the historic case after 9½ hours of deliberations, which began Wednesday. 

He'll be sentenced on July 11, four days before the Republican National Convention. He faces penalties from a fine to four years in prison on each count, although it's expected he would be sentenced for the offenses concurrently, not consecutively.

Follow live updates here.

"This was a disgrace. This was a rigged trial by a conflicted judge who was corrupt,” Trump fumed to reporters afterward.

The verdict was read in the Manhattan courtroom where Trump has been on trial since April 15. He had pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment his former lawyer Michael Cohen made to adult film star Stormy Daniels in the final weeks of the 2016 presidential election.

Trump looked down with his eyes narrowed as the jury foreperson read the word "guilty" to each count.

The judge thanked the jurors for their service in the weekslong trial. “You gave this matter the attention it deserved, and I want to thank you for that,” Judge Juan Merchan told them. Trump appeared to be scowling at the jurors as they walked by him on their way out of the courtroom.

Trump's attorney Todd Blanche made a motion for acquittal after the jury left the room, which the judge denied.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg would not comment on what type of sentence he might seek, saying his office would do its talking in court papers.

"While this defendant may be unlike any other in American history, we arrived at this trial and ultimately today at this verdict in the same manner as every other case that comes to the courtroom doors — by following the facts and the law in doing so, without fear or favor," Bragg said. Asked for his reaction to the verdict, Bragg, who was inundated with threats from Trump supporters during the probe, said, "I did my job. We did our job."

Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, immediately set out fundraising off the news, posting on his website that he's "a political prisoner" and urging his followers to give money.

Legal experts have told NBC News that even if Trump is sentenced to time behind bars, he'd most likely be allowed to remain out of jail while he appeals the verdict, a process that could take months or more. That means the sentence would most likely not interfere with his ability to accept the Republican nomination for president at the July convention.

And it likely wouldn't impact his ability to be elected. "There are no other qualifications other than those in the Constitution,” Chuck Rosenberg, a former U.S. attorney and NBC News & MSNBC Legal Analyst said following Thursday’s verdict.

President Joe Biden's campaign praised the verdict in a statement but stressed that Trump needs to be defeated in November.

“In New York today, we saw that no one is above the law," said the campaign's communications director, Michael Tyler, but the "verdict does not change the fact that the American people face a simple reality. There is still only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office: at the ballot box."

In his closing argument this week, prosecutor Joshua Steinglass told the jury that “the law is the law, and it applies to everyone equally. There is no special standard for this defendant.”

“You, the jury, have the ability to hold the defendant accountable,” Steinglass said.

Trump had maintained that the DA’s office had no case and that there had been no crime. “President Trump is innocent. He did not commit any crimes,” Blanche said in his closing statement, arguing the payments to Cohen were legitimate.

Prosecutors said the disguised payment to Cohen was part of a “planned, coordinated long-running conspiracy to influence the 2016 election, to help Donald Trump get elected through illegal expenditures, to silence people who had something bad to say about his behavior, using doctored corporate records and bank forms to conceal those payments along the way.”

“It was election fraud. Pure and simple,” prosecutor Matthew Colangelo said in his opening statement.

While Trump wasn’t charged with conspiracy, prosecutors argued he caused the records to be falsified because he was trying to cover up a violation of state election law — and falsifying business records with the intent to cover another crime raises the offense from a misdemeanor to a felony. 

Trump was convicted after a sensational weekslong trial that included combative testimony from Cohen, Trump’s self-described former fixer, and Daniels, who testified that she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006 after she met him at a celebrity golf tournament. Trump has denied her claim, and his attorney had suggested that Cohen acted on his own because he thought it would make “the boss” happy.

Other witnesses included former White House staffers, among them adviser Hope Hicks, former Trump Organization executives and former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker.  

Trump didn’t take the witness stand to offer his own account of what happened, even though he proclaimed before the trial began that he would “absolutely” testify. The defense’s main witness was Robert Costello, a lawyer whom Cohen considered retaining in 2018. Costello, who testified that Cohen had told him Trump had nothing to do with the Daniels’ payment, enraged Merchan by making disrespectful comments and faces on the stand. At one point, the judge cleared the courtroom during Costello’s testimony and threatened to hold him in contempt. 

Cohen testified that he lied to Costello because he didn’t trust him and that he’d lied to others about Trump’s involvement at the time because he wanted to protect his former boss.

Cohen was the lone witness to testify to Trump’s direct involvement in the $130,000 payment and the subsequent reimbursement plan. Blanche spent days challenging his credibility, getting Cohen to acknowledge he has a history of lying, including under oath.

Cohen said he was paid the Daniels cash in a series of payments from Trump throughout 2017 that the Trump Organization characterized as payments pursuant to a retainer agreement “for legal services rendered.”

Prosecutors said there was no such agreement, and Cohen’s version of events was supported by documentary evidence and witness testimony. 

Blanche contended that the series of checks then-President Trump paid Cohen in 2017 “was not a payback to Mr. Cohen for the money that he gave to Ms. Daniels” and that he was being paid for his legal work as Trump’s personal lawyer.

Testimony from Jeff McConney, a former senior vice president at Trump’s company, challenged that position. McConney said the company’s chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, told him that Cohen was being reimbursed for a $130,000 payment, and prosecutors entered Weisselberg’s handwritten notes about the payment formula as evidence. Cohen said Trump agreed to the arrangement in a meeting with him and Weisselberg just days before he was inaugurated as the 45th president.

Weisselberg didn't testify. He’s in jail on a perjury charge related to his testimony in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ civil fraud case against Trump and his company. Cohen, McConney and other witnesses said Weisselberg, who spent decades working for Trump, always sought his approval for large expenditures. 

In all, the prosecution called 20 witnesses, while the defense called two.

Trump had frequently claimed, falsely, that the charges against him were a political concoction orchestrated by Biden to keep him off the campaign trail. But Trump eventually managed to bring the campaign to the courtroom, hosting top Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana and Sens. JD Vance of Ohio and Rick Scott of Florida, as his guests in court. Trump also used court breaks to tout political messages to his supporters, while his surrogates sidestepped Merchan’s gag order by attacking witnesses, individual prosecutors and Merchan’s daughter.

Merchan fined Trump $10,000 during the trial for violating his order, including attacks on Cohen and Daniels, and warned he could have him locked up if he continued violating the order.

Cohen celebrated the verdict in a post on X. "Today is an important day for accountability and the rule of law. While it has been a difficult journey for me and my family, the truth always matters," Cohen wrote.

Trump was indicted in March of last year after a yearslong investigation by Bragg and his predecessor, Cyrus Vance. The charges were the first ever brought against a former president, although Trump has since been charged and pleaded not guilty in three other cases. None of the three — a federal election interference case in Washington, D.C., a state election interference case in Georgia and a federal case alleging he mishandled classified documents and national security information — appear likely to go to trial before the Nov. 5 presidential election.

Adam Reiss is a reporter and producer for NBC and MSNBC.

Gary Grumbach produces and reports for NBC News, based in Washington, D.C.

Dareh Gregorian is a politics reporter for NBC News.

Tom Winter is a New York-based correspondent covering crime, courts, terrorism and financial fraud on the East Coast for the NBC News Investigative Unit.

Jillian Frankel is a 2024 NBC News campaign embed.