One Conjugal Visit

How long would your relationship last without a kiss or more than a kiss? In America, only three states allow prisoners and their spouses or domestic partners to have extended family visits, also known as conjugal visits or on the inside, “booty calls.” They have privacy and they have sex. This is the story of one couple and the 48-hour conjugal visit they share once a month inside San Quentin State Prison.

Abuse, Abduction and International Law

What happens when one parent takes a child across international borders without the other parent’s permission? In 1980, the United States and international partners created a treaty that lays out the rules for what federal officials are supposed to do in such cases. Judges are instructed to send children back to their home countries – with very few exceptions. Lawmakers imagined the treaty would usually help left-behind mothers, trying to get their children back from abductor-fathers. Today, more than a quarter of a century after the U.S. implemented the treaty, the standard profiles of abductor and left-behind-parent have shifted dramatically. The majority of the taking parents – the abductors – are women. And most of those women are victims of domestic violence, fleeing their abusers with their children.

Release Day

For eighteen years, California’s three strikes law leveled harsh penalties against repeat felons: anyone with two felony convictions received 25 years to life for committing a third felony. In 2012, Californians voted to change the three strikes law, allowing some of the prisoners sentenced under it to petition for release for time served. Curtis Penn is one of those prisoners. Life of the Law executive producer Nancy Mullane chronicles the day Curtis was released from prison.

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