Prisons in Europe tended to liberalize prison communication regulations even more slowly than did prisons within the U.S. In the Pentonville Model Prison in England, prisoners in 1855 were allowed one fifteen-minute visit with friends after six months of confinement. Prisoners were allowed another such visit three months later. Prisoners were permitted to receive one letter every three months, to send one letter upon entering the prison, and to send one letter three months later. Prisoners in the largest cellular prison in France (at Fresnes, near Paris) had their heads hooded when moved within the prison through at least the beginning of the twentieth century.^ European countries at the beginning of the twentieth century generally had more restrictive communication policies than did state prisons in the U.S.

Among European countries plus Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, the most frequent limitation on visits in 1956 was one per month. Visit duration was typically regulated to be under an hour. In some countries, visits in some prisons began to be allowed only in the early twentieth century. European countries, while more tightly restricting prison visiting than the U.S., allowed prisoners greater opportunities for temporary home leave. Home leave allowed prisoners to communicate extensively with family and friends outside of prison communication regulations.^

Prisoners in England have had regular access to telephone service only since the early 1990s. In the 1960s, prisoners in England were allowed one letter per week and one visit per month. A major prisoner riot occurred at Strangeways prison in April, 1990.^ Lord Woolf’s enquiry into the causes of the Strangeways riot found that lack of communication between inmates and their families contributed to tension.^ That finding led to telephones being installed on landings in English prisons and visits being increased to one per week.^

Countries at the margins of the European sphere of public deliberation have innovated the most in regulating prisoners’ communication. Early in the twentieth century, the Philippines established the Iwahig Penal Colony. In this penal colony, prisoners were allowed to live with their families and have considerable freedom of association within geographic boundaries. Some time prior to 1947, Mexico allowed prisoners in the Federal Penitentiary in Mexico City to have intimate visits once per week. In addition, Mexico established the Tres Marias Penal Colony about that time. Like the Iwahig Penal Colony, the Tres Marias Penal Colony allowed prisoners to live with their families. Columbia took a different approach to intimate communication. In the mid-1960s, prisoners in Columbia were allowed escorted visits to a licensed house of prostitution once every two weeks.^ ^ Such programs, while poorly documented and little noticed, radically departed from the early nineteenth-century deliberative consensus to suppress prisoners’ communication.