In a random survey, Virginia prisoners call for shutting down Red Onion/Wallens Ridge State Prisons. On January 17, 2025, I spoke with Phil Wilayto, the editor of The Virginia Defender newspaper. As many know, Phil supported and endorsed the call to shut down Virginia’s remote and notoriously racist and abusive super maximum security prisons, Red Onion and Wallens Ridge. Phil shared with me something I already was aware of, namely, that certain advocacy groups and individuals who have a vested relationship with Virginia officials, or economic interests tied into not offending them, were criticizing and distancing themselves from the January 8, 2025, Richmond rally calling for the closure of these prisons. That indeed, they were resisting the calls for their closure, in general, that they joined with proposals that the VDOC be allowed to investigate and reform itself; a proposal as absurd as having a mother fox guard her own pups from a hen house.
I had already called these people and groups out, and distinguished myself from them in my calls to create PAPA, or People Against Prison Abuse, as a prisoner support group consisting of people who genuinely cared about and are personally vested in us prisoners, namely our loved ones; people, who when brought together are unafraid of the system and won’t be readily bought off with monetary appeals over the lives and well-being of those they love. I explained that these professional and career advocacy groups and people don’t typically speak for those of us on the inside, although they posture and profess to. None of those groups have asked what we want, whether we believe reform of these long standing abuses and unneeded prisons is viable. Without that inquiry, they definitely can’t claim to speak for us.
Our voices are the ones that matter. It has been us and our peers who hunger-striked and incinerated ourselves in desperate response to the abusive conditions at these remote prisons. It is we who know of, and have suffered, the innumerable outrages and inhumane abuses at these prisons. Because this is so, and to show who speak for us, I have conducted a random survey on the morning of January 19, 2025 among the prisoners in my 44-cell cell block, here at Keen Mountain Prison. Every prisoner I questioned, except only a few, have been confined at Red Onion and Wallens Ridge, or know about the conditions at these institutions.
I told each one about the push to shut down these prisons, and asked whether they sided with the view that they should and could be investigated and reformed, or should they be shut down. Almost every single person I asked said, “Shut them down,” with emphasis. Out of over 40 men, only one said “Reform them.” One declined to be named or to respond. Two said they wanted to pray on it. And all the rest, 45 prisoners said, “Shut them down.” Out of over 40 men, only fourty [sic] didn’t say shut them down. Several of those I questioned went into discussing why they called for shutting them down instead of reform. Most said the long history of racism and abuse and exposure should have led to reforms long ago, if reforms were possible, hence they were not. Many of those I questioned are white, who’ve been housed at the Red Onion and/or Wallens Ridge. Many of them voluntarily pointed out that racism was prominent at these prisons. As said, only five prisoners didn’t call to shut these prisons down.
Below are the listed names [sp from audio only] of all the prisoners who I questioned, and said they called to shut these prisons down and agreed to be named in my report: Christopher Albert, Antoine Whitney, Matthew Doughty, David Kaiser, Grant [name indecipherable], Jerome Mallory, James Kantor, Dean Anderson, James Glass Jr., Dee Hendricks, Charlie Poole, James Alexander Moore, James McPeak, Randy Knapp, Keith Fitzgerald, Sterling Dawson, Melvin Olson, Lamont Dorsey, Edward Marshall, Justin Britton, Jason Clem, Chad Harrison, Nathan Washington, Randolph Smith, Travis Spence, Kyle Wilmott, Lam Dang, Hugo Sanchez, [name indecipherable], Ricardo Chavez, Keith Gilliard, Randall Villa Jack Lewis, Billy Hall, Ryan Markham, David Von Iron, Aaron Thomas, D. Wade, Calvin Bond Watson, Angelo Aviles, Michael Eisenman, Ronald Morehouse, Michael Patterson, Corinthian Sublet, John Daniel, and William Guterslow. 46 prisoners out of 51 who I randomly asked whether they believe Red Onion and Wallens Ridge should be investigated and reformed or shut down, said, “Shut them down.” I didn’t even know most of these prisoners. This sampling ranges from practicing Christians and Muslims and other religious tendencies, transgender people, Blacks, whites and Browns, loners, lumpen group members, and so on. I don’t doubt that a number of them are informers, who will be reporting me first chance they get. But in any case, the pool of respondents are a random cross-section representative of everyone locked inside these prisons. And the response was nearly unanimous: shut Red Onion and Wallens Ridge down. When given a voice, the voiceless speakers won. This is Kevin Rashid Johnson coming to you from within America’s Gulag Archipelago. Dare to struggle, dare to win. All power to the people.
These commentaries are recorded by Prison Radio.
