If Parole Is Real Then It Must Be Given Or Denied On Real Basis Or Be Exposed

By vapac
 

Exposing The Bureaucratic and Administrative Process of Virginias Parole System and It's A Crap Shoot

Rarely do we get to see the bureaucratic and administrative process of Virginia's parole system under authority of Virginia code section 53.1-134 through 53.1-165.1

However, VAPAC has been given that privilege by copy of a prisoner's denial of parole letter. For obvious confidentiality purposes, the identity is protected.

VAPAC has numerous issues, questions and problems with this revelation of the parole process. The obvious being there isn't a evidence based on grounds for parole besides speculations by those with the authority to grant parole. Yet as this denial of parole letter and its verbiage reveal, the parole board is behaving as if there is.

What we at VAPAC ask is should parole and the redemption and justice it allows society be a crap shoot or poker bluff?

As we see in this specific parole denial and its reasons given: History of violence, crimes committed, conviction of a new crime while incarcerated, serious nature and circumstances of your offense(s)

All are facts of the prisoner's circumstances and cannot be changed, only contextualized. Which is what if the Virginia Parole Board had any modicum of understanding of what is the social contract. It would perform its duty by. Because whatever a history of violence means within analysis of the Virginia imprisonment experiment it cannot be changed. Crimes committed, conviction of new crime and serious nature and circumstances of crimes cannot be changed      So what practical and justifiable determinations is the parole board speaking of making relative to a "compatibility with public safety, the mutual interest of society, character, conduct, reflecting the probability of leading a law-abiding life"?

What the parole board however is exposing is its indulgence in petty sophistry, an end run of denial under the leopard has spots logic and because it has spots which cannot be changed      Therefore parole is denied      Why then are we the tax payers funding a parole board, to simply tell us a prisoner is imprisoned due to a conviction?

We at VAPAC and also as tax payers state: The parole system is crap shooting with lives of citizens imprisoned      If parole is an anticipation of Virginia's prison experiment then it must be granted or denied on practical basis or stand exposed as a specious gambit, another insidious exercise of side door, get out of jail for the privileged for whom the justice experience and imprisonment experiment is afforded context.

There must be transparency and accountability in the system.

Lets educate ourselves.

By vapac

Virginia Prison Visitation Unvaccinated Isolation Verses Vaccinated By Jarmaine Spruill

 "The Virginia Department of Corrections encourages inmate visitation that promotes family reunification, positive pro-social change, and a reduction in recidivism the support of public safety to extend an existing healing environment offering inmates visitation." However, key information has been given per Memorandum which restricts me (unvaccinated) from the opportunities of family reunification by not allowing me to have In-Person visitation. I am in fact General Population abiding by all institutional rules and regulations, as this benefit impacts us all for equal access to programs, services, work assignments, In- Person Visitation etc.

Sincerely held, taking all precautions serious to protect myself and others I voluntarily undergo "Special" Covid-19 Antigen-Screenings every 7 days which is a mandatory participation for all unvaccinated inmates. This self- administered nasal swab test yields results within 15 minutes. The same protocol is initiated for any inmates whose job in tells them to work outside of the perimeter of the prison for the sole purpose of them coming in close contact with staff personnel. These workers undergo the same "Special" safety considerations, performing their job duties following a negative result is the same protocol as the Antigen self administered nasal swab test that I am required to take because of my unvaccinated status.

In-Person visitation is the vital mechanism which is conducive for ones own sanity for sense of being. Preventing me (unvaccinated) of these opportunities to bond with my family during the reopening of In-Person visitation is discriminatory. I am not in segregation and further more, I have done nothing to lose my In-Person visitation privileges. The same protocol can be utilized for In-Person visitation, just as if it were job related. Me not being vaccinated does not interfere with the activities of living in General Population especially now that they've devised a system seeing that I (unvaccinated) get tested frequently. Following thus safety protocol adhering to practices of self- administered nasal swab testing, it is only being utilized for circumstantial protections which makes this a case of negligence of treatment, retaliation, and discrimination showing a substantial system of deliberate indifference towards unvaccinated inmates. Why should I continue to comply in the self- administered nasal swab test when I'm being retaliated and discriminated against, while this same self- administered nasal swab test is bias, when it should grant me (unvaccinated) admission following a negative result as a precautionary measure like every other scenario?

By  Jarmaine Spruill 

Prison Accountability and Transparency

vapac

Why is TDCJ Denying Solitary Confinement Prisoners Phone Calls?

 

Virginia Main Stream and Legacy Media Complicit and Collaborative In The Malfeasance and Lack Of Accountability of the Virginia Prison Official

If the blindness of justice is supposed and intended to convey equality before law then the work of media is the illuminant of it's practicality and Virginia's main stream and legacy media has failed us.

Whether or not societal factions agree with and support the ongoing debate for criminal justice reform and the corollarial emphasis on the lack of accountability of the prison official energizing the nation. The Commonwealth of Virginia as sister states of the Union has it's accounting to come to terms with      A coming to terms that requires exposure of those who have been complicit, collaborated, for the typical reasons and have actively exploited privileges conveyed by the citizens of the Commonwealth of Virginia by engaging in criminal, malfeasant acts, the perversion of justice and it's travesty.

Virginia main stream and legacy media from the Richmond Times  Dispatch through all other representations of Virginia's metropolitan hubs and regions to its colleges and university media have all been historically complicit and collaborated in enabling the lack of accountability of Virginia prison official       And not only are we calling 'em out but we invoke the mediant Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence:

"Let facts be submitted to a candid world"

To which we say, that in contravention of Article 1 Section 12 and Section 15 of the Constitution of Virginia:

"That the freedom of speech and of the press are among the great Bulwarks of liberty and...." That free government rests as does all progress, upon the broadest possible diffusion of knowledge."

The mainstream and legacy media has actively pursued and foisted on the citizens of the Commonwealth an apologetic      narrative of treating the prison official as an entity above law and beyond reproach thus obfuscating and denying the necessary informed illumination on the behavior of the prison official in the name of the citizen.

As recently as December 1, 2020 in the article "Advocacy group, inmates and their families allege abuse at Virginia prison" by Frank Green of the Richmond Times  Dispatch, we find another pathetic example of the style of apologetic-narrative.

What this work, the apologetic-narrative in prison and criminal justice issues by main stream media does, is, it enables unlawful and extrajudicial behavior by prison officials and allows it's acceptance by society with its natural Phillistine impulses. Thereby mocking the idea and practice of a requisite justice bulwarking the social contract and compact. 

We are hereby focusing on Virginia main stream and legacy media and calling on it's self-correcting ethic, that if we are able to achieve equality before law and hold the prison official accountable, then its work of reporting on prison criminal justice issues has to be a mechanism of holding accountable those given the privilege of authority by the people of the Commonwealth, of which the prison official is one.

VAPAC

Resources for Understanding Today’s Prison System

Izzie Ramirez, reporter for Vice, wrote a summary of the many resources available to anyone wishing to learn about the U.S. prison system. The article, published Jan. 22, 2021, discusses the varied inequalities of the prison industrial complex and how it exploits people for financial gain.

Activists are moving to expose the system’s glaring problems, writes Ramirez, if not abolish it entirely. He calls it a “racist, capitalist, sexist, colonialist, ableist, and transphobic” system. Black incarceration rates are five times greater than whites. Life sentences have dramatically increased over the last three decades.

Prisons are more proficient at extracting labor from prisoners than they were at keeping communities safe. The school-to-prison pipeline keeps the system replete with prisoners, fueling the profit-seeking private prisons.

For those without much knowledge on the current state of our prison system, but wishing to learn more, the article lists several podcasts, books, documentaries, and other resources.

Some of the podcasts listed include Beyond Prisons, Code Switch and Justice in America. Beyond Prisons is a series focusing on issues hurting prisoners the most hosted by Kim Wilson and Brian Sonenstein. One episode, “Challenging E-Carceration,” featuring James Kilgore, is an excellent examination of the role that electronic monitoring plays in the prison system.

The podcast Code Switch on NPR includes the episode “How One Inmate Changed the Prison System from the Inside.” It features Michael Shapiro relating the history of activist Martin Sostre who was the first prisoner to successfully challenge the poor living conditions in prison.

Ramirez mentions several books for beginners. The First Civil Right: How Liberals Built Prison America, by Naomi Murakawa, shows how the current prison system was forged by both liberals and conservatives after World War II and was thereafter perpetuated by the more modern tough on crime policies.

Nancy A. Heitzeg’s book, The School-To-Prison Pipeline: Education, Discipline, and Racialized Double Standards, explores policing in public schools, how it developed, and who often pays the penalties in school discipline.

In her book, Are Prisons Obsolete?, Angela Y. Davis expounds upon what decarceration might look like. Organizations such as Critical Resistance, which Davis helped to found, has been working towards the abolition of prison for several decades.

Other resources include: a primer on transforming the justice system called 8 to Abolition; the New York Public Library Correctional Services, which supplies prisoners with donated books; and community bail funds which assist those arrested who cannot afford bail. 

by Kevin Bliss published in Prison Legal News

 Source: vice.com