David J. Annarelli, number 1853637, contributing writer of Prison Journalism Project at Lawrenceville Correctional Center, Virginia Department of Corrections. It is February 24th, 2025. “Interruption of Communications and First Amendment Violation.”
In an unjustified attack on the First Amendment and the citizens of both Virginia and the United States, the Virginia DOC has once again illustrated that it holds the constitutional and human rights guaranteed and unalienable, in contempt and with disdain. This attack has unfolded over the past few months as the Virginia DOC working with prison profiteers – JPay, Securus – have purged the email accounts of hundreds of captives. Groups such as Coalition for Justice, Forty Strong, Prison Journalism Project, UpToDate inside Virginia and the Humanization Project, had their contact information deleted from captives’ list of contacts, but also every email associated with those contacts.
By doing so, captives were stripped of legal and legislative information, addresses to politicians, lawyers, and other perfectly lawful and innocuous information. The reasoning and justification is obvious. The Virginia DOC has recently been exposed: captives self-immolating at Red Onion, a dead mentally ill captive at Marion Correctional Center, and subsequent discovery of mentally ill being frozen in their cells at the same facility, mentally ill driven to the point of breakdowns at Green Rock Correctional Center, and the staff supply drugs leading to insane overdose numbers at Dillon and in most Virginia DOC prisons.
All of this points to what a complete failure the Virginia DOC is to those it holds captive and to every citizen of Virginia as it squanders 1.5 billion each fiscal year, 27% of the entire state budget. The powers that be want to obfuscate the truth from those citizens who increasingly are aware that the Virginia DOC is causing great harm and is serving no good. Investigations by third parties must begin immediately, that those who perpetrated such violations of civil citizen rights are brought to account and that the harm stops.
My name is David Annarelli, davidannarelli.wordpress.com, contributing writer at Prison Journalism Project, and I have a recent piece of music that I collaborated with that just hit YouTube [Reflections from a Concrete Box]. Thank you very much.
These commentaries are recorded by Prison Radio.
