VIRGINIA REPUBLICANS ARE LOUD AND CHURLISHLY CRITICAL OVER ANYTHING DEALING WITH THE VIRGINIA PRISONER BECAUSE BECOMING HONEST OVER THE VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS EXPOSES THEIR HYPOCRISY By William Thorpe

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

Let's take this latest stunt by Nicholas Freitas, Republican representative of Virginia's 62d District and his HB 2192 Bill, intended to repeal, the EARNED SENTENCE CREDIT Law, a program designed specifically to incentivize prisoner behavior. The Virginia Prison Official's primary and justifying argument, defining the administration and management of Prison, is that of "maintaining order" and The Supreme Court of The United States has given it constitutional validation in it's precedential ruling in, TURNER v. SAFLEY 482 U.S. 78 and it is expressed in a Virginia State case, BURCH v. COMMONWEALTH 2014 VA.APP.LEXIS 343--"An essential tool of Prison Administrators is the authority to offer inmates various incentives to behave".We also see the primary basis of maintaining order and prisoner behavior in the National SENTENCING REFORM ACT OF 1984.The point is controlling prisoner behavior and the maintenance of order in prison are justifications claimed by the Prison Official. So enactment of Virginia's EARNED SENTENCE CREDIT Law was within the norms of prison management, because it was law designed to incentivize prisoner behavior. Yet since Virginia Republicans assumed political leadership of the Commonwealth in 2022 beginning with Glenn Youngkin becoming Governor, they have been hell bent on repealing it.This cat nip intoxication with repealing the law, speaks of a couple of factors 1) Virginia Republicans would rather have Virginia prisoners misbehaving, with the prison environment a maelstrom of disorder thereby accommodating a talking point and secondly (2) a much longer prison stay due to poor behavior.

Let me excerpt what THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES had to say about such circumstances in the case ROSALES-MIRELES 585 U.S. 129----"To a prisoner", this prospect of additional "time behind bars is not some theoretical or mathematical concept" (BARBER v. THOMAS 560 U.S. 474,504 Kennedy, J .dissenting)"Any amount of actual jail time" is significant (GLOVER v. UNITED STATES 531 US.198,203) and has exceptionally severe consequences for the incarcerated individual [and] for society which bears the direct and indirect costs of incarceration", (UNITED STATES v. JENKIN 854 F.3d 181,192.) The possibility of additional jail time thus warrants serious consideration in a determination whether to exercise discretion.....{IT IS CRUCIAL IN MAINTAINING PUBLIC PERCEPTION OF FAIRNESS AND INTEGRITY IN THE JUSTICE SYSTEM THAT COURTS EXHIBIT REGARD FOR FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS AND RESPECT FOR PRISONERS "AS PEOPLE" (T. TYLER, WHY PEOPLE OBEY THE LAW 164 (2006) THE RISK OF UNNECESSARY DEPRIVATION OF LIBERTY PARTICULARLY UNDERMINES THE FAIRNESS ,INTEGRITY, OR PUBLIC REPUTATION OF JUDICIAL PROCEEDINGS......IN BROAD STROKES THE PUBLIC LEGITIMACY OF OUR JUSTICE SYSTEM RELIES ON PROCEDURES THAT ARE " NEUTRAL, ACCURATE, CONSISTENT, TRUSTWORTHY AND FAIR", AND THAT "PROVIDES OPPORTUNITIES FOR ERROR CORRECTION" BOWERS and ROBINSON, PERCEPTION OF FAIRNESS AND JUSTICE:THE SHARED AIMS AND OCCASIONAL CONFLICT OF LEGITIMACY AND MORAL CREDIBILITY 47 WAKE FOREST L.REV.211,215-216--my emphasis in all caps}.What the above excerpt from the finding and ruling from the Supreme Court of The United States in the Rosales-Mireles case outlines,is everything Virginia Republicans and as it relates to this work Nicholas Freitas with his HB 2192,repeal of the EARNED SENTENCE CREDITS law,behavior incentive program for Virginia prisoners, are irrationally against.There is nothing eye opening in the Supreme Courts findings and articulation in the Rosales-Mireles case ,it is, basic commonsense, that there must be buy in, faith and trust from The People or Public in The Social Contract and its terms or simply put, LAW. There isn't a circumstance of our human condition, whether its from the Religious belief and it's suppositionary-Theological context to crass autocracy and its delusions that there isn't a buy-in, or faith in its operative terms. In other words imposition is pure superstition and intoxication. So when for short-sighted, presumptive gain of speculative political authority as parlayed by Nicholas Freitas and his Republican cabal, we see this willingness to mock and delegitimize the very terms of that "Humpty Dumptyesque Center, must-hold" faith, which is in Law or as we are told in Rosales-Mireles,that, "In broad strokes the public legitimacy of our justice system relies on procedures that are "neutral, accurate, consistent, trustworthy and fair,....." ,we cannot ignore the fact that it is our complicity, The People of Virginia,that is enabling the corruption and perversion of "JUSTICE" in the name of The People. Our Federal Government itself recognizes the management of prisoner behavior, see 18 USCS SECTION 3621 (IMPRISONMENT OF A CONVICTED PERSON), also 18 USCS SECTION 3624, (ON GOOD TIME FOR PRISONER GOOD BEHAVIOR).First of all, neither Nicholas Freitas nor his Virginia Republican cabal are omniscient, their ideas are just that, suppositions and speculations, which we clearly see are idealistic, in bad faith and gratuitously cruel. The fact of the matter is, if Virginia's Social Contract, is a construct on incentivizing it's terms, then why would it be perverted in prison?

People, let this sink in, IF VIRGINIA'S SOCIAL CONTRACT IS A CONSTRUCT ON INCENTIVIZING IT'S TERMS, THEN WHY WOULD IT BE PERVERTED IN PRISON? Look, this isn't complicated every aspect of the social contract, as understood, its terms is incentivized, the Political-Economy underpinning is a construct of incentives. Are we then expected to accept that Nicholas Freitas and his Republican ilk are ignorant of the incentivizing motive of the Social Contract? No we know they're not.So why have we historically behaved as if they're then worthy of our collective benefit of the doubt, which is simply complicity through permissiveness. Okay, due to the chattel enslavement of Black people as dynamic of Virginia's political-economy and the subsequent dehumanization, what Virginia was confronted with is that simple maxim, which is, in support and defense of a predicate or original lie, (the enabling logic and its psychology for the enslavement of Black people) more lies, more deception, more distortions has to be indulged. Now after the destruction of the chattel enslavement basis of Virginia's political-economy, by the Civil War. Virginia insidiously recreated, it by simply transferring those dehumanizing attitudes and sentiments on to its imprisoned,(see the 1871 Virginia Supreme Court ruling in RUFFIN v. COMMONWEALTH 62 Va.790 that the convicted prisoner [is a] slave of the state. I discussed aspects of this in my June 26, 2023 work, EXPLOITING VICTIMS OF CRIMES AND SCAPEGOATING VIRGINIA'S PAROLE PROCESS:THE BACKWARDNESS OF EXECUTIVE ORDER NUMBER 2022).What I'm showing is that straight line from chattel slavery and its dehumanizing distortions to Virginia's imprisonment scheme,with the operative on "dehumanization". Because there isn't any stipulation, any purpose, why dehumanization of the prisoner has to accompany the punishment of imprisonment. Yet, that is exactly what the Nicholas Freitas among us advance, and we see its corrisive anticipations in modern and contemporary Virginia, (see these Virginia Supreme Court cases:VLAMING v. W. POINT SCH.BD.302 Va.504(2023) TAYLOR v. NORTHAM 300 Va.230 (2021) (also Virginia Court of Appeals STEVENS v. COMMONWEALTH 70 Va.App.280(2019).

What we see happening in the greater Virginia society or The Social Contract, is the objectification of hypocrisy, along with compromises of its Constitutionalized aspirations. We see this clearly as a symbiosis of official impunity and public complicity, which inexorably is the last refuge of dictatorial impudence and the abandonment of any pretense towards social progress. So for example during the Great Pandemic of 2020, the polemic hurled by those against Governmental actions, specifically the isolationist and seclusionary confinement of The People in their homes, was its at odds with the natural sociability of the human being. That the isolation of the lockdown was driving people mad, inducing destructive, addictive, self-harm and abusive behaviors. That people were committing suicides, that it was impairing the cognitive functions of the young brain. In other words, isolation and the seclusion of the human being is antithetical to humanness. Now prior to the Great Pandemic lockdown of 2020 the only environment that was systemically and endemically subjected to the antithetical to humanness violence of isolation and seclusion was Prison and it's Solitary Confinement and for this work the Virginia prisoner, held in solitary confinement within the prison cages of The Virginia Department of Corrections. The point I make with the example of The Great Pandemic Lockdown of 2020 is this, the same people who couched their opposition to the Governmental action of isolation and seclusion of The People, with polemics of its hazardous and detrimental nature on humanness, for all the above cited and stated reasons are the same ones who scream the loudest against it's reform and abridging its use in prison and for this work, The Virginia Department of Corrections. Of course their obvious hypocrisy is blatantly apparent, and we see how extraordinarily at odds those minds and hearts are with the findings and determinations of ROSALES-MIRELES where we find the Supreme Court of The United States, underscoring [the] "regard for fundamental rights and respect for prisoners "as people". Now let's fast forward to the latest and recent head scratching consequences of the barbarity and savagery of the Virginia prison official under cover of their Republican Party political allies, that Virginia prisoners are self-immolating, setting themselves on fire as desperate speech in protest of the antithetical to humanness conditions they're subjected to, which are a trillion fold extreme than the isolationary and seclusionary circumstances of the Great Pandemic Lockdown of 2020 which those Republican Party allies of the Virginia prison official, labored mightily in polemicizing it's adverse impact on The People, yet refuse to recognize likewise effects on the Virginia prisoner, thus unconditionally stating their dehumanizing and denigrating intentions. So what do we see The Virginia Department of Corrections doing as response to prisoners in its care and supervision? It came up with an aversive and punitive scheme, under a purported "SAFETY AGREEMENT", using "FOOD, OUTSIDE EXERCISE OR RECREATION, PROGRAMMING, ACCESS TO T.V AND NEWS, e.t.c. Now let me bring this to the readers attention, The Virginia Department of Corrections formulates its purported "SAFETY AGREEMENT" within or on the speculation that prisoners self-immolating are a mental-health condition as such it's response is a mental health treatment. Now besides the incongruity of such a conclusion, considering that the prisoners have rationally stated that the speech of immolation is a response to the barbarity and savagery of the conditions of confinement. So it responds with using FOOD, as treatment?

By William Thorpe