SB 1301 or Senate Bill 1301 by Virginia State Senator Joseph D. Morrisey to reform the Virginia Department of Corrections [VADOC] use of Solitary Confinement died ignobly in the Virginia House of Delegates as most prospective social and justice reforms never intended to become law but are gambit like dangled by politicians for reelection gimmicks historically do.
SB 1301 died because Virginia's Senate demanded that its passage depended on budget neutrality meaning it shouldn't add on and increase VADOC's budget. Which then was a wink and nod to VADOC to claim budgetary increase which it promptly did, claiming that SB 1301 were it to become law would increase it's budget by $23 million.
First of all Virginia politicians/lawmakers regularly increase VADOC's budget for all and any reasons and that's not the point of contention. What however is laughable and it's not even April Fools day is the notion that merely reforming and not even abolishing the practice of a barbaric, savage, and ircorrigible act Solitary Confinement will cost $23 million more to the Virginia taxpayer.
So let's examine cost on the merits of VADOC's proffer. VADOC's claims there are about 400 prisoners in Solitary Confinement, [not including those it holds in out-of-state Solitary Confinement] and it euphemistically calls its practice restrictive housing. 400 prisoners detained in conditions VADOC recently settled 2 lawsuits of $115k and 150k respectively as violative of the 8th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. So let's take in these facts Virginia lawmakers, allowed VADOC to claim that reform of a practice federal courts have determined violates the U.S. Constitution thereby causing lawsuit settlements that cost the state will cost more to reform it?
Even as Virginia taxpayers are shelling out hundreds of thousands of dollars to prisoners VADOC abused and brutalized by detaining them in Solitary Confinement?
Now if every one of the 400 prisoners VADOC is unlawfully and unconstitutionally detaining in Solitary Confinement were to follow the 2 prisoners VADOC recently paid $115k and $150k to for their Solitary Confinement and using the average of $132.5k from the recent payouts and we multiply it by 400 we will arrive at $53 million and this $53 million is based on the generous assumption the 400 prisoners didn't press on for individual millions and settled. Are Virginia politicians and lawmakers telling the Virginia taxpayer that they should pay $53 million to prisoners for detaining them in the savagery of Solitary Confinement than reform the practice even if VADOC is honest in claiming that it will cost $23 million to do so? $53 million versus $23 million? And here is even the more salient point: Should society keep on supporting and endorsing unlawful acts done by prison officials in its name? Because the practice of Solitary Confinement is on the wrong and unjust side of history. It has been ruled by the 3d and 4th circuits of the U.S. Court of Appeals as Unconstitutional and as early as the 1800's the Supreme Court of the U.S. declared it as an "Infamous Punishment." So do we need the idealistic indulgencies of jurisprudence as training wheels to instruct us on how to treat fellow human especially and particularly when our collective criticism of behavior is what is the social contract and expressed as the state, as the Commonwealth of Virginia and it is what the prison official supposes under the guise of the imprisonment experiment?
The supposition of might is right only begets might. Meaning if the organized violence of the state is only experienced by the prisoner who first and foremost is imprisoned on account of conviction of the criminal code and not an indictment of human nature and existence then what society is imparting to and impressing on the prisoner is only the might dialectic is of social value.
VADOC finds SB 1301 offensive for one because it dares to publically call out the practice of Solitary Confinement rather than play along with the euphemism of choice Restrictive Housing, for what it is a invidious, reprobate activity which only a stunted psychology will dare defend.
Further, there isn't much in SB 1301 that isn't already VADOC operating procedure as outlined in 861.3. 841.4, 830 A, 730.4, 730.5 which already requires prison officials of Virginia's various prisons to satisfy before entombing a prisoner in Solitary Confinement as SB 1301 intended on codifying at Virginia code 53.1 -39.2. So for VADOC to claim that it would cost an additional $23 million to satisfy the evaluation and notification processes as set out in SB 1301 speaks to the fact VADOC isn't currently complying with it's own operating requirements and as such VADOC is defrauding the Virginia taxpayer who are paying the salaries of prison officials and employees to do a job that isn't being done.
In conclusion, we already know what's wrong with the Virginia Department of Corrections It lacks accountability. But what the sordid affair of SB 1301 has firmly revealed is Criminal Justice in the Commonwealth of Virginia demands an exorcism of the injustices of colloquial-suppositions and to do such, the Virginia citizenry has to begin resolutely with why is it purportedly costing $23 million to reform an invidious and reprobate practice by it's prison officials.
By William Thorpe,
Virginia exiled me to Texas and I'm still held in Solitary Confinement under Virginia's instructions at the Eastham Unit of the Texas Dept. of Criminal Justice and I've been in Solitary Confinement since August 9th, 1996.
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