Today is March 26. It is a Thursday. One of the biggest issues with the Virginia DOC is the blatant attempts to defraud the citizens of the state through misinformation, out of context information, skewed statistics, basic misinformation on reports are some of the examples. While many states in the U.S. have this problem, Virginia seems to excel at this routine and to the point of becoming a national pariah, as well as the example of things gone wrong. And below are just a few recent examples,
Starting with a glaring example of Virginia’s ongoing useless politicians, remember its opposition to the 19th Amendment in 1920, – the vote, women – I bring to your attention Republican State Senator Mark Obenshain. Senator Obenshain is quoted in courthousenews.com on February 17th of this year as having said, “Criminal justice is not cheap, and we’re not going to compromise the safety of our communities across the Commonwealth.” He finished that quote with, “…and turning violent criminals back out as in the community is absolutely going to make Virginia less safe.” ID-10-T [idiot] error. The only part of his statement that is factual is that the Virginia criminal justice system, the Virginia Model, is not cheap.
The Virginia DOC alone costs taxpayers $1.56 billion annually, and quite provably, provides no measurable or legitimate return. As a matter of record, prisons have been determined to not solve any of the problems they claim to solve, and instead create many of these problems. They also do not make communities safer. In fact, just the opposite, as noted in a 1973 National Crime Commission report and thousands of studies since. You should research it, Senator Obenshain certainly won’t. Also it is well known that violent criminals are among the least likely to recommit with a 4% plus or minus recidivism rate. Often it was a mental health crisis or highly charged emotional situation with no premeditated intent towards violence. Again, look it up yourself because Senator Obenshain and others like him depend on your being feared, no matter how manufactured that fear is, to main[tain] their parasitic positions.
Another fun tidbit is the quote, “DOC is understaffed.” This misinformation is a classic spin on the truth. The Virginia DOC is grossly overcrowded. Virginia, the entire state, has about the same population as New York City, 8.5 million, yet Virginia has the ninth highest incarceration rate and the highest rate of wrongful convictions, at 20% according to a Pew survey. The Virginia DOC is a national pariah with a direct line to 1950 segregationist laws, Jim Crow laws, post Civil War and Virginia’s genocidal policies towards indigenous peoples and also, of course, its slavery.
It is overcrowded, where 80 people are crammed into a 10 car garage, too small for half that number; forced to share four toilets and one shower, all filled with mold. Account for a lack of modern programs; education recently shot down by the Virginia politicians in the most recent General Assembly; malnutrition as a policy; delay and denial of medical care, as I’ve reported, and staff who are often lazy, inept, or both. Well, you do the math. The Virginia DOC is overcrowded. By the way, don’t go get a job there. That same overcrowded DOC does not operate under any real umbrella, but it’s more like 37 separate franchises, each doing whatever they see fit with little to no oversight. Many of them cannot account for their spending as a result of internal corruption, siphoning away resources into too many personal pockets. Any doubt or challenge to that allegation is resolved by simply appointing a neutral, non Virginian citizen-run investigatory body to dig deep into the Virginia DOC.
Virginia is not likely to ever support, let alone allow, such a thing. The exposure of so much corruption would cripple the state beyond its current pariah position. Virginia citizens need to mobilize with such an intention as their goal. The Virginia DOC seems to be a scam, provably so, squandering 27% of the entire Virginia state budget. Your governors and general assembly members seem to know this, as do your judges and Commonwealth attorneys, as I’ve repeatedly reported. They count on the citizens, you, remaining uninformed and afraid, and every one of them will lie to you, hoping to maintain that illusion. My name is David Annarelli. I’m a contributing writer at prisonjournalismproject.com. I’m also found at davidanarelli.wordpress.com, and at Instagram david_annarelli and all over the internet through Google. Thank you very much.
These commentaries are recorded by Prison Radio.
