PARCHMAN, Miss. — To spend time alone with the man she married four months ago, Ebony Fisher, 25, drives nearly three hours through the flat cotton fields of the Mississippi Delta until she pulls into a gravel lot next to the state’s rural penitentiary. 
 
 She joins her husband, who in 2008 began serving a 60-year sentence for rape, aggravated assault and arson, in a small room with a metal bunk and a bathroom. For an hour, they get to act like a married couple. 
 
 “That little 60 minutes isn’t a lot of time, but I appreciate it because we can just talk and hold each other and be with each other,” said Ms. Fisher, who is studying to be a surgical assistant. 
 
 But conjugal visits, a concept that started here at the Mississippi State Penitentiary as a prisoner-control practice in the days of Jim Crow, will soon be over. Christopher B. Epps, the prison commissioner, plans to end the program Feb. 1, citing budgetary reasons and “the number of babies being born possibly as a result.” In Mississippi, where more than 22,000 prisoners are incarcerated — the second-highest rate in the nation — 155 inmates participated last year. 
 
 Since they began here in the early 1900s, when the penitentiary was just called Parchman Farm, conjugal visits have been an unlikely barometer of racial mores and changing times both in Mississippi and in states like California and New York, where married same-sex couples can participate. 
 
 In the 1970s, new prisons often included special housing for what had come to be called extended family visits. But by 1993, only 17 states allowed conjugal visits. Mississippi is one of just five that have active programs. 
 
 In California and New York, they are called family visits and are designed to help keep families together in an environment that approximates home. Some research shows that they can help prisoners better integrate back into the mainstream after their release. 
 
 Visits in those states, and in Washington and New Mexico, can last 24 hours to three days. They are spent in small apartments or trailers, often with children and grandparents, largely left alone by prison guards. Visitors bring their own food and sometimes have a barbecue. 
 
 In New York, about 8,000 family visits were arranged last year, a figure that corrections officials say has declined. Of those, 48 percent were with spouses. The rest were with family members such as children or parents. 
 
 Studies cited by Yale law students in a 2012 review of family visitation programs showed that the programs could work as powerful incentives for good behavior, help reduce sexual activity among prisoners and help strengthen families. 
 
 Though what qualifies prisoners for the visits varies from state to state, all must have records of good behavior and be legally married. In most, prisoners in maximum security or on death row are denied the visits. Federal prisons do not allow them. 
 
 Mississippi ended its more extensive family visitations last year but left in place the hourlong visits, which since their inception a century ago have been designed more as a way to control inmates than nurture relationships. 
 
 “Conjugal visits have been a privilege,” said Tara Booth, a spokeswoman for the Mississippi Corrections Department. “So in that sense, it has, as other internal opportunities, helped to maintain order.” 
 
 The notion of allowing prisoners to have sex was born here shortly after Parchman Farm opened in 1903 as a series of work camps on 1,600 acres of rich Delta farmland. Inmates, most of whom were black, were used as free farm labor in an arrangement not that far removed from slavery. 
 
 Set in the middle of the birthplace of the blues, Parchman Farm has been the subject of many songs written by classic bluesmen like Bukka White and others who did time here. 
 
 The warden at the time believed sex could be used to compel black men to work harder in the fields, according to a history on the practice produced in the 1970s by Tyler Fletcher, who founded the department of criminal justice at the University of Southern Mississippi in 1973. So black prisoners were allowed time on Sunday with spouses or, more often, prostitutes. 
 
 By the 1940s, makeshift lean-tos and shacks built by inmates for the visits gave way to formal facilities, and white inmates were more likely participants than black ones. 
 
 Announced in December, the decision to stop the hourlong conjugal visits came as a surprise to the handful of prison spouses who rely on them. Several have taken to Facebook and other online forums and written to lawmakers to try to save what they say is an essential part of their relationships. A Mississippi prisoners’ advocacy group and a Memphis-based civil rights organization have planned a rally for Friday in Jackson, the state capital, to protest the policy change. 
 
 But State Representative Richard Bennett, Republican of Long Beach, wants the practice stopped, and he said no amount of protest would change his mind. 
 
 He said he learned about conjugal visits a few years ago when an elementary school principal told him a student of hers had shown up with a photograph of a new sibling. The student’s mother was incarcerated. The baby had been conceived during a conjugal visit. 
 
 In 2012, Mr. Bennett introduced a bill to end the visits. It did not get much attention, so he will try again when the Legislature meets this month. He said he was aware of Mr. Epps’s plans, but wanted a permanent ban. Officials have not offered any figures on the number of babies born or the program’s cost. 
 
 “I don’t think it’s fair to the children conceived and to the taxpayers,” he said. “You are in prison for a reason. You are in there to pay your debt, and conjugal visits should not be part of the deal.” 
 
 But Tina Perry, 49, a production manager at a small newspaper in eastern Mississippi, said the spouses of prisoners should not be forced to suffer any more than they already do. And the state, she said, should not take away something that is inexpensive and infrequent but essential. 
 
 She has been visiting her husband in prison every couple of months for eight years. He is serving time for molesting his former wife’s daughter, and has 19 more years to go. Ms. Perry said he was innocent. She called the surroundings, a small room with a thin mattress, “nasty” but said it was an hour she treasured nonetheless. 
 
 “It’s your husband,” she said. “You take what you can get.” 
 
 Ms. Fisher, whose husband is facing 60 years, said she was heartbroken because no more conjugal visits meant no children. 
 
 “Let me have that option,” she said. “I feel like they are taking away my choice.” 
 
 But officials who want the practice to be stopped say the state should not be helping to produce children who will be raised by single parents and possibly need state support. 
 
 There are concerns, too, about cost and H.I.V. transmission. 
 
 Women interviewed about the visits said they would be willing to pay to defray costs. And they made it clear that the visits were not about the sex. They are about privacy in a world where every letter is opened, every call monitored. Regular visits are crowded with other prisoners and their families. 
 
 “You never just get husband and wife time,” said Amy Parsons, an office worker in Arkansas who drives eight hours to see her husband, who was convicted of aggravated assault. His release date is 2022. 
 
 “It’s not romantic, but it doesn’t matter,” she said. “I just want people to realize it’s about the alone time with your husband. I understand they are in there for a reason. Obviously they did something wrong. But they are human, too. So are we.” ||||| Mississippi is about to get rid of them, but (surprise, surprise) they're big in Brazil 
 
 Starting next month, there will be a little less sex in Mississippi prisons—at least, the sanctioned kind. 
 
 America’s first state to introduce conjugal visits—and even provide the prostitutes—is about to get rid of them. The decision has elicited protests from prisoners’ families and rights groups that say the visitations, though infrequent, promote family bonds and improve prisoner morale. 
 
 NOW READ THIS 
 
 Mississippi’s Department of Corrections Commissioner Christopher Epps says the program has become too costly, and the state also has to worry about babies being conceived while a parent is behind bars. Conjugal visit programs in the U.S. have been on the decline in recent decades: In 1993, 17 states had conjugal programs; now, only a half-dozen offer them. 
 
 Here’s what you need to know about them: 
 
 NOW READ THIS: 
 
 WHICH STATES HAVE THEM? Only six states currently allow conjugal visits, otherwise known as extended family visits, and they don’t exist in the federal prison system. The states are California, Connecticut, Mississippi, New Mexico, New York and Washington. 
 
 NOW READ THIS 
 
 WHO’S ELIGIBLE? Conjugal visits can only happen in medium- or lesser-security prisons. Though the rules vary from state to state, in general, prisoners must apply for the privilege and are ineligible if they’ve committed any of dozens of infractions, including fighting and swearing, in the past six months. Before the visit is granted, the prisoner must pass a health screening. In Mississippi and California, for example, an inmate must be legally married. 
 
 HOW OFTEN CAN PRISONERS HAVE THEM? Extended family visits, in general, come in three flavors: six hours, 12 hours and 24 hours, an option only available to inmates with the best records and who are within one year of release. These visits are allowed on average once or twice a year for eligible convicts. 
 
 WHERE DO THEY TAKE PLACE? They happen in private, apartment-style settings within the prison walls, and the rooms come with sheets, condoms, soap and towels. In 2010, former New York Gov. David Paterson tried to earmark $800,000 for two double-wide trailers for conjugal and family visits at the Five Points Correctional Facility in Romulus, Seneca County, but the plan never happened. 
 
 CAN SAME-SEX COUPLES TAKE PART? California in 2007 made conjugal visits available to same-sex couples who are married or in a civil union. New York did the same in 2011. 
 
 ARE THEY FREE FOR THE PRISONERS? Mostly yes, but in Washington state, the participation fee was recently raised to $10 per night from $5. Food is not provided. 
 
 WHEN DID CONJUGAL VISITS START? Conjugal visits in the United States originated in Mississippi. The first program dates back to the early 1900s when a warden at Mississippi State Penitentiary introduced conjugal visits as an incentive for the (mostly black) inmates to work harder in the prison’s farming industry, according to lawyer Patrick Rodgers. On Sunday afternoons, the prisons brought in prostitutes who charged 50 cents for their services. ”Sex was used as the proverbial dangling carrot for increasing inmate productivity,” Rodgers says. 
 
 DO OTHER COUNTRIES HAVE THEM TOO? The U.S. isn’t alone in its increasingly stingy attitude towards conjugal visits. Great Britain and Northern Ireland do not allow them. Meantime, Germany allows prisoners to apply for conjugal visits but screening is tough. In 2010, an inmate murdered his girlfriend and attempted suicide during a visit, leading to a change in rules and tightened security at correctional facilities. 
 
 WHICH COUNTRIES HAVE THE MOST LIBERAL POLICIES ON CONJUGAL VISITS? In countries like Venezuela and Brazil, unmarried persons are allowed weekly “visits.” In Colombia, where not all prisoners receive a cell and bed because of overcrowding, conjugal visits are routine. About 3,500 women arrive at prisons each Sunday to meet intimately with their husbands or boyfriends. 
 
 WHY IS MISSISSIPPI GETTING RID OF THEM? Mississippi’s Department of Corrections Commissioner Epps says it was because of the “costs associated with the staff’s time, having to escort inmates to and from the location, supervising personal hygiene and the upkeep of the building.” But only 155 inmates in Mississippi were allowed such visits in the fiscal year 2012-13. There are 22,000 inmates in the state prison system, according to corrections records.
– Only six states allow prisoners conjugal visits—and the state where the practice began roughly a century ago, Mississippi, is poised to halt (but not legally ban) those visits Feb. 1. The prison commissioner in the state, where 155 of some 22,000 inmates had such visits last year, blames budget issues as well as "the number of babies being born possibly as a result." The New York Times speaks to the spouses who treasure the time, even if it's brief and less than comfortable. "It's not romantic, but it doesn't matter," says the wife of an Arkansas inmate; she drives eight hours to see her husband, who is due for release in 2022. "Obviously they did something wrong. But they are human, too. So are we." Another spouse notes that ending the practice denies her the ability to have children in the future. "I feel like they are taking away my choice," she says. Vocativ and the Times offer the basics on how such visits work: They're still also allowed in California, Connecticut, New Mexico, New York, and Washington; that's down from 17 states in 1993. (The Times piece implies Connecticut's program is not currently active.) The practice began in the early 1900s at the Mississippi State Penitentiary, whose warden thought they would prod black inmates to toil harder in the fields; prostitutes were often brought in. Today, inmates must be married and have a clean behavior record (generally no fighting, swearing, etc., in the last six months) to qualify; they usually have to apply for the visits, which occur only in medium- to lower-security prisons; federal prisons allow no such visits. "Extended family visits" can last up to 24 hours for well-behaved prisoners nearing release. Mississippi has recently allowed only one-hour visits, the Times notes. The visits occur in private apartments inside prison walls, which are usually outfitted with sheets, soap, towels, and condoms. The prison does not provide food. California and New York allow same-sex couples to participate in the practice within marriages or civil unions. The visits are largely free; Washington state participants pay $10. Conjugal visits are permitted in some other countries—not always successfully.