Understanding Corruption within the VADOC and its Impact By Kimberly Zittlow

It’s become quite clear that widespread corruption within the Virginia Department of Corrections is pervasive and deeply entrenched, with systemic issues, abuse of power, and a culture of hostility all playing significant roles. Addressing these issues requires a concerted effort to root out corruption, strengthen oversight mechanisms, and hold accountable those responsible for misconduct.

Systemic Rot: Corruption within the Virginia Department of Corrections (VADOC) is deeply ingrained within its structures and practices. This corruption involves various forms of misconduct and abuse of power.

Exploitation of Power: The hierarchical nature of this correctional administration and its facilities provides ample opportunity for those in positions of authority to exploit their power. This exploitation can manifest in the mistreatment of inmates, favoritism, and the use of inmates as pawns in power struggles.

Culture of Abuse: In environments where corruption is rampant, a culture of abuse and hostility flourishes. This culture normalizes unethical behavior and discourages whistleblowing or reporting of misconduct.

Lack of Oversight: Without effective oversight mechanisms, corruption thrives unchecked within VADOC. Lack of transparency and accountability allows corrupt practices to go undetected or ignored.

Institutionalized Vindictiveness: In many cases, VADOC exhibits a vindictive attitude towards inmates and their loved ones. This vindictiveness is then used as a tool to maintain control and suppress dissent, further exacerbating the corrupt nature of the system.

External Influences: External factors such as political interference or pressure from special interest groups also contribute to corruption within VADOC. These influences undermine efforts to combat corruption and perpetuates a cycle of misconduct.

Collusion and Cover-ups: Corrupt individuals within VADOC often collude with each other to conceal their misconduct and to protect their interests. This collusion can extend beyond individual staff members to include entire departments or units within the organization. Cover-ups of corruption further erode trust in the institution and hinder efforts to hold wrongdoers accountable.

Fear of Retaliation: In a corrupt environment, whistleblowers or those who speak out against misconduct may face retaliation or threats to their safety. This fear of reprisal can silence potential whistleblowers and perpetuate a culture of secrecy and impunity within VADOC.

Impact on Inmates and Families: The pervasive corruption within VADOC has serious consequences for inmates and their loved ones. In addition to facing mistreatment and abuse, inmates are unfairly disadvantaged in terms of access to resources, legal representation, and opportunities for rehabilitation. Families of inmates may also suffer emotional and financial hardship as a result of corrupt practices within the correctional system.

Undermining Trust and Confidence: Corruption within VADOC undermines public trust and confidence in the criminal justice system as a whole. When those responsible for upholding the law engage in corrupt behavior, it erodes faith in the fairness and integrity of the justice system, leading to disillusionment and skepticism among the general public.

Addressing corruption within VADOC requires comprehensive reform efforts aimed at tackling underlying systemic issues, strengthening accountability mechanisms, and promoting a culture of transparency and ethical conduct. Without meaningful reform, corruption will continue to undermine the mission of VADOC and perpetuate injustice within the correctional system.

In summary, corruption within the Virginia Department of Corrections is pervasive and deeply entrenched, with systemic issues, abuse of power, and a culture of hostility all playing significant roles. Addressing these issues requires a concerted effort to root out corruption, strengthen oversight mechanisms, and hold accountable those responsible for misconduct.

In Solidarity,

Kimberly Zittlow 

PUBLIC SAFETY IS THE LAST EUPHEMISTIC REFUGE FOR THE ADMINISTRATION OF REACTION By William Thorpe

Virginia Politics and its Political-Economy, advances on and is based on two imperatives (1) Exploitation and (2) Domination. The purpose and historical-reason for Virginia as Colony was to garner wealth for its investors by exploiting its heralded resources. To accomplish the exploitation, the environment had to be dominated or controlled meaning Public Safety. Let us fast forward to Governor Glenn Youngkin's recent veto of a number of prison and criminal justice reform bills, under the sophistry and euphemistic excuse of Public Safety. The fact the bills made it to Governor Glenn Youngkin to summarily encounter the dictatorial reaction of his veto, was indicative enough of their significance to the Virginia voter who had stated, the want of the reforms, by laboring mightily to elect Democratic Representatives who would accomplish such, to which Youngkin spit in their collective faces with his veto. Only a scofflaw would ignore the fact, that Virginia's prison system, its Department of Corrections and the entire justice infrastructure demands and needs reform. Progress or Justice isn't a zero sum endeavor, where one value subjectively triumphs or wins over whatever is considered the other. Because were that the case, Virginia as Commonwealth, as entity wouldn't even exist, because its progress contrary to myth, which are no more than conventional lies hasn't been borne on any value, any morality save that of development and the interactive equitable space carved within the compelling tensions of its Social Contract struggles and that always requires the correcting honesty of reform. To dismiss this fact with veto, as Governor Youngkin indulged in, is and has always been the historical Achilles vulnerability of the dictator and its presumptions. There is nothing settled with Virginia's ideas of justice. There isn't any "Black Letter",anything, especially when the subjective of The Governor cannot and will not set aside arrogance and recognize that, if progress is development without monopolistic and farcical claims to ideological supremacy, then the only recognizable facts are what we know to be idealistic and impractical because of their failures, i.e Virginia Republicans in 1995 abolished parole as the end all to the instance of crime, yet in 2024 not only are we told that crime is the major issue, implying abolishing parole was a failure, but again, Republicans who claimed to know it all in 1995 with their parole stunt are again telling us they know better with veto of ideas that haven't even been tried. Therefore, the reformation of an impracticality is the pursuit of good governance,which is also a recognition of the adage, insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome, which is what Governor Glenn Youngkin ask of us with his vetoes.What is striking and revelatory of the vetoes is the unapologeticness, because besides exploiting the Public Safety gambit,Youngkin makes no bones that his veto is ideological and it has nothing to do with what's in the developmental interest of Virginia.What's in the developmental interest of Virginia, what is progressive for Virginia is the recognized and practical honesty, that imprisoned Virginians whose condition, the vetoed reforms were intended to address will return to society and subjecting them to the gratuitous barbarism of Virginia's current imprisonment scheme is indefensible and cannot even be justified on the opportunity metric of cost benefit analysis.

By William Thorpe

I'm William Thorpe Virginia exiled me to the Texas prison system. I'm solitary confined at the Wainwright Unit

Put an End to Communication Deprivation By Kimberly Zittlow

Good afternoon,

Can someone within the VADOC PLEASE explain to me the value of taking the inmates' phones away from them for months, sometimes even years at a time? 

How in the world is destroying important relationships that provide positive support and reinforcement with loved ones helping anything or anybody?

All that you are doing is creating angry and emotionally deprived inmates and upset loved ones. Many will walk away and forget about the inmate after such prolonged absences of communication. Leaving the inmate with no viable affection, love or support with anybody meaningful outside of the prison walls.

This punishment tactic promotes a sense of abandonment and isolation that invariably translates to extremely violent outbursts. And for what? What exactly is the VADOC gaining from this practice?

A growing number of other states have put a stop to this barbaric practice for more forward thinking and obvious reasons. The only thing this action speaks of is cruelty and vindictiveness on the part of the Virginia Dept of Corrections towards both the inmates and their loved ones alike.

Based on what I know of this practice, the VADOC as a whole should really reconsider this barbaric practice and put an end to using communication deprivation as a torture and punishment tactic. It isn't working, nor has it ever worked to create anything positive for the inmate or the facility as a whole.

Just my 2 cents, spoken out of sheer frustration.

--

Sincerely,

Kimberly Zittlow 

YES, Sec.1985 (3) OF 42 USC OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1871, AKA THE KU KLUX KLAN ACT SHOULD BE USED TO HOLD THE VIRGINIA PRISON OFFICIAL ACCOUNTABLE..... by William Thorpe

The majority of imprisoned Virginians will return to society and the treatment experienced under the imprisonment conditions created by the Virginia prison official will henceforth determine and dictate the subsequent realized all around development of their humanness. I'm not speaking of the typical gibberish pablum super long handled ladle fed us by the idealistically delusional and insidiously inclined, support functionary of the status quo narrative laboring to assembly line like provide occupants for Virginia's prison cages. But what I want to focus on is the contradiction of Virginia's imprisonment premise. What I'll use to get the point across are the pillars of the Nations' and The Commonwealth of Virginias' Social Contract. Because the manner in which the prison official violates every aspect of it's very basis that even allows proximity with the prisoner is the fundamental problem or antagonism. In other words the people of and the Virginia tax payer cannot surrogately, through the prison official behave just as deviantly as the "convicted" and imprisoned while expecting "what"? Of the imprisoned, because as I will show with a listing of law suits by Virginia prisoners. The Virginia prison officials 'behavior during the performance of their duties is vilely antebellum old and savage that it is haplessly in violation of laws borne of the Nations most destructive and bloodletting war, The Civil War. Now, section 1985 of UNITED STATES LAW 42 USC is Titled, CONSPIRACY TO INTERFERE WITH CIVIL RIGHTS. Paragraph (3) of section 1985 states, DEPRIVING PERSONS OF RIGHTS OR PRIVILEGES. IF TWO OR MORE PERSONS IN ANY STATE OR TERRITORY CONSPIRE...and what the below listed cases will show is it's gratuitous violation by the Virginia prison official and I ask the reader to study the cases.

Vaughn v. Watts Dist. Lexis 51898. Tokley v.Ratliff 2007 U.S Dist. Lexis 24896. Davis v.Lester 156 F.Supp.2d 588. Barbee v. Anderson 2020 U.S Dist. Lexis 43133 Hessing v. Brunelle 2016 U.S Dist. Lexis 63026 Bennett v. Stirling 842 F.3d 319 Parker v. Proffit 1995 U.S Dist .Lexis 15941 Peyton v. Carico 2011 U.S Dist. Lexis 54243 Talbert v. Smith 2007 U.S Dist. Lexis 17108 Howard v. Stidham 2019 U.S Dist. Lexis 30704 Riddick v. Moore 2023 U.S Dist. Lexis 52822 Riddick v. Moore 2023 US Dist. Lexis 55162 Delk v. Moran 2018 U.S Dist. Lexis 50534 McCurdy v. Va.Dept.of Corr.2017 U.S Dist. Lexis 142788 Smith v. Ely 2015 U.S Dist .Lexis 175360 Farrakhan v. Johnson 2009 U.S Dist. Lexis 40342 Woodhouse v. Duncan 2018 U.S Dist. Lexis 53332 Woodhouse v. 2017U.S Dist. Lexis 211528 McCoy v. Young 2012 U.S Dist. Lexis 71547 The above are examples of the Virginia prison official's racist animus, using "nigger" while assaulting, threatening prisoners, which is element for a violation of 1985 (3) of 42 USC.

By William Thorpe

I'm William Thorpe Virginia exiled me to the Texas prison system. I'm solitary confined at the Wainwright Unit

"LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS "......WITHOUT JUSTIFIABLE EXECUTABLES IS CORRUPTION AND IT IS CORRUPT..... by William Thorpe

Recently Governor Glenn Youngkin vetoed a solitary confinement reform bill, that at least would've instructed Chadwick Dotson, Director of The Virginia Department of Correction, that the Machiavellian, "end justifies the means" isn't welcome in modern Virginia governance, which The Department's operations is aspect. Corruption has a couple of expressions (1) Diabolic (2) Fatuous, and regardless of expression, the result/consequence is barbarism. As inexplicably late or early as 1890, in In Re Medley,134 US 160 The Supreme Court of The United States found that, solitary confinement drove prisoners "after even a short confinement, into a semi-fatuous condition from which it was next to impossible to arouse them, and others became violently insane others,still, committed suicide while those who stood the ordeal better were not generally reformed, and in most cases, did not recover sufficient mental activity to be of any subsequent service to the community". THEN in 1988 The 7th Circuit, U.S Court of Appeals found in Davenport v. Derobertis 844 F.2d 1310 "That isolating a human being from other human beings year after year or even month after month can cause substantial psychological damage, even if the isolation isn't total". THEN in 1995 The U.S District Court for The Northern District of California in Madrid v. Gomez 889 F.Supp.1146, found that "Subjecting individuals to conditions [solitary confinement] that are "very likely "to render them psychotic or otherwise exacerbate a serious mental illness cannot be squared with evolving standards of humanity and decency.....A risk this grave---this shocking and indecent---simply has no place in civilized society". THEN in 2005 in Amicus filed by a group of Psychologist and Psychiatrist in a case before The Supreme Court of The United States, Wilkinson v. Austin #04-495 also 545 U.S 209 stated "No study of the effects of solitary or supermax-like confinement that lasted longer than 60 days failed to find evidence of negative psychological effects". THEN in 2015 in Incumaa v. Stirling 791F.3d 517, The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled" [Prisoner] had liberty interest in avoiding solitary confinement in security detention. The 4th Circuit, which Governor Youngkin is well aware, speaks the Supremacy of U.S law for The Commonwealth. THEN in 2019 in Porter v. Clarke 923 F.3d 348, The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals held," Solitary confinement posed an objective risk of serious psychological and emotional harm to inmate". THEN in 2022 in Thorpe v. Clarke 37 F.4th 926, The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled "Severe isolation alone can deprive prisoners of the minimal civilized measures of life necessities, violating The 8th Amendment", [ibid] Wall v. Clarke 2023 U.S Dist. Lexis 58937, [ibid] Carter v. Ely 2024 U.S Dist. Lexis 38334.To put it bluntly, Governor Youngkin's veto of the solitary confinement bill doesn't comport with the hard gleaned realizations exemplified by, the over a hundred years of criticism of the practice as illustrated by the above listed authorities. A primary function of The Executive, which Youngkin as Governor is, is illustrative and illuminating governance and such isn't achieved by enabling and defending the barbaric practice of solitary confinement in the prisons that literally inculcates insanity, suicides and imbecility to paraphrase The Supreme Court of The United States. Bad governance is an expression of corruption

Whether Governor Glenn Youngkins' veto of the solitary confinement reform bill was diabolic or fatuous is an idealistic exercise in intellectual indulgence that distracts from the one and only relevant fact, it was deleterious on Virginias' social contract, by adding on and compounding the inherent corruption, which the aspirational logic of Government claims amelioration. I list here reference examples of law suits filed by Virginia prisoners held in solitary confinement at Red Onion State Prison attempting to petition Government and seek redress of the extra-judicial nature of the detention, which the vetoed bill was intended to reform and correctly prohibit. These law suit examples are just a bit showing of the dirty laundry, rotten underbelly, fetid corruption Governor Glenn Youngkin's veto feebly attempts to conceal. CARTER V. ELY 2024 U.S DIST.LEXIS 38334 HOEHN V. GIBSON 2024 U.S DIST.LEXIS 41087 REID V. CORIZON HEALTH SERV.2024 U.S DIST.LEXIS 38333 CARTER V. STITH 2024 U.S DIST.LEXIS 22032 ARRINGTON V. MULLINS 2023 U.S DIST.LEXIS 183703 WILLIAMS V. GILBERT 2023 U.S DIST.LEXIS 126015 GODFREY V. DAVIS 2023 U.S DIST.LEXIS 108421 CARTER V. ELY 2023 U.S DIST.LEXIS 79927 WARD V. KISER 2023 U.S DIST.LEXIS 41663 JONES V. WHITE 2023 U.S DIST.LEXIS 186345 GRAY V. ENGLISH 2023 U.S DIST.LEXIS 27282 CARTER V. COLLINS 2023 U.S DIST.LEXIS 99160 CARTER V. KISER 2023 U.S DIST.LEXIS 6655 WALKER V. KISER 2022 U.S DIST.LEXIS 56878 DURAN V. HOOVER 2022 U.S DIST.LEXIS 196931 WALL V. CLARKE 2021 U.S DIST.LEXIS 224916 ALEXANDER V. COLLINS 2021 U.S DIST.LEXIS 75805 GEORGE V. PUCKETT 2021 U.S DIST. LEXIS 30899 EDWARDS V. KANODE 2020 U.S DIST.LEXIS 41300 LEE V. VA. DEPT. OF CORR. 2020 U.S DIST.LEXIS 231921 BARBEE V. ANDERSON 2020 U.S DIST.LEXIS 43133 JORDAN V.MCDUFFIE 2020 U.S DIST.LEXIS 46318 JOHNS V. LOVELL 2020 U.S DIST.LEXIS 15922 FARABEE V. LEE 2019 U.S DIST.LEXIS 170179 REYES V. CLARKE 2019 U.S DIST.LEXIS 150854 RICHARDSON V .R O S P 2017 U.S DIST.LEXIS 119133 MAKDESSI V. CLARKE 2015 U.S DIST.LEXIS 152925 AWE V. R O S P 2014 U.S DIST.LEXIS 35448 ODIGHIZUWA V. STROUTH 2007 U.S DIST.LEXIS 28397 RIVERA V. MATHENA 795 FED.APPX.169 DEPAOLA V. VA.DEPT. OF CORR.703 FED.APPX. 205 STICKLAND V. HALSEY 638 FED.APPX.179 The above listed cases are just a drop in the bucket of efforts from prisoners who in no form or fashion are lawyers and needless I add, judges who the cases are presented to joyfully and gleefully take delight in dismissing them. Not because Virginia prison officials didn't for example assault the prisoner by slamming the prisoner's head onto the floor, or refuse to provide food, showers, outside exercise and all the this and that, which the prison official receives a pay check to perform as legal duty under contract to the Virginia citizenry which the fraudulent refusal then subsequently necessitates (and the failure to perform their legal obligation opens up that other can of worms, which is fraud, Yeah defrauding the Virginia tax payer, which is also theft) the filing of the law suit. What enables and maintains the above the law presumptions and behavior of the Virginia prison official are apologetic actions by leaders in Virginia's Government, Institutions, businesses, like the recent veto of reforming the unambiguous and unequivocal barbarism of solitary confinement by Governor Glenn Youngkin. I asked, by way of title to this work what exactly are the means and mechanisms anticipated by the myth enumerated in the National and Commonwealth's Constitution. Because Governor Youngkin has to explain to the people of Virginia on what basis is he endorsing the abrogation of the democracy of law.

When the Supreme Court of The United States made its critique of solitary confinement in the 1890 case, In Re Medley. Its efforts only spoke to effects of the practice of solitary confinement on its victims, the prisoners. The reality, however is corruption corrupts completely and solitary confinement is corruption. It is a corrupt set of relations impacting both points of the relation or interaction, meaning the prison official, subjective, regardless of the avail of the Nuremberg defense rationale, is also corrupted completely even as the imposition on the prisoner-object is the corrupt solitary confinement condition. Consequently the corruption expands to include and envelope all and whomever defends and apologizes for its practice and existence thereby also exposing that the operative of the solitary confinement practice is Government and Law undermining ITSELF under the guise of exercising the primacy of its police powers. Which brings us to the spectacle of Governor Glenn Youngkins' recent veto of reform of its use by The Virginia Department of Corrections. As the former Soviet dissident, Alexander Solzhenitsyn formulated and I paraphrase, lies and state organized violence go hand in hand, which true to form, we now see reflected in Glenn Youngkins' veto. The condition of solitary confinement is quintessential, State violence and if as the Supreme Court of The United States realized in 1890 that it drove prisoners insane, then it also means that its architects and practioners are just as and demonstrably insane, because they are the ones, which in this instance, the Virginia prison official, are subjecting, imposing and forcing a human being, the Virginia prisoner into a condition, a set of relations that causes insanity which is not, the least of all of the other effects that are not anticipated by and are at odds with Virginia law, yet that's what a Governor of Virginia by exercising the executive privilege of veto has supported and endorsed. The question, nonetheless, isn't whether The Commonwealth can subject prisoners to solitary confinement under due process of law, but whether its with the extreme recognition that solitary confinement is an extraordinary and barbaric state action and must be treated as such, with demanding and compelling focus on limits of use. Virginia's Justice Infrastructure of which the prison system is function is a fact of The Commonwealth's political-economy. To which it's fundamental purpose and primary focus is establishing and maintaining mechanisms for functioning control. This need for functioning control is what comes up against and is at odds with the application of the Social Contracts "equality under law", which like an unseen star in a binary star system revealing its existence by the behavior of its seen sister star, we experience as Government disregarding law as embodied by the prison official's barbaric use of solitary confinement and its thorough violation of law and the intrinsic integrity of governance and Government. The proof of this is, again, the exercise of veto powers by politicians, that betrays the progressive interest of society its people and the instinct of governance. There is distinction between corruption and criminal violation. While the Virginia prisoner is imprisoned as a result of criminal violation, the Virginia politician on the other hand in betraying governance is covered in corruption.

By William Thorpe

I'm William Thorpe Virginia exiled me to the Texas prison system. I'm solitary confined at the Wainwright Unit

Advocacy For Reform Of The Virginia Prison System Shouldn't Become Idealistic By William Thorpe

The Virginia Department Of Corrections has an encyclopedia of Operating Procedures, Policies, Standards, Memoranda and Practices. The Commonwealth Of Virginia has a Constitution, then a universe of laws, statutes, Executive Orders, advisories, Opinions of The Attorney General and Practices. Then there is the Constitution of The United States, its executing laws and Practices. Now the Virginia Prisoner as all others animating the American existence of life and death are a construct of and subject to all of the above laws, traditions and practices. None of what I'm saying is insight, its just that you the reader are not caught up in the attention of its daily granular detail. I start with this, because I speak to this ahistoric tendency exhibited by advocacy, which is a tension, but can also be characterized as contradiction. Advocacy for reform of the Virginia prison system relatively falls into a couple of categories, which are (1) Idealistic and (2) practical. This isn't criticism in itself but an understanding of purpose. It's with this issue of purpose, meaning the focus of the reform that the question of tension and contradiction are factors. Because the approach taken by a number of those advocating for reform of the Virginia prison system underscores whether their understanding for any number of reasons is tethered to their anticipation. No objective and serious-minded person will argue against or disagree that the Virginia prison official is extra-judicial and behaves outside the scope of Law, so reformation of the system and holding the prison official accountable hinges on the practicality of its means and mechanisms. Idealistically the solution to the question of holding the Virginia prison official accountable has been presented as, creating independent oversight of The Virginia Department Of Corrections. But the reason this is Idealistic, and a gambit played, is laws already exist to investigate and hold the prison official accountable. What will set any oversight mechanism apart from the ideal, is to what degree is its remedial reach practical. Because the extra-judicial and above the law behavior of the prison official, which the creation of a purported independent ombudsman is expected to inhibit and even prohibit, is inherent to what it means to be a Virginia prison official. In other words breaking the law is organic to and an inescapable fact of being a prison official. Yet the creation of a Virginia Department of Corrections specific independent ombudsman presents nothing unique to the preexisting Virginia Code 2.2-309, detailing the duties of the State Inspector General anymore then the already existing laws. With practical measures to hold the Virginia prison official accountable, we firstly begin with a prison grievance process, that a prison's grievance department cannot dishonestly claim that the prisoner didn't comply with the requirements. The grievance process is a Virginia and United States law requirement. What is more fundamental is the political reformative action of excising the scapegoating narrative impulse of Virginia's Justice Infrastructure towards the prisoner. This scapegoating narrative has allowed its exploitation for political gain by those who are utterly disinclined from ameliorating deviance and criminality. Virginia's political landscape is historically stamped with, gambits purposefully designed to coopt practical prison reform .Thats what we have to change.

By William Thorpe

I'm William Thorpe Virginia exiled me to the Texas prison system. I'm solitary confined at the Wainwright Unit

Father Forgive Them

@NPR Snap Judgment

Guest Audio

Cell Double L is the final cell in Oklahoma State Penitentiary. It is the cell you occupy before your execution. We speak to three men and their loved ones as they move through death watch row. This episode includes references to penal executions and strong language. Please take care while listening. Huge enormous thanks to Bigler Stouffer, Wade Lay, and Donald Grant for sharing your stories. Also major thanks to the loved ones, on the outside, for allowing us inside their lives. Produced by Ellie Lightfoot and Gaby Caplan Gaby Caplan and Ellie Lightfoot reported this story while participating in the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism's National Fellowship and the Kristy Hammam Fund for Health Journalism. Season 15 - Episode 11

NPR

Snap Judgment

The Black And White Of Holding The Virginia Prison Official Accountable Is Politics By William Thorpe

Okay, Virginia Code Section 53.1-30 (A) allows any member of Virginia's General Assembly, including the Governor access to any of Virginia's Prisons. There isn't any excuse why Delegates and Senators of The People of Virginia rarely exercise the right. Considering the fact that even under a rock, isn't Rip Van Winkle removed enough to be oblivious that what is being done by Prison Officials of The Virginia Department Of Corrections in the name of The People has nothing to do with a primary function of preparing The Virginia Prisoner for social reentry. Virginia Code Section 18.2-10 specifies punishment for convictions of felonies in The Commonwealth of Virginia which are imprisonment and fines. Virginia Code Section 53.1-1through 53.1-267 gives a generalized idea of Virginia's imprisonment scheme. I have given the basic laws dealing with Virginia's prison and imprisonment scheme, but the laws are not the basis, the foundation of Virginia's Justice Infrastructure of which the prison system is function. The basis however is The Politics. The Politics is what stops and inhibits The Peoples Representatives or Virginia Politician from going to Virginia's Prisons i.e Red Onion, Wallens Ridge, Sussex I State Prisons, even if its a Photo Op, as President Barack Obama's with his visit to a Federal prisoner at a Federal Prison during his push for reduction of drug sentences and focus on solitary confinement, to take seriously the fact that the "above the law" behavior of the prison official is a rot on Virginia's Social Contract. I have listed Va .Code 18.2-10, the punishment for felony convictions law to highlight that the sentence and fine is the punishment. Everything else and I mean everything else the prisoner experiences as condition of the imprisonment is based on ideas and speculations of what The Director of The Virginia Department of Corrections thinks and feels will serve the ruling political masters interest. So to hold the prison official accountable requires the narrative of political reform. Political reform isn't necessarily about Republican or Democratic critique, but its about an accounting of relations within Virginia's Social Contract that indicts reaction and its anti-reform insentience. Classic Virginia politics has nauseatingly exploited the Justice Infrastructure at the expense of remedying its aggravating circumstances, while pursuing the unoriginal scapegoating of the prisoner, as diversion from its true subject or focus of its political energies, which is maintaining an iron grip on the mass demographic from whom the Virginia prisoner is born. My position is, this is known and clearly understood by those who perennially seek votes from the prisoner's family and the victims of crime and their families. The reality nonetheless is the exploited demographic of that political same ole same ole has to come to terms with their complicity and accept not as petty criticism but the realization that every relationship or point of interaction had with the social contract provides opportunity to assert and attest that the requisite politics is specifically an understanding of its common interest. The law is politics, its extension or expression. The civil rights act of 1871 was passed to stop Klan terror of Black people yet it wasn't enforced till 1961 in Monroe v. Pape 365 US 167, appx 90 years after its passage because the politics in 1961 permitted it.

By William Thorpe

I'm William Thorpe Virginia exiled me to the Texas prison system. I'm solitary confined at the Wainwright Unit

To The Attorney General Of The Commonwealth Of Virginia Jason Miyares Is Unhinged By William Thorpe

 

No one likes the rule breaker. Virginia's prison cages are full of those who summarily responded to personal violations (which is their sovereign right) but as members of the social contract, such right is transferred and surrendered to the collective as laws of the Commonwealth. No one likes the thief, even as Jesus Christ ascribed value to "the thief in the night" (Matthew 24:43-44). I begin with this, let me add one more anecdote, the Nations founding Fathers, specifically, the 56, who signed the Declaration of Independence with oath, ["And, for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor"]. beginning with John Hancock to Georgia's, George Walton. All, of em, every last one were petty crass criminals, traitors from the vantage and position of Great Britain, who they rebelled against and there is nothing more fundamental a crime than the relativity of treason which is what the 56 declarators of the Nations Independence committed, but to quote James Clavell in SHOGUN, "there is no excuse for rebellion.....there's one if you win" [pp.1147] and the 56 signers of The Declaration of Independence won. As such exist eternally as historic paragons of virtue, totems of quintessential self-determination. These anecdotes stand as reminder and basis of why Virginia's Justice Infrastructure and the prison system requires reform as the sunflower follows the arc of the Sun. Because reactionaries as Jason Miyares in his role as attorney general of the Commonwealth of Virginia, for whatever reason would rather we forget and gloss over the fact, deviance and criminality or rule breaking are organic facts of the dialectic of the human condition. A couple of days ago, Jason Miyares sent the entire Virginia General Assembly a polical tract in pursuit of the typical tough on crime scapegoating of the Virginia prisoner. To excerpt some of what attorney general Jason Miyares sent, "Recent history of Earned Sentence Credit Legislation prior to 2020, as then set forth in Code sec.53.1-202.3,The Commonwealth maintained as part of its sentence credit system a longstanding truth-in-sentencing rule whereby all inmates sentenced to serve on felonies would serve at least 85% of their sentences......Although the sentence credit system, as amended excludes many violent felonies. It alarmingly permits inmates to earn the enhanced earned sentence credits......"(Jason Miyares) Notwithstanding the disinformation of Jason Miyares, tract. What I want to focus on is, what social contract dynamic is animating Jason Miyares? Because for example there are real reasons, why the likes of William Wilberforce, Frederick Douglas to name a couple opposed chattel slavery or why Cesare Beccaria critiqued crime and punishment. There are reasons why participant administrators in the modern American prison experiment as Robert W. Dumond write it's exposé or why prison jurisprudence is a mockery of The United States Constitution and Virginia law. Virginia's scheme of awarding "good time" or credits applicable to a prison sentence are affirmative recognition by the people, yes the Commonwealth that even Solomonic wisdom factors in the nuance of causality. But the Miyares of Virginia would rather dictate to the Mother of the convicted and in extension the victim of crime what is Justice at the expense of its distortion.

By William Thorpe

I'm William Thorpe Virginia exiled me to the Texas prison system. I'm solitary confined at the Wainwright Unit

A Careful Study Of 34 USCS 30309 And 108 P.L.79, 117 Stat. 972 Detailing The, Prison Rape Elimination Act Of 2003 Is Astonishing By William Thorpe

Conventional wisdom, opines that Politicians, law and policy makers are apathetic and even deaf to the commonsensical and practical observations delivered by Prison Reformist, that the typical treatment meted out to the American Prisoner and the conditions of the imprisonment, which is akin to the activity of the colloquial "snake oil" salesman is counter intuitive and self defeatist on all levels of the American Prison experiment. So when one encounters, analysis and unambiguous declarations in this milieu, reminiscent of the futility and reaction of the 19th century's "Know-Nothings", it must be acknowledged. Because it presents us with that axiom, the"genie is out of the bottle" and no amount of sophistry can deny the fact, ignorance as defense doesn't exist anymore. Which is exactly what the 108th U.S. Congress revealed with their work on The Prison Rape Elimination Act. Because all one has to do is replace the word "rape" in the Act with any circumstance of prison that is systemic and a DeFacto condition and the findings and conclusions hold true and factual. So the only question is why are, Prison Officials allowed to run prisons as they do when law makers and policy makers are firmly grounded in the knowledge that the operations and current management of prisons are Sisyphean in their singular focus on aggravating and worsening the circumstances of the imprisoned? And as a matter of fact, it is fraudulent and a betrayal of the public's trust that the prison official are for example taking control of a 18 yr. old sentenced to prison on account of a conviction of drug dealing and treating the 18yr. old in that manner, which Philosophers as Cesare Beccaria (1739-1794) criticized 259 years ago. Now as this relates to Virginia law makers and politicians, all I ask is they reread and study 34 USCS 30309, the findings, replace the word "rape" with for example the Virginia prison officials habit of sicing dogs on Virginia prisoners, or starving prisoners then lying about it, denying prisoners outside exercise, then lying about it, refusing to process prisoner complaints, then lying about it, employing a pro forma rubber stamp for what should be a honest process of prisoner release from solitary confinement. In other words terrorizing the prisoner. Or how about we scrutinize the Virginia lawmakers behavior in passing laws concerning the imprisoned that render the ex prisoner socially dysfunctional all along scapegoating the resulting and inevitable pitfalls. In other words the realization of Article 1 of The Constitution of Virginia is that proverbial, cutting off the nose to spite the face. Because thats exactly what the unwillingness of all of Virginia's Institutions, from its law schools, churches and places of religion, to all sectors of the Social Contract to face up to the fact, that something is seriously awry in a society when the dominant and major outlay and expense of its productivity is for confining humans in cages. In 1965, Lord Chancellor Gardiner of the British House of Lords, had this to say to his bewigged brethren, over the state practice of killing people. It is apt for this work."When we abolished the punishment for treason that you should be hanged, and then cut down while still alive,and then disemboweled while still alive and then quartered, we did not abolished the punishment because we sympathized with traitors, but because we took the view that it was a punishment no longer consistent with our self respect ",

By William Thorpe

I'm William Thorpe Virginia exiled me to the Texas prison system. I'm solitary confined at the Wainwright Unit

You Gotta Be Kidding Me, Virginia Republicans Again, Allow The Virginia Department Of Corrections Veto Over Oversight ? When Will Virginians Wise Up To This Fox Guarding The Hen House Politics ? By William Thorpe

Virginia Republicans are well aware that The Commonwealth Of Virginia (taxpayers) reportedly pays out $2 million yearly to private attorneys, on top of whatever settlement levied against the State in lawsuits brought against The Virginia Department Of Corrections. Because Sen. Dave Marsden, D-Fairfax, highlighted it during the recent legislative fight to get The Virginia Department Of Corrections in compliance with and to abide by laws all Virginians are subject to. The Republican Party, Nationally and Locally, (Virginia) has created a cottage industry of polemicizing against governmental spending it disagrees with and abhors as wasteful. And there isn't a Virginia taxpayer (save for the beneficiaries) who would disagree that doling out $2 million yearly to lawyers on top of settlement penalties due to unlawful and extra-judicial behavior by prison officials isn't wasteful, when all the prison official has to do is stop breaking the law. Nonetheless Republicans have consistently enabled and principally supported the prison officials presumptuous above the law activities and practically accorded The Virginia Department Of Corrections veto powers over efforts to subject it to actual and legitimate oversight. During this 2024 Virginia General Assembly Legislative session, again Democrats worked to establish Department Of Corrections specific oversight mechanisms, regardless of how much teeth it would have, it was an unassailable assertion. Sen. Dave Marsden, sponsor of The Virginia Prison Ombudsman-Oversight proposal said, [as reported by Graham Moomaw on 2/13/24] "I think what it will do is cut down on the $2 million we pay every year for outside counsel with the attorney general's office to settle lawsuits". Marsden told the committee. "I think a lot of these can be short-stopped by an ombudsman" . In opposition to the bill/proposal, The Virginia Department Of Corrections Legislative liaison Jerry Fitz, declared how The Department sees itself as an above the law entity, not subject to oversight by the Virginia voter and taxpayer (who by the way not only gives it its authority but funds it) with, "the costs of implementing a more robust oversight system would be unknown", and that ombudsman oversight, "would create another layer of government". Then The Virginia House Appropriations Committee with Republicans in the majority voted straight party line to agree with VADOC that it'd be onerous and a burden for it to comply with the law. I mean seriously, an agency tasked with confining those convicted of breaking laws claiming it should be allowed to break the law, because complying with it "would create... another layer of government" and "the costs of [compliance] would be unknown"? And the peoples representatives, politicians voted for to maintain social integrity under law, agreeing with a state agency that being watchful of its activities is at odds and will impede its functioning? And politicians tasked with the responsibility of ensuring oversight of all of Virginia government outsources the privilege to the subject? At the expense of that laboriously gleaned realization, absolute power corrupts absolutely? Hasn't VADOC taught us that enough?

By William Thorpe

I'm William Thorpe Virginia exiled me to the Texas prison system. I'm solitary confined at the Wainwright Unit

Virginia It's Time To Exercise Your Referendum Rights Under Article 1 Section 2 Of The Constitution Of Virginia, To Put A Stop To Suicides, Forced Starvations At The State's Concentration Camps, By William Thorpe

The Virginia Supreme Court recently ruled in Williams v. Legere 77 Va. App. 422, "A referendum is an exercise by the voters of their traditional right through direct legislation to override the views of their elected representatives as to what serves the public interest". There isn't a more clear cut and divergent speech of what The People want from that declared in the confines of Virginia's General Assembly by the elected representatives, than on the issue of Virginia's prisons specifically and the justice infrastructure generally. (and when I say The People, I include Prisoners, those confined within the State and those its exported out of State under interstate compact and those released, but disenfranchised). Our ancients cogently and wisely have instructed that when the issue is, one encompassing, the fundamental authority of the State, it's assertion and exercise of police powers or 'organized violence', there cannot be a specific indictment but a general one.What this means is a distaste to act as if causality isn't within the historic confines of Social Contract. As an aside, the habit to ignore causality, is an inexorable operative of impunity. Not to get all into a history lesson. Prior to the civil war, 1861, the Nations prisons had a different character from the post war one that emerged, particularly after passage of The 13th amend.and it's nationalization of slavery. Pre civil war Black people weren't imprisoned and if they were, it was negligible, because the majority were chattel enslaved. It defeated the purpose of the enslavement to imprison an enslaved. But post defeat of the Confederacy and passage of the 13th amend. that purportedly outlawed slavery, prisons across the Nation saw an explosion of black prisoners, because imprisonment meant a return to what slavery meant, which was free unpaid work and the Nation needed free unpaid labor. On this character transformation of the American prisons, impunity and its above the law tendencies recreated the organic conditions of slavery which currently exist as the barbarity of prison. As it concerns Virginia, Republicans have revealed themselves to be nothing more than neo-confedrates, pining for Robert E. Lee coming down Monument Ave. so their idea of prison is just as their world view, reactionary with the requsite impunity of the prison official. Democrats on the other hand relatively and idealistically recognize that for the integrity of the Social Contract and it's maintenance as declared in Article 1 section 1, of The Constitution of Virginia a semblance of equality under law, as applied to the prison system and justice infrastructure is required. Nonetheless prisoners are politically scapegoated for access to speculative power, as such the social condition that births and creates them is maligned and exploited, thus imposing, subjecting and treating the "free" Virginian existing in those conditions just as if they were imprisoned. So this recognition for a referendum to finally bring accountability to the maladministration of The Virginia Department Of Corrections is for Virginians who understand and accept that equality under law and accountability of the prison official are a symbiosis of the self-interest necessary if they are not to be constantly and repeatedly exploited by the law and order, tough on crime machinations that breed the environment of deviance.

By William Thorpe

I'm William Thorpe Virginia exiled me to the Texas prison system. I'm solitary confined at the Wainwright Unit