criminal-law punishment prison
Is it commonly legal to permit life-sentenced mass murderers to procreate?
<p>Swedish news reports that a convicted mass-murderer who is serving a life sentence has during his time in prison become a father of 3 or 4 new children. Is that a common practice?</p>

<p>It surprises me that the legal system should accept that kind of relations for a murderer while there are other persons in confinement that may not have that kind of relations, for instance a person in involuntary medical care may not have that kind of relations. </p>

<p>And also a bit contradictory since the Swedish criminal system recently moved another convicted murderer to a new prison just because he had a romantic relation in his prison. </p>

<p>Would the criminal law in USA allow a convicted mass-murderer to have sexual relations or procreate?</p>

<p>In the US, only a few states allow conjugal visits by prisoners: California, Connecticut, New York and Washington. Details of implementation for Washington are <a href="http://www.doc.wa.gov/information/policies/files/590100.pdf" rel="noreferrer">here</a> (it is called "Extended Family Visiting"). There are various limitations, for example you can't have committed homocide within the last 5 years, you can't be on death row, and so on. Although they don't explicitly say you can have sex, you can, and they have (a small sample of) contraceptive and STD-preventing technology for prisoners to avail themselves of. If you fail to take advantage of contraceptives, then yes it is possible. There is no provision pertaining specifically to mass murder.</p>
