Lying about recidivism didn't start with Spanberger it is part of the foundation of VADOC

Pictures are taken from the internet and are used for illustrative purposes only

 SUMMARY OF THE POST

Title: Is The Virginia Department of Corrections (VADOC) Counting Dead and Terminally Ill Released Prisoners In Its Claims of Low Recidivism? Author: William Thorpe

1. Context: Virginia Abolished Parole in 1995

Thorpe begins by explaining that parole was abolished in 1995 , leaving only two groups eligible for release:

• People imprisoned before 1995 (geriatric or legacy parole)

• People imprisoned after 1995 with sentences short enough to finish within 27 years

2. Why VADOC’s “Low Recidivism” Claim Is Misleading

Thorpe argues that VADOC’s recidivism numbers are structurally distorted because:

• Post‑1995 prisoners serve extremely long sentences, so very few have been released and had the chance to “recidivate” at all. This makes the pool too small to measure meaningfully.

• Harold Clarke has acknowledged that prisoners are staying longer, which further shrinks the recidivism pool.

Thus, the only group large enough to measure recidivism is pre‑1995 prisoners — but that group is now elderly, infirm, or dead.

3. The Core Accusation: VADOC Is Counting the Dead

Thorpe states plainly that:

• Many pre‑1995 prisoners released on geriatric or legacy parole die within two years of release.

• Dead prisoners, terminally ill prisoners, and severely disabled prisoners cannot return to prison, so including them in recidivism calculations artificially lowers the rate.

• Therefore, VADOC’s “low recidivism” claim is deceptive, insidious, and distorted.

4. Author’s Closing

Thorpe signs off from solitary confinement in Texas, noting Virginia exiled him there.

 ANALYSIS — WHAT THIS POST IS REALLY DOING

A. Thorpe is exposing a statistical trick

The post argues that VADOC’s recidivism numbers are not just misleading — they are structurally impossible to interpret honestly because:

• The post‑1995 population is still incarcerated.

• The pre‑1995 population is dying.

This means VADOC is effectively saying: “Look how few people return to prison — because they’re dead.”

This is the heart of the indictment.

B. It’s a critique of political culture, not just math

Thorpe frames recidivism manipulation as part of Virginia’s political culture of concealment, where institutions protect themselves by:

• Using numbers that sound good but hide structural harm

• Presenting “success” metrics that rely on the deaths of elderly prisoners

• Avoiding transparency about who is actually counted

This aligns with VAPAC’s broader theme: Virginia’s institutions normalize deception to maintain legitimacy.

C. It challenges Governor Spanberger’s public claims

Although written in 2022, the argument directly undermines the Governor’s current narrative that recidivism is “at the lowest.” Thorpe’s logic shows that such claims are:

• Not evidence of successful rehabilitation

• Not evidence of safer prisons

• Not evidence of humane policy

They are evidence of statistical manipulation enabled by the abolition of parole.

D. It reframes the moral question

Thorpe’s deeper point: If the state’s “success” depends on counting dead people as “non‑recidivists,” then the metric itself is morally bankrupt.

VADOC’s recidivism numbers are not low because people are thriving after release — they’re low because Virginia abolished parole and the people who qualify for release are elderly, terminally ill, or dying. Counting the dead as “success stories” is not reform. It’s statistical fraud.

By vapac

 

YOU DON'T HAVE TO CARE ABOUT PRISONERS AND VIRGINIA'S IMPRISONMENT SCHEME. BUT IF YOU HAVE EXPECTATIONS OF A "PROCESS", WHICH IS, RULE OF LAW, THEN YOU SHOULD CARE THAT THE VIRGINIA PRISON OFFICIAL VIOLATES IT MATTER OF FACTLY, SHAMELESSLY By William Thorpe

Pictures are taken from the internet and are used for illustrative purposes only

In April 2025 I shed light on an incident, which a part of the title was, THE EGREGIOUS CASE OF BURKE v. STANLEY YOUNG 2024 VA. App. LEXIS 550. A Virginia State case, presented by Mr. Conrad Burke, then a Prisoner held at Virginia's Pocahontas State Correctional Center. Look People these examples of incidents would be meaningless, if the State of Virginia wasn't accusing, charging, convicting and imprisoning People for violating Laws, which the State then turns right around and violates those same Laws, in worst ways during its scheme of the imprisonment and imprisoning People. Then to compound it or clothe it in aggravating circumstances. We The People, (including Prisoners, especially Prisoners) in whose name every single construct and term of Virginia's Social Contract, is contextually formulated on are hectored at and lectured to, explicitly and implicitly by every last one of Virginia's Social Contractual Institutions, who exist in abject betrayal of advancing that one and only function, that of developing the business of human existence, by compromising it on a smorgasbord of cravenness. From elected Politicians as Legislators, to embody Virginia governance, to its Religious, Academia, Labor-Business antagonism, through its Media, Arts and Entertainment Speech, with the inanity of "don't do the crime, if you can't do the time" as response to the basic and fundamental ask of holding the Virginia Prison Official Accountable for crimes done as "professional" behavior. Before I continue, I have to point this out, the Commonwealth of Virginia for better or worse, lays claim, to a specific political speech, which is constituted as a Commonwealth or Popular Sovereignty, meaning the People are the Supreme Power. When we say "the People", this isn't the sort of politics where the very next question is who and what are the People as in the subset this or subset that sophistry, of the reactionary Antonin Scalia, presenting itself as materialist jurisprudence, when we clearly see it's Crow feet of supremacist presumptions with its decaying hang nails and bunions. The People, despite and besides, that due to systemic ignorance's isn't grasped as such, is there full of the energy of limitless potential, which we perceive not in its legatee affirmative but in every single last gimmick and gambit unleashed by the Organized-Violence of reaction towards its subjugation and suppression. So we encounter it as the above-the-lawism of the Virginia prison official, when under law is what permits and allows the prison official's presumptions, that professional existence is carte blanche to violate. Its under the declared Constituted aspirations of the Commonwealth and its process that we experience the depths of its violation in its scapegoating of the Virginia Prisoner, where we see it again as antagonism of, if soil or the Earth was "blessed" to have been shaped, formed, manipulated and breathed into to "be" Man, yet it is subsequently cursed and without cause, because of a series of events, which if we are to accept the narrative, absolutely and unconditionally was preordained and foreseen. As in the Virginia Prisoner is defacto a creation of Virginia law, as such the most lawful of Virginia's Speech, yet it's also with the Prisoner we experience Virginia's Speech violative of its own law at its comprehensive worst. Which this example, clearly shows, HOLLEY v. COMBS 134 F 4th 142.

Holley v. Combs, isn't an outlier. As a matter of fact we won't even have a Holley v. Combs at 134 F4th 142, if three Judges of the Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, specifically, Judges GREGORY, WYNN and HEYTENS, hadn't applied the correct and appropriate jurisprudence, which Judge WYNN wrote the Opinion and stated, "These allegations [by Holley] paint a picture of deliberate retaliation against Holley for complaining about his conditions of confinement. Further, according to Holley, these punishments were not isolated occurrences. He alleges a pattern of retaliatory treatment against Prisoners deemed to be disruptive. Holley cites news reports that include claims that officers assaulted Prisoners...". Judge Wynn also cites, [Kevin Rashid] JOHNSON v. WARNER 200 F. App'x 270, 271 (4th Cir 2006) (Per curiam) (vacating denial of in Forma pauperis status where a prisoner alleged " a number of assaults by prison guards". I BEGIN: What Mr. Garfield William Holley, exposes and unequivocally challenges with his Holley v. Combs case against the depravity of Koncentration Kamp Wallens Ridge State Prison Officials, is, for example: this continuum of window dressing performative prison reform Speech, again presented in the notion by Governor Abigail Spanberger, that a simple advisory and suggestive entity as her recently created GOVERNOR'S COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIP COUNCIL ON CORRECTIONS, can even dare speak to on its face, without any comprehensive scrutiny and interrogation of the Virginia prison official's mindset, the very operational philosophy of Virginia's Department of Corrections that can only come from the bully pulpit of a Virginia Governor, as actual Accountability-Function of governance. Mr. Holley's case not only indicts the petty-tyranny of the savagery and barbarism of the Virginia prison official, in his case at Koncentration Kamp Wallens Ridges. But it ensuingly exposes, the entire incident as a cultural habit, which I have been consistently and laboriously critiquing its systemic existence. Because, in order for Mr. Holley to proceed in any Court, whether Federal or State, he had to have went through the administrative process of satisfying the Federal and State of Virginia Grievance procedure, which is no small feat. After surmounting that hurdle and let's not lose sight of the horrendous acts he said that Wallens Ridge prison official subjected him to, which no one in the entire Virginia Department of Corrections saw fit according to their sworn oath to uphold Law, that these claims by a Prisoner must be investigated. Then, when Mr. Holley made it to U.S. Federal Courts, those initial Judges, again dismissed his claims on the typical moves by the Office of the Attorney General of Virginia, who defends Virginia prison officials accused of crimes, malfeasances and wrong doing, in the name of the People of Virginia who rarely are told by Virginia corporate media that their tax money is being spent defending Virginia prison officials who are accused of behaving as Mr. Holley claimed. Let's focus a bit on Virginia's corporate or mainstream media and the way it handles what it means to inform, educate and give insight to the Virginia socio-person for the purpose of determining whether its elected leaders are behaving appropriately according to the privilege, responsibility and obligation the electoral activity has accorded them. In one word Virginia mainstream media editorializes its function, when the issues receiving the coverage are of a specific formulation typifying a demographic existing under a particular sort of dynamic within Virginia's Social Contract. Issues of Virginia's Imprisonment scheme are the low hanging fruit of coverage. Which case as Mr. Holley's, attest to.

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

IF GOVERNOR ABIGAIL SPANBERGER TRULY THINKS THAT THE NEEDED REFORM OF VIRGINIA'S IMPRISONMENT SCHEME IS HER NEWLY CREATED COUNCIL ON CORRECTIONS, THEN SHE SHOULD PUSH TO MAKE IT AN ELECTED STRUCTURE By William Thorpe

Pictures are taken from the internet and are used for illustrative purposes only

Once again, I'll say it, the issue of Reform of Virginia's Justice Infrastructure and its Prison System, is simple, its ACCOUNTABILITY and TRANSPARENCY. Which are the Keystones of all that is the Social Contract and Society. The more we get away from this simple fact, with the various nuances, clarifications, qualifications, conditions with all as filters, the more the inherent and intrinsic corruption of all materializations become objective unto itself, necessitating another gloss of the veneer of, nuances, clarifications, qualifications, conditions all as filters. Accountability, is a simple fidelity to the dictatorship of intention. What I mean is this, the one and only approximate truth of the Human Condition, is the business of human existence. From breathing air, drinking water, the intake of sources of energy, responding to the environment according to what is necessary and required and mastering the environment based on the ability of interrogation, in order to be optimally equipped to perform that instinct of survival. Nothing I have just stated is insight, nor am I being facetious, with its rudimentary simplicity or even snarky. All I'm doing is reminding us, that the "business" of existence, is the basis of it all with Accountability riding shotgun and whether we are able to perform this "business" to the best of our abilities depends on our approximate grasp and understanding of Accountability, where the operative and factor of Transparency, is also a formulary of Accountability or the Accountability-Function. Which brings us to the Commonwealth of Virginia, its Justice Infrastructure and Imprisonment Scheme, which no one will dare dispute that, that inherent and intrinsic corruption of all materializations viz Systems has from inception been its objective. Even post the Civil War, which we can characterize as presenting a clean slate or canvas, for a more redemptive, constructive and practical development of the business of human existence upon irrefutable facts of a being structured Social Contract, Virginia's Status Quo embodied by the Supreme Court of Virginia in 1871, couldn't restrain that inherent corruption, with this declaration in the case, RUFFIN v. COMMONWEALTH 62 VA.790 and I paraphrase, that the imprisoned Virginian is nothing more than a slave of the State, with nothing more than what the law out of its kindness accords him. Note that this logic was issued in 1871, on the heels and wake of the perdition also brought into existence by the word and construct "Slave", encapsulated in Stephen Crane's Red Badge of Courage. In other words the embodied corruption of Virginia's Social Contract pre Civil War, was so crystalized and incorrigibly ingrained in the minds and hearts of those Virginia Jurist, that they just couldn't let go of the malevolence presented by the word and construct "slave", that despite the apocalyptic carnage of the Civil War, they, just like the Biblical cast out Legion had to find a herd of swine to occupy, which then was the Virginia Prisoner. What this instructs despite the fact that since 1871, the RUFFFIN case has been cited 44 times and the 4th Circuit, which has jurisdiction over Virginia cases has on a number of occasions found opprobrium with the Commonwealth of Virginia for daring to resurrect the reprehensibleness of RUFFIN as defense in a number of cases, which show systemic corruption.

So, Governor Abigail Spanberger recently announced the formation of an entity, GOVERNOR'S PARTNERSHIP COUNCIL ON CORRECTIONS, she presumes as response to what she characterized as "longstanding" issues within the Virginia Department of Corrections or as I correctly describe, Virginia's Imprisonment Scheme. In other words the Council is her Virginia Prison Reform, synthesis. As I stated in the title to this work, well if that is what she thinks, then she should push for it to be an Elected entity, directly responsible to the Supreme Power, in the Commonwealth of Virginia Aka, THE PEOPLE. Because the longstanding issues she spoke of are not contradictions and antagonisms because of the lack of a Council whose existence will reflect the vagaries, whims and caprices of one individual, irrespective of Office and Title and that few with access. Now despite the fact that I strongly disagreed with her selection and choice of JOSEPH WALTERS as Director of the Virginia Department of Corrections and I wanted to see what one of our Virginia Women, our Sistahs would have done in the position, notwithstanding being ground breaking and historical. Still if the Accountability-Function of governance, isn't dependent on personality, but instead Process of Law and the educative instructive of Transparency as the "All Seeing Eye" of THE PEOPLE, then beyond other idealistic, superficiality and short of egregious disqualification, then personality is subordinated. As I started this work with, reform of Virginia's imprisonment scheme is simple because its all about Accountability and Transparency and there isn't a logic or the most malleable, insidious and manipulative sophistry that can defend asserting its conditionality, nor do I have to be Nietzschean, impart this to Governor Abigail Spanberger, when in that most basic and fundamental manner possible, that of a relatively realized full all around human, she not only understands it as a socio-person, but also professionally. So the point is simple all she as Governor have to do is exercise authority in pursuit of Reform and let the reactionaries emerge howling. Virginia for reasons, I'm unfamiliar with has a structure, that is viably practical of the Accountability-Function, when you think about it, is materially actually close to the People, than other systems, which is the Governorship is a one 4-Year term and done, which then allows a Governor to actually implement what in their and Party's world view develops that business of human existence, which the People can either give a thumbs up to by electing to continue the direction or repudiate it by electing a contrary and opposing world view. This dynamic isn't present in systems where the Governor is seeking reelection, as such the potential exercise of authority assumes and deteriorates into the objectification and crystallization of that ever present inherent and intrinsic systemic corruption, a performative theatrical spectacle of "values" as the People are yoked to a speculative narrative of "tradition" at the expense of what the Society and Social Contract clearly recognizes as hunger for progress. Virginia recently witnessed this, with Terry McAuliffe's Democratic world-view, given the thumbs up by The People seeking its continuation in the election of Ralph Northam who held comparative Democratic world-views. So yes Governor Spanberger has opportunity, to even if what Prison Reform at this juncture in the Commonwealth is emerging as, fertile space for the repudiation and refutation of "talking points", that have their genesis in the dictatorship of intent from the 1600's, she should Speak it. Because it provides the millions of Virginians who accept the practicality of Prisons, but are anti it's dehumanization it's work.

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

STOP SELLING US OUT By William Thorpe

Pictures are taken from the internet and are used for illustrative purposes only

There is nothing complicated about reforming Virginia's imprisonment scheme, its simple, TRANSPARENCY and ACCOUNTABILITY. Nonetheless just as everything else in life, the simple becomes the complicated, not because of its details. I'm not putting this together to state the obvious, but, we keep on being subjected to trends and tendencies which are nothing more than results of assumptions and these assumptions that I speak of are, the let's do something to look good politics of supposed reform that we are again being subjected to as Virginia prisoners and under the Commonwealth's Jurisdiction, by politics of contempt. Let's get into it: The tens of thousands of Virginia Prisoners are not the ones causing actual harm within Virginia Society. Abigail Spanberger didn't become Governor because she told the People of Virginia that Virginia Prisoners are the source of why you're treading the water of Virginia Society and in some cases drowning, instead she correctly identified that Society's problem is Affordability and not a single Virginia prisoner, currently or historically has had anything to do with Affordability as a macro formulation of Virginia's Political-Economy. As a matter of fact the Virginia prisoner stands as proof of its bane as a contradiction and failing of Virginia's Political-Economy. Have some Virginia Prisoners been the cause of harm, real harm to individuals and families in Virginia Society, yes and no one not even the imprisoned dispute or deny those facts and events. But a Society or the Social Contract isn't analyzed or critiqued on the behavior of its members who are it's least impactful, such indulgences are nothing more than scapegoatism, revealing something else. Did Abigail Spanberger inherit a mess, of course she did and it just wasn't with the Commonwealth's Justice System, because, again a Society's Justice System isn't a beacon of civilization instead is evidence of its lack. For those scratching their heads as to what the hell am I talking about. Civilization means that stable set of relations refining the development of the business of human existence. This stability is presented in a couple of contexts, meaning to varying components of Society or the Social Contract. So, to the owners or possessors of the means of production or producing the necessary quality of human existence, politics professes, stability. But to the rest of the People who are the Labor or Workers actually producing quality for human existence from the to be ascribed value quantity, politics presents, Law and Order or to put it bluntly, "Organized-Violence", which the Justice System is function. Which illustrates what is Civilization. The law and order construct of civilization, only expresses, that this is what the status quo or as I described as owners or possessors of the means of production have settled on as being the most efficient way and means to accomplish and maintain their hierarchy within the business of human existence. It doesn't mean that law and order to the human condition is like water and blood to human life. Law and Order as we experience it is a stick, a club or simply put the status quo sees Labor or the Workers, meaning all of the rest of Society who do not own means of production as brute beast, who only respond to aversion or pain, requiring the stick or club to beat them to labor in transforming quantity to quality or producing value. To conclude on this, contrary to colloquialism, law and order has nothing to do with accountability, despite being aspect. Accountability is a principle that has varying degrees of speech. Among the People, ourselves, our every single interaction isn't policed, by the organized-violence of the State, we hold ourselves accountable.

Recently Governor Abigail Spanberger has made controversial moves on the Transparency and Accountability front of Virginia's imprisonment scheme. Before I continue let me say this: I like and respect Abigail Spanberger. Winning modern American elections is no simple feat regardless of gender and being a Woman doesn't make it any easier. Even the Great Frederick Douglas, born into chattel slavery, having an intimate experience with discrimination and oppression, still had issues with Women assertions for Political Rights. So yes its a monumental achievement that Abigail Spanberger is Virginia's first Female Governor and most importantly, I'm always in Solidarity with our egalitarian and non- reactionary Women and Sistahs succeeding. With that said let's get to work of critiquing Governor Spanbergers' recent moves on the question of Prison Reform in Virginia. Governor Spanberger is a former United States Intelligence Officer, so there isn't much I have to say by way of insight into the sort of machinations that goes into reforming anything about a Society, which Prison and its Justice Infrastructure is medium that Abigail Spanberger hasn't had that dialectical cause and effect birds eye view of its macro-deductive analytic grasp. So what her controversial moves on Prison reform, instead speculatively speaks to is she isn't taking anything of it seriousl, because for one its an inherited mess, with roots in the Virginia of the 1600's as chartered Company and Colony and she only has a 4 year term, so why tackle something steeped in every single American Contradiction and Antagonism marker?.On top of it the Politics of it all are susceptible to the pro forma superficiality of window dressing, so why should she say, you know what, the roots of systemic injustice might run deep and uprooting em then salting its debased and profaned earth is exactly what I'll do, because if my presence is historic, then History is exactly what I will make. Well this is saying that is exactly what as Virginia's Historic Governor, Abigail Spanberger should do. Governor Spanberger doesn't need a tutorial on the genesis and utility of Virginia's imprisonment scheme that has nothing to do with whatever deceptive and diversionary claims of "Justice" it mantles around itself, yet her recent moves say she needs it. Telling us with citations provided by the Virginia Prison Official that X amount of Y incidents are down is disingenuous. If those metrics are true expressions of the accountability-function of governance, then the Virginia Prison official would be telling us that the "reasons" for the metrics are diligently being ameliorated and not only would we learn that from Virginia's Government, but Family, Ally and Friends of the Virginia Prisoner would stand besides Governor Spanberger as she declared to the Commonwealth that the infamy of dehumanizing the Virginia Prisoner by the Virginia Prison official will not from henceforth be tolerated. Instead what we are getting is the continuity of the professional practice that the prisoner, is less than Human. Because if the Prison Official working in The Prison and for that duration is as confined as the Prisoner, experiencing the environment as the Prisoner and there is recognition that the consequence

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

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY ON PRISON REFORM IS MAKING THE SAME HISTORICAL ERROR IT MADE WHEN IT BOUGHT AND SOLD ENSLAVED BLACK PEOPLE, DURING CHATTEL ENSLAVEMENT By William Thorpe

Pictures are taken from the internet and are used for illustrative purposes only

Any claim, accusation and indictment that arises as evidence of the variegated interplay, interactions and dynamics of our Human Condition, despite the real, intimate and immediate harm are illuminance of what it means to wrestle structure of utility from our inchoate intentions. In so many words, yes in our work of the business of human existence, much harm will be its wake. I'm not advancing the idealistic, "the ends justifies means". But what I'm saying is the all so real harm of inchoate intentions, becomes something else entirely, when its wake, consequence or effect is unmitigatedly made apparent and the hypocrisy of cutting off the nose to spite the face, is still practiced as formulation: of tradition, culture, norms, genteel civility. When the inappropriateness of its existence upon the indictment of unworthiness as mechanism for the realization of that one and only, development of the business of human existence, stands naked and revealed as INJUSTICE, and it's don't subject nor impose the experience on me and mine. At this developed juncture of our grasp of fundamental contradictions and antagonisms, where no matter the sophistication or crassness of the sledgehammer of empiricism, the only relevant conclusion is "the Emperor has no clothes", or to put it as it should, "no one is drinking the Kool-Aid anymore". Still we encounter activity or Speech, that is so idealistic, anachronistic, so hypocritical, so devoid of where are lessons learned and the inexorable practical redemption, that the only conclusion to be reached is, incorrigibility. Government and governance is simply and purely that, whether its critiqued as Monarchical, Fascist, Authoritarian, Theocratic or the most nonsensical, Capitalist, Communist-Socialist, the only distinction is proximity to its formulating speech or Social Contract. So if the only relevant active, is proximity, because from the Monarchical to the Communist-Socialist, the operative is the same exact and identical Speech: Organized-Violence. Then on what terms is anything critiqued? Save on the realization of mature intention and the development of the business of human existence without the distortions of Flags and Banners. Under which every critique and proscription of behavior of the socio-person achieves and attains the maturity of legitimacy. So when Georgetown University submitted to the necessary Accountability-Function of it's historical error of participating in the buying and selling of enslaved Black People, the error wasn't to American soil, but it was to that Flagless and Soilless Business of Human Existence. The Nations imprisonment schemes, which Georgetown's Law Journal critiques is understood as a continuum of that historical "error" of buying and selling humans and merely publishing a normative view by the imprisoned is a "wink and nod".

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