In 2019, there were 29,994 people incarcerated in Virginia state prisons.
September 2024: Unbearable Conditions at Red Onion State Prison
On September 15, 2024, a horrifying incident at Virginia’s Red Onion State Prison exposed the unbearable conditions that incarcerated individuals face daily. In a recent radio essay, Kevin Rashid Johnson reported that two men, Econ and his cellmate Trayvon Brown, set themselves on fire, driven to this tragic act by the intolerable racism, abuse, and inhumane treatment they endured. Econ suffered third-degree burns, while Trayvon Brown’s injuries were even more severe.
This was not an isolated act of desperation. In just two weeks, a dozen Black men at Red Onion reached their breaking point, resorting to similar tragic measures. These are not protests but cries for help from individuals pushed to the brink by a system designed to rehabilitate but instead breeds despair.
The Virginia Department of Corrections (VADOC) has gone too far. I am heartbroken and enraged by this level of desperation. The torture and dehumanization of incarcerated people are not only violations of the law but also crimes against humanity. As someone who has fought for freedom and been directly impacted by this system, it infuriates me that institutions continue to disregard human life with such impunity.
This must stop. We need everyone involved in addressing the crisis at Red Onion State Prison. When is enough enough? How many of our brothers must suffer, whether physically or spiritually, before meaningful change occurs? IAHR and the Virginia Coalition have worked tirelessly, year after year, to end solitary confinement—one of the main abuses at the gruesome Red Onion—and we will continue to do so. Please reach out to me if you want to help eliminate the abuses faced by incarcerated individuals; I can be reached via email, call, text, or through our website.
To the families, friends, and communities of those suffering within these walls: We see you, we hear you, and we stand with you in this fight for justice.
This cannot be ignored. Let this serve as a call to action for every person of conscience to demand accountability, transparency, and an end to the torturous practices within our prison systems.
In Solidarity,
--
Natasha White
Director of Community Engagement (IAHR)
Interfaith Action for Human Rights
email: [email protected]
phone/text: 318-295-5343
December 21, 2023
Voices from Inside Virginia Prisons Show Need for Robust Independent Oversight of State Prisons
Drawing from correspondence with more than 600 individuals incarcerated in Virginia prisons, Interfaith Action for Human Rights (IAHR) has released a report (the “Red Report”) calling for significant staffing and authority for independent oversight of the operations of the Virginia prison system. The report summarizes 156 stories divided into 16 different categories of abuse ranging from alleged assaults by prison staff to inadequate health care to ineffective and unreliable redress mechanisms.
“You can’t walk away after reading this report,” Rabbi Charles Feinberg, Interim Director of IAHR said, “without concluding that the Virginia Department of Corrections desperately needs robust, independent oversight. June budget legislation took a valuable step in establishing the Office of the Department of Corrections Ombudsman in the Office of the State Inspector General. That office now needs permanent status, with significant funding and meaningful authority, which we urge the General Assembly and Governor Youngkin to enact this year.”
The report, based on the authors’ years of correspondence with hundreds of people held in Virginia prisons and efforts to resolve their complaints, reveals that many of them:
-- endure medical conditions requiring costs to the state and resulting in suffering that could be avoided with prompt and effective medical attention;
-- feel unsafe in Virginia prisons because of the presence of gangs, drugs, and weapons; and/or
-- are held in unsafe or unsanitary conditions, housed in units subject to extreme temperatures and/or lacking access to a nutritionally adequate diet; and that
-- everyone housed in a Virginia prison is at the mercy of prison officials who have the power by accusation to reduce their access to programming, increase their security level, remove them from the general prison population, and reduce their ability to earn credits that can take time off their sentence.”
“The central problem,” Gay Gardner, one of the authors of the report said, “is that currently every option for appeal or a remedy is within the Department of Corrections. There is no outside entity that can be relied upon to objectively review complaints. And time and time again we have seen disciplinary appeals and grievance processes that ignore prisoner complaints – some of which are very detailed – and routinely accept the version of the story presented by prison staff. It makes for a dysfunctional system that engenders cynicism and anger.”
One case cited in the report is from a man at Wallens Ridge State Prison. He wrote in February 2023: “I just wish my written complaint and my grievance was investigated properly when I filed it. Everything I was saying was accurate, and they were still just turning it down. This is real good evidence of why there needs to be an independent grievance office. [I shouldn’t] have to reach out to you in order for my complaint to be investigated properly.”
The report notes: “We cannot independently verify the details of [the stories we document]; however, given their number and the similarities in the stories despite coming from different people who often did not know one another, we believe the stories paint a disturbing picture of Virginia prison operations and deserve to be taken seriously.”
One person housed at St. Brides Correctional Center wrote on April 2, 2022, about the conduct of a correctional officer: “I personally watched him punch an offender in the face while the offender was sitting down simply because the offender questioned him about laundry in a way that Officer S perceived as disrespectful. It was completely unprovoked, but he was not punished at all. Instead, he was seen afterwards laughing about it with other officers. The offender was taken away in handcuffs and has not been seen since.”
The mother of another man at Sussex II wrote on May 15, 2023, to say that her son was stabbed and had staples put in, which weren’t removed until 15 days after they should have been, causing them to have to be removed surgically. She said an investigator looked at 2 ½ hours of video of her son begging for medical attention after the stabbing, that the officers wouldn’t take him to the medical unit, and that finally a new shift superintendent took him there after her son pleaded with her.
Click Here to Read the Full Report.
The 44-page report is being shared with members of the Virginia General Assembly.
Solitary Confinement
Virginia corrections officials, through their Step Down Programs at Red Onion and Wallens Ridge Prisons, have implicitly recognized that long-term isolation is harmful and needs to be reduced. Prisoners, however – including some who have completed the Step-Down Program – and their families have raised some disturbing issues that point to a need for a closer look. Their allegations include that even prisoners who complete the Step-Down Program can be repeatedly placed back in restrictive housing ("sometimes called segregation or solitary confinement) for indefinite periods ranging from 30 days to 6 months or more, following disciplinary charges that are sometimes fabricated or inflated.
Gay Gardner and Kimberly Jenkins Snodgrass have led IAHR’s work in exposing the human rights abuses at Red Onion, Wallens Ridge, and other Virginia detention facilities. Here is a video in which they describe some of the abuses.
IAHR is working with other advocates to explore how, together, we can address these charges effectively. To learn more about the Virginia Coalition and its mission, here's a word from our Director of Community Engagement, Natasha White.