“Virginia DOC Lawrenceville: The Virginia Model: Threats to Safety, Part 2.” Today is July 14, 2025. It’s a Monday. As it has been repeatedly cited by numerous outlets, Virginia and its Department of Corrections continue to operate as a festering cesspool in our nation. In part one of this series, I brought to light the ongoing problems caused by those remaining elements of GEO Group. I also brought to light the issues of dangerous violations, quite illegal, of fire and safety codes, specifically the use of industrial deadbolts on the cell doors. The most recent violation had occurred on June 24, 2025, a Tuesday, but is only one of the safety violations which are all too common under the Virginia Model of harmful punishments which had occurred that day. Shortly after the deadbolt incident, perhaps 45 minutes later, captives were shuffled out of their cells then lined up. This is when drug dogs were brought in to sniff those lines of captives. It is very important to note that the Virginia, DOC has an incredibly devastating history of destruction when it comes to dogs.
From 2017 – 2022, Virginia had 271 maulings of captives. These are only the ones listed as “accidental” and only the ones reported. Estimates put the actual number at five times that number. By comparison, the next highest state during the same time period is Arizona, with 15. It is equally well known that Virginia DOC dogs, regardless of their jobs as enforcers or drug dogs, are notoriously under trained. This was the case with a brown and white speckled pointer who on camera, ignored commands and dragged his handler around. The handler did finally manage to get some measure of control over the dog, enough so, to “run our line,” that is to say, put the dog to work in a pass to see if it could catch a scent. It did not, which was no surprise. The surprise was when another canine officer, on body camera and pod camera, put herself between another captive and myself in the line. At this time, she signaled the handler of the poorly trained creature, and he came over with the dog, issuing the finding command.
The dog, attempting to hone in on a scent, was all over the other captive and myself. It was aggressive, and I was in a near panic as the dog finally honed in on a small pack of four stickers, two, yellow, two, blue, the canine officer in line had in her pocket. Yes, Virginia DOC, risking the safety of two captives, used an untrained dog in a line exercise and then used two captives as training dummies for an exercise. Given the nature of the Virginia DOC and the endless harm being caused at all its prisons, it is just no surprise that captives would be put into such a situation. There is very little doubt that it was a violation of law statutes and likely DOC policies that means nothing to those hired by the Virginia DOC consistently found to be characters of the lowest quality. It is also no surprise that it happened at Lawrenceville, that new marketing scam being employed by the DOC and yet another attempt to cover up its own lawless behaviors and failures to society: that is, after all, the Virginia Model. My name is David annarelli. I’m a contributing writer at the prisonjournalismproject.org, davidaannarelli.wordpress.com, I’m on Instagram at david_annarelli. Thank you very much.
These commentaries are recorded by Prison Radio.
