Thursday, December 19, 2024
Virginias new corrections ombudsman will prioritize investigating Virginia's Red Onion State Prison
Wednesday, December 18, 2024
Dozens of Prisoners Allege a Culture of Violence by Guards at Federal Facility in Virginia By The Marshall Project
Marshall project
This article was first published by The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system. Sign up for their newsletters, and follow them on Instagram, TikTok, Reddit and Facebook.
This article was first published by The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system. Sign up for their newsletters, and follow them on Instagram, TikTok, Reddit and Facebook.
Marcos Santiago heard the clatter of metal chains outside cell 201 next door. Locked in the most isolated unit at Lee federal prison in western Virginia, he knew that sound meant officers were readying to shackle another man to a concrete slab and leave him there for hours — as they had done to him weeks prior. Santiago was left with open wounds from the restraints on his ankles, and the sharp pain of a broken rib.
Over nearly 24 hours on July 4, 2022, Santiago heard muffled thuds and screams from the adjacent cell. It sounded like guards were following the same playbook he said they’d used on him: beating him in his torso with their fists, slamming their riot shields into his body and twisting his hands and feet. In between guards’ visits, Santiago talked to the man through the air vents in their cells.
Santiago asked for his name and prison register number, and tried to distract him from the searing pain in his limbs. Not long after that prisoner was moved out, another person was taken to cell 201 — a younger man from Puerto Rico, who asked Santiago to call his mother and tell her what happened to him.
Santiago wrote down his name and number too — in code, in case officers found his notes. Throughout the summer of 2022, even after he returned to the general prison population, Santiago kept gathering names of people who said they had been shackled and beaten, and those who had heard their screams.
Collectively, their accounts describe a pervasive culture of racism and violence in the prison’s Special Housing Unit, a separate tier where people are locked down for nearly 24 hours a day. Numerous lawsuits examined by The Marshall Project and NPR allege that officers smashed incarcerated people’s faces into concrete walls and broke their teeth, ground down their feet and legs with steel-toed boots, kicked and groped their testicles, and cut off their dreadlocks and ripped off their beards. One man now requires the use of a wheelchair as a result of abuse at Lee, his lawsuit said.
“When I think about what they did to me it just fills me with rage,” Santiago said in a phone call from a different federal penitentiary, in California. He sued federal prison officials in January 2023. “I’ve been in prison for 22 years now. There’s abuse in every prison, but I’ve never witnessed anything like Lee.”
In an email, Bureau of Prisons spokesperson Emery Nelson said the agency “does not comment on anecdotal accusations,” conditions of confinement for any individual or ongoing lawsuits. He said employees may be prosecuted if they are found to use brutality or physical violence. “The vast majority of our employees are hardworking, ethical, diligent corrections professionals, and want those engaging in misconduct held accountable,” he wrote.
The president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 1405, which represents officers at Lee, did not comment for this story.
The Marshall Project reviewed 17 federal lawsuits filed in the last five years and spoke with over two dozen people with knowledge of Lee. Nine of those suits, including Santiago’s, were filed with the help of the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, a D.C.-based legal nonprofit, and D.C.-based law firm Gilbert LLP.
The violence at the prison has continued despite federal officials’ vow to crack down on mistreatment across all Bureau of Prisons facilities, lawyers representing the prisoners said.
The same summer Santiago and others ended up in shackles, the bureau appointed a reform-minded director, Colette Peters. In testimony before the House Judiciary Committee this July, Peters reiterated her commitment to “address employee misconduct” and increase resources to investigate abuse.
The complaints at Lee mirror accounts from what was then a federal penitentiary, USP Thomson in Illinois, especially the overuse of four-point restraints. After a 2022 investigation by The Marshall Project and NPR uncovered significant abuse and violence in Thomson’s Special Management Unit, the bureau closed that unit in February 2023. The inspector general for the Justice Department is currently investigating the use of restraints across all federal prisons.
Abuse at Lee “is not a well-kept secret,” said Kristin McGough, who previously ran the prisoners’ rights team at the Washington Lawyers’ Committee. “They have a protocol,” she said of the officers in the Special Housing Unit. “There’s no real attempt to hide what they’re doing. If anything, things are getting worse.”
Bureau policy says restraints are to be used as a last resort to gain control of someone who is a threat to themselves, others or government property. The policy also dictates that “an employee may not use brutality, physical violence, or intimidation toward inmates, or use any force beyond that which is reasonably necessary to subdue an inmate.”
But inside the Special Housing Unit at Lee, officers seemed to follow a pattern that violated those policies, according to dozens of testimonies and the lawsuits. People were walked backward and bent over at the waist into a cell and dressed in paper clothes. In the last few years, many said they were also given a helmet before the assault began. Then they were cuffed at the wrists and ankles and chained at the waist, and made to kneel on the cement floor facing the wall while officers beat them with their fists and shields. Some were also put in four-point restraints, where every limb was chained to a concrete slab.
According to Nelson, the bureau spokesperson, prisoners may be given protective headgear “for their protection only.” Paper clothing must be approved in writing by a warden, he wrote, and should be issued only when a prisoner uses regular clothing in a way that “poses a threat.”
Former prisoners at Lee said it was difficult to speak out about the abuse while they were there, as they felt a constant threat of retaliation from guards. Officers often refused to provide them with grievance forms, or intentionally delayed or lost their paperwork, cutting them off from their only real chance at recourse, according to lawsuits. Multiple people said they were only given a pencil in solitary confinement, but the forms had to be filled out in pen.
Under federal law, prisoners can’t sue the bureau without first going through each step of the prison’s remedy process, starting with filing a grievance. That creates another legal hurdle for plaintiffs, who have to prove they were denied access to the grievance system on top of their other claims.
Santiago believes it was his attempt to file grievances and sue over other issues that made him a target for abuse in the first place. In an incident report, officers wrote that he was moved to the Special Housing Unit after refusing to return to his housing unit, and that he was put in restraints for violently resisting. Santiago denies this.
He said officers tried in multiple ways to keep him from creating a paper trail of what happened. “They do everything in their power to block you,” he said. He began sending copies of every form to his sister Jackie Gutierrez, in case officers destroyed his files.
In a motion to dismiss Santiago’s lawsuit, federal lawyers representing prison staff wrote that “each of the Defendants deny the Amended Complaint’s serious and disturbing allegations.” They argued Santiago’s case failed to follow the prison’s administrative remedy process. The court has yet to rule on their request.
Prisoners at Lee said staff targeted them for a variety of reasons. Some were singled out because of sex offenses on their record, or if they were accused of masturbating in front of staff. But others said they were assaulted after more innocuous encounters, like asking for medical help or to see a psychologist.
After being denied his medication, Ryan Amelia experienced a psychotic episode at Lee in August 2023. He hit the emergency distress button, prompting a fight with his cellmate. According to his lawsuit, that’s when officers pepper-sprayed him, pulled him out of his cell and took him to the Special Housing Unit, where he was locked in four-point restraints. Over the three days he was left chained to a concrete block, he went in and out of consciousness. Officers sporadically came to slam him with their riot shields or break his toes, the complaint says.
When Amelia was finally released, there were wounds on his wrists and ankles. His limbs were so weak he couldn’t raise his arms or walk, forcing him to shuffle around his cell on his knees. Medical records show he started losing weight and an oozing ulcer, over an inch wide, opened on his left ankle.
More than two months after he was restrained, Amelia was hospitalized for severe pain and a softball-sized bump that had developed on his hip. Doctors discovered that the infection in his ankle had led to septic arthritis in his joints, medical records show. Despite multiple surgeries, the infection remains in his bone. He will need to be on antibiotics for the rest of his life and will never walk on his own again, his lawsuit states.
“If it ever gets into my blood it will kill me,” Amelia said of the infection, in a phone call from a different penitentiary. He needs his cellmate to help him with tasks such as putting on his shoes. He suffers constant pain, and a doctor has recommended he be transferred to a federal medical facility. “Because of what they did, and what they let go at Lee County, I won’t ever be able to get out of a wheelchair,” Amelia said.
He filed his lawsuit in October. Lawyers for the Bureau of Prisons have not responded to the complaint.
“If any of us were to do anything close to what they did, we would be sitting in prison,” Amelia said of the guards. “I would like to think they would be held accountable.”
The U.S. Penitentiary Lee sits in Appalachia, near the Virginia borders with Tennessee and Kentucky. The nearby town, Pennington Gap, has a population of about 1,600. Lee County is nearly 94% White.
The staff at Lee penitentiary is 98% White, according to the bureau, and multiple people said that guards seemed to be especially hostile to Black prisoners — who make up 62% of the prison’s population. “That was the only institution I’ve been to where the White staff don’t have a problem calling a Black dude a N-word,” said Cinquan Umar Muhammad, who was at Lee from 2015 to 2019. Dentavia McNair said officers cut off his dreadlocks and used the racial slur while kicking him and punching him in the face, as he was held in restraints in September 2023.
“Lee County was the worst,” said McNair, who was released from prison in October. “That’s an experience I don’t want to see nobody go through. It’s traumatizing.”
Anthony Harrell was incarcerated at Lee in the summer of 2020, as protests over George Floyd’s murder exploded across the country. In court records and interviews, Harrell said staff targeted him after he pushed back on their decision to turn off the televisions showing news coverage of the growing protests. Once he was led into the Special Housing Unit, “They kicked me, punched me, called me the N-word, said, ‘Fuck George Floyd,’ ‘Fuck Black Lives Matter,’ ‘Can you breathe now?” Harrell said. He was left in four-point restraints for nearly 30 hours, he wrote in a lawsuit. “I wondered if they were going to kill me.”
Harrell sued soon after, but the suit was thrown out for not following the bureau’s administrative grievance process. He was released from prison in 2022. “I never felt hate in my life before that day,” he said of his time in restraints. “When you have guys you’re trying to rehabilitate, you don’t lock them in a cage and kick them for years. That’s not making society safer.”
Nelson stressed that bureau policy forbids officers from using “profane, obscene or abusive language,” or acting in a way that is “demeaning” to incarcerated people.
Most of the violence happened in spaces without cameras, prisoners said, or in rooms where the cameras were covered up. Under bureau policy, nurses are required to record video of their medical assessments of prisoners in restraints. But people incarcerated at Lee said they were threatened by officers and told to report “no injuries” on camera when medical staff asked.
“They were on a rampage that summer, putting people in four-points and beating their ass,” said Bruce Altenburger, who was being held in the Special Housing Unit from May to December of 2022. He was held in restraints for nearly 24 hours, he said. “It felt like every night you would hear a man in four-points screaming.”
Some of the abuse escalated to sexual assault, according to lawsuits and interviews with incarcerated people. Two men said officers put fingers or mop handles in their anus while they were in the Special Housing Unit, according to letters and legal complaints. At least 10 people said their genitals were groped or injured while restrained.
According to Bureau of Prisons records, five official complaints were filed at Lee under the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act from 2021 to 2023. The records don’t provide details of the allegations. None were substantiated.
Prisoners at Lee said officers weren’t the only threat. Many said employees ignored, or even intentionally stoked, violence between cellmates. Four people have died by homicide at Lee in the last five years, according to the state medical examiner.
After Amelia was released from restraints, he was beaten by his cellmate for the next two weeks at the urging of officers, according to Amelia’s lawsuit. The cellmate smothered him with “blankets, clothing, a sheet rope, and eventually, his hands,” until Amelia lost consciousness. The lawsuit says the man was given “additional privileges, such as books and additional time on the phone, in exchange for assaulting and torturing Mr. Amelia.”
Cathy Thompson was working in the bureau’s national Psychology Services branch in 2022 when she started hearing concerning stories about Lee from other psychologists. Prisoners were being transferred from Lee to other facilities, especially Atlanta, and telling staffers about their mistreatment. Thompson planned a visit to Lee penitentiary to review operations, especially regarding accounts of sexual abuse. But weeks before the trip was scheduled, officials canceled the visit.
“I think [they] phrased it like, ‘Now’s not a good time,’” said Thompson, who retired from the bureau last year. “I was just furious. Because what I had heard was so distressing. If 25% of the allegations were true, if even one of the allegations were true, it was too much.”
Nelson, the bureau spokesperson, would not comment on Thompson’s account. He wrote that a site visit was conducted at Lee in October 2023, but would not provide further detail.
The conditions described at Lee have persisted for years, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Corrections Information Council, a watchdog for prisons where D.C. residents are held. The group issued a report in 2019 that found accounts “of staff violence were many and varied.”
Investigators wrote, “Throughout the facility, inmates the CIC spoke with expressed concerns about a culture of violence extending to facility leadership, and including staff both perpetrating and encouraging violence against inmates.” Half of respondents said they had been “harassed, threatened or abused” by staff there. Many reported being afraid of retaliation if they even spoke to investigators about conditions.
Anthony Thomas was incarcerated at Lee in 2018 and worked as a custodian in the Special Housing Unit. “You see blood. I had to clean up urine and feces just because they’d been in there so long and they won’t let you use the bathroom,” he said of the prisoners who were held in restraints. “If you’re crying, they’re gonna keep coming in and messing with you.”
According to Nelson, prisoners in restraints should be given the opportunity to use the toilet every two hours unless the person is “continuing to actively resist or becomes violent while being released from the restraints.”
In a response to the D.C. group’s findings, a Justice Department official called them “unsubstantiated allegations” based on a “small percentage” of prisoners. The official reiterated bureau policy on the use of force and noted that staff received yearly training on the issue.
The bureau updated its use of force policy this summer, to specify that officers have an “affirmative duty to intervene” and stop or prevent abuse, and that restraints may not be used “in a manner that causes unnecessary physical pain or extreme discomfort.” Anyone who uses excessive force could face criminal charges, the policy states.
Also this July, President Joe Biden signed a law that would create an independent ombudsman to field complaints from federal prisoners. The statute also requires regular inspections of bureau prisons, especially “higher risk” facilities.
Throughout Santiago’s time at Lee, he and his sister Jackie Gutierrez continued to gather stories of people who said they had been assaulted there. Gutierrez started calling their wives, mothers and sisters. They both started writing to senators, representatives, judges and the NAACP. In total, they gathered the names of more than 50 people who had been incarcerated at Lee and said they had experienced or witnessed widespread abuse. Many of those prisoners would go on to file lawsuits against the bureau.
“I am trying to get help re: the torture/abuse/beatings/threats at USP Lee,” Santiago wrote in a November 2022 letter to U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, who represents Virginia. “My life is in danger and I do not want my sister to have to plan my funeral.”
In an email, a spokesperson for the senator said they forwarded Santiago’s letter to the Bureau of Prisons.
After Santiago sued prison officials, he was transferred out of Lee and to Victorville penitentiary in Southern California two months later. Another man at Lee who had worked with Santiago continued collecting testimonies and working with the Washington Lawyers’ Committee.
McGough, the former attorney for the committee, hopes their lawsuits might bring an end to the violence at Lee.
“People just want to serve their time in peace,” she said. “Nobody is trying to get out of prison, these folks just want this abuse to stop. There’s lasting trauma that no amount of money in the world can ever repay.”
By The Marshall Project
Sunday, December 15, 2024
WHAT DOES GOD AND THE DEVIL HAVE TO DO WITH THE MALFEASANCE, MALVERSATION, IMPUNITY, EXTRA-JUDICIAL BEHAVIOR OF CHADWICK DOTSON, DIRECTOR OF THE VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS AND HIS COLLEAGUE EMPLOYEES By William Thorpe
*Pictures are taken from the internet and are used for illustrative purposes only"
First of all, let me state this, let me say it again yes Director Chadwick Dotson and his colleague employees are professionally corrupt, but their corruption doesn't exist independent of The People of Virginia. Yes the average Virginian is ignorant of what is done by its government in their name, which The Virginia Department Of Corrections is. Nonetheless, Virginia as collective is culpable. The dust hasn't settled over the unfathomable and unconscionable recent incidents of Virginia prisoners pursuing self-immolation as speech, despite the fact that, those usual enabling suspects have been double-timing their efforts at sweeping it under that tired and worn rug of "irreproach" of Chadwick Dotson and co. So once again we have experienced Virginia's mainstream and for profit corporate media continuing it's "fifth column" work by pushing the adversarial or anti-The People partisan labor of being a status quo petty functionary and Virginia Department of Corrections Shill. Of course this description of Virginia's media, is accurate and apt, its more than enough that those executives, reporters, commentators and opinion-columnist running The Commonwealth's media are seldom called to account for what and in whose interest is for example, parroting the obscene and clearly insane explanatory defense offered by the hapless and clearly in over his head Director of The Virginia Department of Corrections, Chadwick Dotson, that prisoners under his supervision and care where not engaging in the desperate speech of self-immolation, because they only managed to set their legs on fire?.I mean a type of demographic of Virginian have been regularly and systemically eviscerated by those same well fed and shiny faced corporate media executives for attitudes and less behavior than Director Dotsons'.Yet when Chadwick Dotson does it, presents a logic so spurious that neither God and the devil would dare with a straight face embrace, our media, true to their petty functionary fifth columnism not only are pathetically silent, but craven in challenging its malfeasant and insidious brazenness. Let me for the whatever time say this, our critique and polemic against Chadwick Dotson and Co. Isn't adverse to and against the requisite accountability expected of "We The People", as dynamic of The Social Contract in other words, we accept and understand the "responsibility" factor of our human condition. What we oppose is that mockery of "equal under law "and its "above law "practice engaged in and weaponized by status quo hypocrisy and enabled by the craven media. Facts are facts independent and regardless of circumstance. So despite the expenditure of treasure and labor in pursuing what the mythical Chinese writer of two thousand years ago, either the 4th or 6th B.C, LAO-TZE in his seminal work, THE TAO TEH KING or THE TAO AND IT'S CHARACTERISTICS, told us or rather instructed at part one, pp 8 (2) THEREFORE THE SAGE, IN THE EXERCISE OF HIS GOVERNMENT EMPTIES THEIR MINDS, FILLS THEIR BELLIES, WEAKENS THEIR WILL AND STRENGTHEN THEIR BONES (continues at) (3) HE CONSTANTLY (TRIES TO) KEEP THEM WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE AND WITHOUT DESIRE, AND WHERE THERE ARE THOSE WHO HAVE KNOWLEDGE TO KEEP THEM FROM PRESUMING TO ACT (ON IT) WHEN THERE IS THIS ABSTINENCE FROM ACTION, GOOD ORDER IS UNIVERSAL (then it continues at )part two (65.1) THE ANCIENTS WHO SHOWED THEIR SKILL IN PRACTISING THE TAO DID SO, NOT TO ENLIGHTEN THE PEOPLE, BUT RATHER TO MAKE THEM SIMPLE AND IGNORANT.(continues at) (2) THE DIFFICULTY IN GOVERNING THE PEOPLE ARISES FROM THEIR HAVING MUCH KNOWLEDGE..... and folks what I've just excerpted from a 2000 year old book is exactly the state of affairs in Governor Glenn Youngkin's Virginia, where the media is actively complicit in keeping us the people ignorant and simple minded to the savagery and barbarity of The Virginia Prison System as governed and administered by the Chadwick Dotson and Co. Regime.
We shouldn't simply accept the Public Safety invocation by Director Chadwick Dotson and Co. as some sort of shibboleth carte Blanche, a get out of jail absolution, excusing away Virginia Department Of Corrections practices that are unconditionally backwards, reactionary, idealistic, gratuitously violent and dehumanizing, once again under the arbitrary rubric of "public safety". Look folks this illustrates and outlines the work of reforming Virginia's Justice Infrastructure and the Prison system. The practice of any governing and political authority declaring designation of activity under its specific and particular self-interest isn't novel, for instance what was the declared designation of the means of the ascribed "terror" of The French Revolution? It was THE COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY and The French administration of it's organized revolutionary violence under the banner and bureaucracy of "public safety" wasn't and as The Commonwealth of Virginia is reminding us via its arbitrary and speculative invocation by Chadwick Dotson and Co. isn't and won't be the last in our human condition, that it is used at the expense of and the "faith" in the variegated terms and acceptance of Social Contract or "equality under law". The rule is when government, is confronted with, which The Virginia Department of Corrections is, that inevitable corruption inherent and intrinsic to its philosophical supposititious and speculations, by its above the law and extra-judicial behavior as currently evidenced by and presented in stark relief by all the pretzel bending and shape shifting mockery of its own premises, it resorts to that most lawless and undemocratic of reactions, the usurpation and appropriation of word utility. So naturally and consequently we see and have Chadwick Dotson and Co. deploying and maximally exploiting it as defense to the savagery and barbarity of their actions. I'm quite sure and certain that none of our political leaders and legislators dare claim omniscience, neither does the Virginia citizenry and whether or not the psychosis of supremacism and megalomania lurks under the rocky havens of our holdover compatriots is besides the point and irrelevant, the facts are laws as parameters and definitions of The Social Contract are constantly being changed, repealed and revised which are proof of our fallibility, hell even the Biblical God expressed fallibility through revision as second guessing of what was done. I make this point to convey that we are on solid ground and footing in our challenge of the appropriated utility of "public safety" as exploited by Virginia prison officials in their efforts at compromising accountability and the requisite transparency for the application of "faith" in the rule of law and its process. Now the responsibility of the Virginia citizenry, The People is to sharpen focus and attention on all that is being done in their name by The Virginia Department Of Corrections because if prisoners under the supervision and care of Chadwick Dotson and Co. have to resort to the desperate speech of self-immolation, as we recently have experienced, to which Chadwick Dotson and Co. dismissed, under their corruption of the, what is Public Safety utility, The People have only one question, whose?.
By William Thorpe
I'm William Thorpe Virginia exiled me to the Texas prison system. I'm solitary confined at the Wainwright Unit and if you feel any kinda way about this work contact me by Securus email using the Texas prison number #2261982
Thursday, December 5, 2024
YES THERE IS MORE TO VIRGINIA'S STATUS QUO CONTINUATION OF SHIPPING VIRGINIA PRISONERS TO OTHER STATE'S PRISON SYSTEM..... by William Thorpe
*Pictures are taken from the internet and are used for illustrative purposes only"
So currently Virginia has, since May 29, 2019 exiled William Thorpe to the Texas Prison system. Gerald McNabb has been sent to Wyoming. A number of prisoners, Rodney Antonio Tucker, to Tennessee, Raymond D. Taylor, to Nevada, Bernard Meeks, to Missouri, Leon Crowe, to Illinois, Christopher Lee Joyner, to Illinois, Michael S. Edwards, to New Mexico, Winston NaJee Reed, to Nevada, Kevin A. Canada, to South Carolina, Uhuru Sekou Obataiye-Allah, to Oregon, North Carolina, Maryland, Lamont O'Shea Douglas, to New Jersey. These are just some of the names of Virginia prisoners shipped to other State Prison Systems. Let me stress, these listed names are just some, the tip of the iceberg. In an earlier work, titled, "JUST AS VIRGINIA SLAVE OWNERS DURING SLAVERY WOULD SHIP CERTAIN ENSLAVED TO OTHER PLANTATIONS, THE VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS HAS KEPT UP THE PRACTICE BY SHIPPING CERTAIN PRISONERS TO OTHER PRISON SYSTEMS", I spoke on how Virginia has continued the practice all through the 1980's.I explained how, there are two types of out of state transfers or as the practice is labeled, INTERSTATE COMPACT, with the first being INVOLUNTARY--meaning the prisoner is forcibly without consent shipped out of state (the listed names were for the most part involuntary transfers) the other type of transfer is VOLUNTARY-meaning the prisoner ask for it, seeks it. Now the Virginia Department of Corrections understands and is completely aware that shipping a Virginia prisoner out of state, hundreds or thousands of miles away from Virginia is counterproductive to the very purpose of its logic of imprisonment and its at odds with its own mission statement. Nonetheless it still does it and what this practice shows and reveals is what we already know and understand, which is, Law, its administrative policies and procedures as applied by the State of Virginia are contrivances, conveniences, means to ends. So for example see this case, DOUGLAS V. CHAPMAN 2022 U.S. DIST. LEXIS 133143, this case deals with a Virginia prisoner shipped to the New Jersey prison system and the hardships and obstacles being out of state places and imposes on a prisoners parole prospects. Parole, even in the conditional optimal circumstance of the Virginia prisoner being in State is a rocky ask, now factor in that the prisoner is out of State, making it virtually impossible for a realistic possibility for parole. A prisoner from one State held in another State making parole, is one of those Unicorn fantasies. But, despite the fact Virginia along with all her sister state prison systems justify their purpose as returning the imprisoned citizen to society as a functioning member, the practice of involuntarily shipping prisoners to alien systems belies it.
First of all we have to stop playing these delusional relationship games with The Justice Infrastructure, The prison system and Virginia's application of both. The question or issue has never been about the materialization of a supposed or presumed "perfection" in human affairs, its condition and What is Justice. Forever we have participated in a laughable but destructive state of accepted hypocrisy in all aspects of our human condition, to the point that the functioning narrative for the hypocrisy is, blaming the other. Because as it applies to the functions of The Virginia Department Of Corrections, it's every single operational expression is contrary to it's authority, which no matter how its excused, with whatever chosen sophistry we use as blinders, the fact is starkly revealed that the colloquial fly in the ointment, as consistently scapegoated isn't the convicted and imprisoned person, but the comical and hapless betrayal of the collective aspiration of what is justice and it's effort of process. If the average frazzled Virginian going about their daily pursuits of existence is honestly ignorant or snarkly apathetic about the state and condition of The Commonwealth's Prison System and their grasp and idea is that simplistic parroting of, "don't do the crime if you can't do the time". Then we can contextualize it as that sort of citizenship, necessary for the existence of a neo-feudalistic politics in service of the practice of a governmental organized violence, where the prison system as foot soldier is "above the law", unaccountable and a terroristic mechanism of controlling the people. Which is exactly how The Virginia Department of Corrections is used. There isn't a specific violation of law by The Department in its operations, but a comprehensive and general one. This is a result of that hold over from its genesis, which is, Virginia's history of the chattel enslavement of Black People and the indentured servitude of a type of White Person. Where the human being was reduced to the hypocrisy of something less. As such when Virginia exploited its imprisonment scheme as substitute and replacement for its loss of labor for its slavery political-economy after losing the civil war of 1860, which was fought to maintain the enslavement of people, specifically Black People, it inculcated the dehumanizing character of slavery into it under cover of a perverse application of "justice".Yes, historically in human affairs, running afoul of law, social norms and customs brought on punishment and sanction but not the less than human narrative we encounter in Virginia's practice of imprisonment. Historically, when people were adjudged without Virginia's slavery deviation and were condemned to death, the humanity was still retained. The inevitable result of this antagonistic fact of a purported application of "justice" is its above the law presumptions of the Virginia prison official, where the prison official, their oversight political overlords and the Virginian in whose name all of this mess is done, claim and profess to comply with law and accountability, pursue its equality and the faith and trust in The Social Contract, while mocking the entire construct by the simple fact of denying the humanity of The Virginia Prisoner. The proof of this denial is in every single thing the prison official does.
By William Thorpe
I'm William Thorpe Virginia exiled me to the Texas prison system. I'm solitary confined at the Wainwright Unit and if you feel any kinda way about this work contact me by Securus email using the Texas prison number #2261982
Tuesday, December 3, 2024
Monday, December 2, 2024
Why are men jailed at US prison setting themselves alight? | The Take
Men at Red Onion State Prison in Virginia are setting themselves on fire in protest of racism and abuse.
On The Take,
On The Take, hears from Noel Hanrahan, co-director of
Prison Radio
, about the abuses imprisoned men are facing:
In this episode:
- Noel Hanrahan, legal director for Redwood Justice Fund and co-director of Prison Radio
Sunday, December 1, 2024
VIRGINIA GOVERNOR GLENN YOUNGKIN AND HIS DIRECTOR OF THE VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, CHADWICK DOTSON ARE INSULTING THE INTELLIGENCE OF THE PEOPLE OF VIRGINIA By William Thorpe
*Pictures are taken from the internet and are used for illustrative purposes only"
On November 27, 24 Director Chadwick Dotson of The Virginia Department of Corrections, made public the department's position on the incidents of prisoner self-immolation at it's Red Onion State Prison Koncentration Kamp. Chadwick Dotson as Director of The Virginia Department of Corrections not only serves at the privilege of the Governor of Virginia, Glenn Youngkin, but specifically advances Youngkin's comprehensive world view on criminal justice and the prison system, in other words Youngkin is rewarded with praise and accolades when and if Dotson navigates the justice and prison system conscientiously, but when his actions are reactionary, savage and barbaric as, most of the time they relatively are, then Youngkin gets the appropriate opprobrium and Dotson's 11/27/24 statement on prisoner self-immolation are another tired example of this. Now let me say this, yes Youngkin, Dotson and every single last Virginia government employee are speaking for and theoretically doing the will and intentions of the people of Virginia, as such its a privilege to which they are primarily responsible and accountable for their performance. However the people of Virginia have final responsibility and culpability for the subsequent betrayal and the resulting abrogation of faith in their Social Contract, when it is consistently compromised by actions of their political leaders as Chadwick Dotson. Instead of responding to the poignant and horrific events of prisoner self-immolation at Red Onion State Prison Koncentration Kamp, Director Chadwick Dotson played the intelligence of the people of Virginia with mocking deflections, conclusionary sophistry and outright comments unbefitting a public servant as the Director of Virginia's Department of Corrections. Because what exactly are we to make of Director Dotson's remarks of firstly, (and I paraphrase) blaming advocates and abolitionist wanting to score political points.Then he goes on to say there wasn't any immolation because prisoners only set their legs on fire. He continues with those prisoners, who by his own admission set themselves on fire, have a history of self harm.You know what quite frankly Chadwick Dotson, with his 11/27/24 comments on prisoner self-immolation at Red Onion State Prison Koncentration Kamp has only and simply confirmed all that has been said about his unfitness to be in any position of leadership in Virginia's Justice Infrastructure and the Prison System. Furthermore Dotson's statement reveals a callousness that shouldn't be held by any human, least a public official. What Director Dotson told us with his statement is, because humans under his care in Virginia prison cages weren't burnt to a smoldering crisp and only burnt legs, its no big deal? That because those prisoners have previously engaged in self-harm, therefore we should dismiss reports of self-immolation? And as a matter of fact isn't Dotson's disclosure of prisoner mental health information by claiming there is history of self-harm a violation of Virginia and Federal law? Listen people nothing I'm saying is news, a study of Virginia and its Federal Courts will reveal the tens of thousands of Virginia prisoner claims of the savagery and barbarity reflective of the mindset of Director Chadwick Dotson, which is pathetically indicative of the antagonistic effects of the permeation of the wink and nod tolerance of some are above the law canker, revealed in the dismissiveness of accounts of Virginia prisoner self-immolation.
By William Thorpe
I'm William Thorpe Virginia exiled me to the Texas prison system. I'm solitary confined at the Wainwright Unit and if you feel any kinda way about this work contact me by Securus email using the Texas prison number #2261982
Saturday, November 30, 2024
Unjust Policing and Fighting it From The Inside By "Think Podcast"
Edwin Raymond, a 15-year NYPD veteran and prominent criminal justice reform advocate, joins Krys Boyd to discuss systemic issues within policing that lead to unequal enforcement. He shares his insights on how to reform these practices and details his experiences in his book, "An Inconvenient Cop: My Fight to Change Policing in America."
Friday, November 29, 2024
WE BLAME VIRGINIA GOVERNOR GLENN YOUNGKIN, WE INDICT HIM By William Thorpe
*Pictures are taken from the internet and are used for illustrative purposes only"
Let me first begin with here we go again, The Virginia Department Of Corrections at its Red Onion State Prison Koncentration Kamp is currently in the News for another episode of heinous events under the administration and governance of Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, specifically a number of prisoners held in oppressive and intolerable solitary confinement are setting themselves on fire, a la the self-immolation of a Buddhist monk at the evils of United States activities during the Vietnam war. Others have spoken on these current prisoner self-immolation events at Red Onion State Prison Koncentration Kamp, within the greater context of the depravity of its administration and governance, what I want to however do is expand on #exposethebarbarity. So let me begin with Virginia law at, Virginia Code Section 8.01-2 (6) states: Person under a disability shall include (a) a person convicted of a felony during the period he is confined. Which in plain speak, is The Commonwealth of Virginia as collective of the will of its people exercising their will by imprisoning its members presumes certain obligations. Now what we again encounter with this is, as the typical proclivities of law is the disability of the Virginia prisoner is adjudicative. What I mean is this those prisoners held in solitary confinement at Red Onion State Prison Koncentration Kamp according to the obligations and responsibilities of The People of The Commonwealth of Virginia shouldn't be subjected to a self-immolation inducing, savagery and barbarity, because the Virginia prisoner during the period of confinement and imprisonment is a person with a disability so what privilege of authority permits those with responsibility to compel the imprisoned to set themselves on fire, which is what Governor Glenn Youngkin as Chief Executive of Virginia is presiding over and what I'm saying isn't about the assumed legalese of "respondeat superior". Now let's bring on this other aspect, in 2023 Governor Glenn Youngkin vetoed parts of a law that was intended to rein in check the above the law deviance of the Virginia prison official that revealed itself in the savagery and barbarity of the use of solitary confinement. The law Virginia Code 53.1-39.2 (Restorative Housing, Restriction on use) was in itself a timid and feeble effort by The Virginia General Assembly at reforming the use of a type of detention which the Supreme Court of The United States had declared as being (and I paraphrase) asocial, serving no social good and drove its victim prisoners insane, which the self-immolating Red Onion State Prison Koncentration Kamp prisoner in 2024 underscores and is case study. Now the conventional response to the passage and subsequent veto of the positive parts of Virginia Code 53.1-39.2 was, well it's a start and the work and struggle continues to accomplish reining in the use of solitary confinement by the Virginia prison official. Now that mindset has been bane in so many more ways than one. Because what is consistently overlooked is the prisoner or in this case the Virginia prisoner is a fact of and only exist because of LAW, the same law the prison official willy nilly, violates and breaks with the deviance of the supposition of "above the law". Governor Glenn Youngkin has already revealed his effrontery and abject poverty towards the compliance of law and it's underpinning faith in the Social Contract, when he spit in all the face of Virginians victimized by it, when he embraced the 34 count felony convicted and sex assault adjudged currently president-elect Donald Trump. Yes this work is polemic against the double speak of Due Process.
By William Thorpe
I'm William Thorpe Virginia exiled me to the Texas prison system. I'm solitary confined at the Wainwright Unit and if you feel any kinda way about this work contact me by Securus email using the Texas prison number #2261982
Thursday, November 28, 2024
Wednesday, November 27, 2024
JUST AS VIRGINIA SLAVE OWNERS DURING SLAVERY WOULD SHIP CERTAIN ENSLAVED TO OTHER PLANTATIONS, THE VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS HAS KEPT UP THE PRACTICE BY SHIPPING CERTAIN PRISONERS TO OTHER PRISON SYSTEMS BY WILLIAM THORPE
*Pictures are taken from the internet and are used for illustrative purposes only"
When Kevin Rashid Johnson was shipped out of State in 2012 to other State Prison Systems, it wasn't the first time Virginia's status quo had utilized it as extraordinary measures. Removing individuals from slave plantations, to wit contemporary prisons or what they correctly are, Koncentration Kamps, is as old as Virginia's deviations in affairs of humanity. There hasn't been any redemptive accounting in the thought of The Commonwealth of Virginia and its approach to the realization of its Social Contract since its commission of original crimes against humanity, but the theatre of musical chairs. After events in 1984 at Virginia's original Supermax-prison, Mecklenburg Correctional Center (which by the way has been closed) Virginia's status quo took out their ire on Tommy Hashim Cox whose only "offense" was typing up the intentions of protesting prisoners. After shipping Tommy Hashim Cox to The New Mexico prison system in 1985 which at that time was days removed from the Nations worst and bloodiest prison event, where over 30 prisoners lost their lives (see the book The Hate Factory, that documented the events). As an aside now why would Virginia ship Mr. Cox to such a place where the paint wasn't even dry covering the gore?After New Mexico, Mr Cox was shipped to Oregon and Connecticut then after Virginia went on its Koncentration Kamp building spree he was brought back to Sussex l. In 1985 Virginia's status quo shipped Henry Bobilly Gorham Jr. to several States, beginning with Kentucky, then The District of Columbia, then Illinois and again when the twin Koncentration Kamps of Red Onion and Wallens Ridge State Prisons were opened Virginia brought him back in 1999. Malcolm Mack Jefferson was shipped out of State in 1985 to the New Jersey prison system, he also was returned when Sussex l, Red Onion and Wallens Ridge Koncentration Kamps were opened. The now deceased Paul Gum Gum Coomer was shipped to Kentucky and Texas in 1989 then returned to Virginia. The now deceased Joe Giarratano, was shipped to Utah in the 1990's, then to Illinois then returned to the Red Onion Koncentration Kamp in 1998 on its opening. A lot of guys for example the now deceased Donald Tree Sutherland were also shipped out of State, to Minnesota then returned to Virginia. I give these pre Red Onion and Wallens Ridge Koncentration Kamps out of state transfers by the Virginia Department of Corrections, to show the continuum of Virginia's status quo abusing the practice of shipping a Virginia prisoner out of State to an environment and system thousands of miles removed from family and its support which The Virginia Department Of Corrections claims to foster in its mission statement. Case in point see the case FIREWALKER-FIELDS v. VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS 2022 U.S.DIST. LEXIS 114650. The prisoner, Mr. Firewalker-Fields, wanted an out of state or out of Virginia transfer to The State of Maine (because there are two types of out of state transfers, (1) INVOLUNTARY---all the examples that I've given were of the involuntary sort where the prisoner is removed out of a State against their will. (2) VOLUNTARY--- where the prisoner as Mr. Firewalker-Fields seeks it, wants it and ask the State for it. Well when Mr. Firewalker-Fields seeked it he was rebuffed, denied. What is eye opening and relevant to this work is what the Virginia Department of Corrections executive or prison official tasked with its responsibility K. Rosch told Mr. Firewalker-Fields, he said Mr. Firewalker-Fields had family in Virginia. Point being Virginia uses it to punish.
By William Thorpe
I'm William Thorpe Virginia exiled me to the Texas prison system. I'm solitary confined at the Wainwright Unit and if you feel any kinda way about this work contact me by Securus email using the Texas prison number #2261982
Monday, November 25, 2024
SO GOVERNOR GLENN YOUNGKIN WILL HAVE THE DUBIOUS DISTINCTION OF BEING THE VIRGINIA EXECUTIVE WHOSE PRISON POLICIES WERE PROTESTED BY PRISONER SELF-IMMOLATION By William Thorpe
By William Thorpe
I'm William Thorpe Virginia exiled me to the Texas prison system. I'm solitary confined at the Wainwright Unit and if you feel any kinda way about this work contact me by Securus email using the Texas prison number #2261982
Subscribe to:
Posts
(
Atom
)