What You Can and Can't Do During a Visit at Kansas Prisons: Physical Contact Rules
Visiting someone in a Kansas prison is stressful enough without losing your visit over a contact rule you didn't know existed. Here's what physical contact is allowed, what's off-limits, and how searches and contraband rules can affect your time together.
Physical contact during in-person visits at Kansas Department of Corrections (KDOC) facilities is limited. You can share a brief embrace or kiss when you arrive and again when you leave. That's it - a quick hello and a quick goodbye. No ongoing contact during the visit itself.
Tip: Keep contact to a quick greeting and a quick goodbye. If it stretches beyond that, staff may treat it as excessive physical contact.
Prohibited Behaviors
- ✓ Hand holding during visits
This is where people get tripped up. KDOC draws a clear line: brief contact at the start and end of your visit is fine, but physical contact during the visit is not. Hand holding isn't allowed. Anything that looks like extended or ongoing contact can put your visit at risk. Not sure how something will be interpreted? Safest bet is to keep your hands to yourself once you're seated and focus on conversation.
Expect security checks. Visitors can be searched to prevent contraband from entering or leaving the facility. KDOC specifically flags cell phones and all tobacco products as contraband - don't assume something is "fine" just because it's common in everyday life.
Note: If contraband becomes an issue, your visit can be denied or ended - and refusing a search can also get you turned away.
Even if you follow every contact rule, your visit can still be denied, suspended, or terminated by the shift supervisor. Common reasons: arriving under the influence of drugs or alcohol, the facility lacking space to safely run visits, or refusing a search. Your behavior, the facility's safety needs, and your willingness to follow screening rules all factor in.
- A supervisor makes the call - The shift supervisor can deny, suspend, or terminate visits when certain conditions are present (including intoxication, insufficient space, or refusal to submit to a search).
- Your visit ends (or doesn’t start) - If the decision is to terminate or deny the visit, you’ll be expected to stop the visit process and leave the visiting area.
- Search/contraband issues are treated seriously - Visitors can be searched to prevent contraband, including cell phones and all tobacco and tobacco-related items, from entering or leaving the facility. Refusing a search can be enough to end the visit.
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