A Wall Is Just a Wall: The Permeability of the Prison in the Twentieth-Century United States - Hardcoverby Reiko Hillyer (Author) Throughout the twentieth century, even the harshest prison systems in the United States were rather porous. Incarcerated people were regularly released from prison for Christmas holidays; the wives of incarcerated men could visit for seventy two hours relatively unsupervised; and governors routinely commuted the sentences of people convicted of murder. By the 1990s, these practices had become rarer as politicians and the