My name is David Annarelli, 1853637, journalist, contributing writer to Prison Journalism Project, currently housed at Lawrenceville, in the Virginia Department of Corruption.
In 2024, approximately 3600 discretionary parole eligible prisoners were denied, in fact, only .89% were granted parole in the entire year. Several days ago, on February 5, 2025, in the morning, at Lawrenceville Corrections Center at the Virginia DOC, in an unprecedented show of biased and prejudicial decision making, the head of the Virginia parole board, speaking at a peace event in the gym, told approximately 50 prisoners in front of the warden, the assistant warden and the chief of housing, that some crimes are, quote, “too heinous”, and that she would, quote, “never vote for those people to be granted parole”, regardless of the time served or changes made to be productive citizens and pay their debt. They were never leaving prison.
In 2024, October 1, a letter from the Virginia ACLU informed the parole board that under Virginia code, 53.1-136 and 53.1-155, that the parole board was in violation of state law. We also have evidence in the form of an official letter from the same board, which also handles pardons, that evidence of exoneration will not be accepted, no amending or supplementing of any kind for open clemency petitions. In that same letter, they also claim that they’re making full investigations, which is clearly not possible if they’re not accepting or allowing amendments, supplemental evidence, and this contradicts themselves. We believe that there is rampant corruption and that an investigation should be called for by third parties. Thank you very much, and I hope people look into this.
Again, my name is David Annarelli. Davidannarelli.wordpress.com, and I’m a contributing writer and journalist with Prison Journalism Project.
These commentaries are recorded by Prison Radio.