TO LET CHADWICK DOTSON THE DIRECTOR OF THE VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS TELL IT, THE PRISONERS ARE WHATS WRONG, WELL WE RESPOND WITH: HIS TREATMENT OF THEM IS WHATS WRONG AND HERE ARE THE DIRTY LAUNDRY FACTS By William Thorpe

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

The Commonwealth of Virginia has a State Board of Corrections and once upon a time the position of The Director of The Virginia Department of Corrections was subordinate to it, then for whatever reason Virginia politicians aka legislators decided the people of Virginia needed a dictator running their imprisonment scheme and prison system. So we have witnessed a parade of petty dictators enjoying fat pay checks, the largesse of The People of Virginia, to this current dictator, Chadwick Dotson and his imitation of dictator Nero, Emperor of Rome who is forever in history as fiddling while Rome burned, which dictator Dotson will also forever be in history as the Director of The Virginia Department of Corrections who also fiddled while Virginia prisoners under his care set themselves on fire, were self-immolating, because that was what the reality of his care impelled them to do. Now there is a narrative that prisons are black holes, inscrutable enclosures, where nothing much of what goes on is revealed unless its what the prison official wants, in other words what will be beneficial to the dictator and this narrative is enabled and actively developed and maintained by a majority of society's fundamental, foundational and bulwark institutions. Starting with the victims of crime, who instead of ensuring that the convicted person who is now imprisoned because of law and its process, is treated according to law (the same law that is affording justice) turn a blind eye to the impunity and law breaking savagery and barbaric treatment of the prisoner by the dictator. Then we encounter the hypocrisy and complicity of Religion and it's various Faiths, who prostitute their tenets to curry favor from the State by being their "three monkey see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil self". Our academia and higher institutions, are also caught up in and dealing with their "three monkey see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil demons". Next in line are both positions of Business from, ownership or management to labor or the worker, both genuflecting to the liege with their " three monkey see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil servility. Then the penultimate, Virginia's corporate media and its inability to understand its purpose. I haven't been one of those who has allowed convention to distort and muddy my polemic against media, from it being a reactionary font for propaganda, to its status quo bias and the most damming, its complicity. And its with media we see the undermining effect and diabolical nature of the prison or the Virginia prison is a black hole narrative, which then allows obfuscation not only of the underpinning concept and it's practice but the ability and very nature of questioning and challenging the suppositions in its defense. In so many words its just as the Religious sophistry of "fiat", yet let's "discuss", which is just an exercise in twisting ones self into knots or the spectacle of a dog chasing its tail, with the real, deliberate and intentional purpose of keeping the People of Virginia subordinated to anathematized formulations of the Social Contract by presenting ignorance as cognition and understanding. Because if media and all our foundational institutions accepted the necessity of what it means to know, to have an educated electorate, which The Supreme Court of The United States, stated clearly in JOINT ANTI-FASCIST REFUGE COMMITTEE v. McGRATH 341 U.S.123 "..... [A] democratic government must therefore practice fairness and fairness can rarely be obtained by secret, one-sided determination of facts decisive of rights" and this echoes an earlier Supreme Court of The United States finding in IN W. Va.STATE Bd. of EDUC. v. BARNETTE 319 U.S. 624 (1943) where Justice Jackson wrote in the majority opinion, building on the reasoning in MINERSVILLE SCHOOL DISTRICT v. GOBITIS 310 U.S. 586..."The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. Ones right to Life, Liberty, and Property, to Free Speech, a Free Press, Freedom of Worship and Assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote they depend on the outcome of no election" (then he continues)" [T]hose who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters. Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard".....What these above excerpts help instruct is, The Social Contract or The Constitutionalized aspirations of The People or Society cannot be realized without a comprehensive grasp of what is being done in their name, which for The Commonwealth of Virginia is the understanding of what Chadwick Dotson as Chief prison official, is doing to the imprisoned Virginian. If the Virginia media in particular, considering that it has a constitutional responsibility to inform the Virginia polity wanted to fulfill those obligations in a real way and not a pro forma, performative one, what we would see is when Chadwick Dotson and The Virginia Department of Corrections hide behind the usual gambits employed by Virginia government officials to conceal. Media would look to all those other avenues of disclosures and revelations of what is being done, which court records are one, families and friends of the Virginia prisoner are another and specifically the understanding from victims of crime that breaking law by Chadwick Dotson in his treatment of the Virginia prisoner isn't their expected justice of accountability and is just another expression of deviance and criminality. So when we study a listing of Virginia Court records. We find chronicles upon chronicles of claims, allegations of prison official deviance and criminality by Virginia prisoners accusing Chadwick Dotson's dictatorship of abuse, misconduct, malfeasance, savagery and barbarity. Now for you the reader who might not be savvy to American and Virginia jurisprudence, there is a concept, respondeat superior or "let the superior make answer", which as [BLACK'S LAW] defines," The doctrine holding an employer or principal liable for the employee's or agent's wrongful acts committed within the scope of the employment or agency". What makes this germane to the law breaking of Chadwick Dotson's dictatorship is, under the classic manner Virginia prisoners sue or take the Virginia prison official to court for their deviance and criminality is by a Federal Law, 42 U.S.C.S section 1983 and under its interpretation by The Supreme Court of The United States in the case MONELL v. Dept. of Soc. Servs. 436 U.S. 658, it doesn't allow or permit a straight forward application or use of the, respondeat superior, and in a follow up case, ASHCROFT v. IQBAL 556 U.S. 662, The Court gave a bit of clarity on how respondeat superior is used. The jurisprudence on respondeat superior has been structured on the Court's 1908 ruling in Ex PARTE YOUNG 209 U.S. 123. Now in Virginia jurisprudence which is also structured on the MONELL ruling, we find these determinations, ASHBURY v. CITY OF NORFOLK 152 Va 228, SUFFOLK CITY SCH. BD. v. WAHLSTROM 392 Va. 188 and BD. OF SUPERVISORS OF FAIRFAX CNTY. v. LEACH-LEWIS 303 Va. 225. The situation with the law and with all of these twist and turns is the Virginia prisoner is not a lawyer or legal scholar and even amongst lawyers and legal scholars there isn't unanimity of interpretation, application or what the law is saying, because notwithstanding Justice Jackson's correct reading and jurisprudence in the 1943 W. Va. State Bd. of Educ. v. BARNETTE case, law and jurisprudence are consequences of Politics, in other words when the politics is human development affirmative or Progressive or simply put, "common sense" we find the wisdom of a 1943 Justice Jackson but when the politics is reactionary or short sighted, selfish, exploitive and feudalistic we find the sophistry of the anti-respondeat superior jurisprudence which only allows one thing and one only "impunity". So, as we will see with this listing of Virginia prisoner filed cases against Chadwick Dotson's employee activity and behavior at Virginia's KONCENTRATION KAMP RED ONION STATE PRISON, ranging from self-immolation to physical and sexual assault, the Virginia prison official uses law to do lawless and reprehensible deeds. Here are Virginia prisoner claims: GORDON v. STUMPF 2024 U.S. DIST. LEXIS 170277----WHITE v. MAYS 2025 U.S. DIST. LEXIS 14923----OBIE v. FULLER 2024 U.S. DIST. LEXIS 219369---CARTER v. COLLINS 2024 U.S. DIST. LEXIS 51923---- DEFOUR v. HALL 2024 U.S. DIST. LEXIS 109352-----PRICE v. HUBBARD 2024 U.S. DIST. LEXIS 223200---- MADISON v. DOTSON 2024 U.S. DIST. LEXIS 234698----CARTER v. ELY 2024 U.S. DIST. LEXIS 38334-----CARTER v. KING 2025 U.S. DIST. LEXIS 14925----JACKSON v. ROBINSON 2024 U.S. DIST. LEXIS 119173---- MOULTRIE v. SMITH 2025 U.S. DIST. LEXIS 988-----JONES v. WHITE 2023 U.S. DIST. LEXIS 186345----BINGHAM v. RAMEY 2025 U.S. DIST. LEXUS 985----GEORGE v. COUNS. KEGLEY 2025 U.S. DIST. LEXIS 12943-----WALKER v. KISER 2022 U.S. DIST. LEXIS 56878----GODFREY v. DAVIS 2023 U.S. DIST. LEXIS 108421-----WILLIAMS v. GILBERT 2024 U.S. DIST. LEXIS 51922----RIDDICK v. MOORE 2023 U.S. DIST. LEXIS 55162-----WALL v. McCOWAN 2024 U.S. DIST. LEXIS 155981-----MAKDESSI v. FOX 2024 U.S. DIST. LEXIS 56444------WHITTEN v. JOHNSON 2023 U.S. DIST. LEXIS 42151------CARTER v. KING 2025 U.S. DIST. LEXIS 34555------ANDERSON v. CLARKE 2024 U.S. DIST. LEXIS 164446-----DEFOUR v. WHITE 2024 U.S. DIST. LEXIS 56423------LEE v. BENTLEY 2024 U.S. DIST. LEXIS 74659-----CARTER v. ELY 2025 U.S. DIST. LEXIS 37499----BURKE v. STANLEY YOUNG 2024 Va. App. LEXIS 580.This listing of cases or claims and allegations of Virginia prison official violations by Virginia prisoners are just a drop in the bucket in a tsunami of savagery and barbarity that is allowed to exist by the failings of Virginia's corporate media in fulfilling its Constitutional duty, see Virginia Constitution, Article 1 Section 12 Freedom of Speech and of the Press-----"That the freedoms of speech and of the press are among the great bulwarks of liberty and can never be restrained except by despotic governments....." and what we see and experience is Virginia's corporate or mainstream medias' abrogation and compromises of the straight forward declarations of Section 12 and its, selling itself and us The People out to that 'despotism' Virginia's Constitution cautions against. For one on, February 16,2022 The Virginia Department of Corrections using taxpayer money sent out a press release, claiming media coverage of its doings or activities was "inaccurate" and "skewed", to which Virginia's mainstream media cowered in silence, despite the unconstitutional intent of the press release. But even besides the Department's obvious desperation as revealed with its incredible press release, Virginia's corporate and mainstream media by failing to see in the multitudinous existence of prisoner claims against prison official behavior that are public records is telling us that it isn't up to its Constitutional duties. Then lastly, blame for the laweless and reprehensible behavior of Chadwick Dotson as Chief Prison Official and his rank and file underlings lies and rest with The People. What exactly is Law, if it isn't the foundation of The Social Contract ? And if as our ancients have painstakingly lectured and I paraphrase that the existence of injustice is comprehensive and therefore isn't a lesson the voting Virginian has to be taught?. Meaning if imprisonment of the convicted Virginian under process of law is under the logic of accountability and The Social Contract's integrity it's cohesion.But the prison official tasked with the care of the imprisoned Virginian is instead compromising that logic of accountability and The Social Contract's integrity in the most vile manner,that of "betrayal of its trust and faith" then blame rest squarely with The People.

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

Think about this by vapac

 

By vapac

‘Dangerously understaffed:’ Inmates describe fear and violence behind Red Onion’s walls by Charlotte Rene Woods, Virginia Mercury

                                                  Red Onion State Prison in Wise County (Photo courtesy of Virginia Department of Corrections.

‘Dangerously understaffed:’ Inmates describe fear and violence behind Red Onion’s walls

by Charlotte Rene Woods, Virginia Mercury
March 4, 2025

Dontae Ebron’s family has been on edge. 

A physical altercation last summer at Red Onion State Prison, where he is incarcerated, left them deeply concerned for his safety, his brother Dominic said in an email. 

Ebron alleges that officers used excessive force on him last July, but the complaint he filed was deemed “unfounded.” Copies of paperwork he mailed to The Mercury confirm that he was sprayed with mace and force was used on him, though he disputes the details of what the document says happened. 

According to Ebron’s complaint, correctional officers assaulted him by spraying mace into his cell and bending his arm and fingers through the cell’s tray slot. After officers escorted him for medical attention, he alleged that he wasn’t given water to rinse off the mace and that an officer tripped him, slamming his face to the ground. 

Prison paperwork tells a different story. The official report states that force was appropriately used because Ebron’s arm had been “out of the tray slot.” It also claims that he was “offered decontamination” but refused. As for the body slamming, the report says it happened because Ebron “pulled away from staff and attempted to spit.”

But Ebron, in a letter to The Mercury, says that’s not what happened, and that he was “spitting because they maced me and never let me get any water.”

He’s since asked for security camera footage of the incident to be preserved, believing it will confirm his version of events as well as the officers’ actions.

“Speaking for myself, I know I haven’t been nowhere near perfect, but that doesn’t mean my rights as a human should be discarded,” he wrote.

Ebron is serving a 30 year sentence for a murder he committed during an armed robbery in 2005 when he was 20 years old. 

He is one of several Red Onion inmates who have spoken with the media or prison reform advocates over the past year, sharing stories of mistreatment and poor living conditions. Allegations range from excessive force and prolonged isolation to delayed medical care. Accusations of racism and religious discrimination have also surfaced.

Last fall, the Virginia Department of Corrections (VADOC) confirmed that at least six inmates burned themselves — though advocates claim that number is higher. Some inmates and advocates say the burns were acts of protest, desperation, or attempts to secure transfers to other facilities. 

Speaking at a December 2024 meeting of the state legislature’s Public Safety Committee, VADOC Director Chad Dotson dismissed the idea that self-harm was a form of protest. 

“There’s no evidence whatsoever that there was any kind of a plot or a protest,” Dotson said. “All the inmates involved said they did it because they wanted to get away from Red Onion. Two of these have a history of self-harm.”

Red Onion inmate Ekong Eshiet, who is serving time for a 2018 malicious wounding charge, said in an audio recording by Prison Radio — a group that amplifies the voices of incarcerated people — that he was among those who set themselves on fire.

He hoped the act would force a transfer out of the facility and said he had also protested his treatment through a hunger strike. Eshiet has described discrimination from officers.

Eshiet also described his situation as being “in fear for my life.”

In a separate message to The Mercury sent via JPay, an email service for incarcerated people, he raised concerns about continued access to email and the potential for retaliation against those speaking out amid the growing scrutiny on the prison. 

An investigation into Red Onion by the state’s new corrections ombudsman is pending, while an internal review is also underway at Bon Air Juvenile Correctional Center in Chesterfield County, where a fire broke out during an outbreak last month. However state reports have already identified one issue that may be contributing to problems across Virginia’s prison system: staffing shortages. 

‘Critically and dangerously understaffed’

A November 2024 report to state lawmakers confirmed that staffing levels in Virginia’s correctional facilities remain dangerously low, with “very few” educational programs operating and some facilities unable to provide the legally-required out-of-cell time for inmates. The consulting firm CGL concluded that many of the VADOC’s facilities are “critically and dangerously understaffed.”

While Dotson said that Red Onion specifically had a staff vacancy rate of 9% in late December, the November report from CGL indicated widespread staffing issues in VADOC. 

“This lack of staff impacts every aspect of facility operations and results in facilities that are unsafe,” the report stated. 

While Virginia doesn’t technically use the term “solitary confinement,” it has what state code refers to as “restorative housing.” This form of Isolation is intended for inmates who pose a threat to themselves or others, but advocates have long raised concerns about its prolonged use. 

A 2023 state law requires that inmates in restrictive housing receive four hours per day out of their cells — something that, according to the report, is not always happening. Without identifying the facility, the report noted: “Effectively, at one site visited, nearly the entire population had been in Restricted Housing status for an extended period of time at the time of our site visit.”

At Red Onion, the “Step Down Program” is designed to help inmates transition out of restrictive housing. According to Dotson, more than 120 people were enrolled in the program by the end of last year, and over 300 have completed it in the past six years. 

“I’m giving you a way to get away from Red Onion — behave,” Dotson said during a presentation at the December committee meeting. 

However, a class action lawsuit filed by the Virginia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union argues that despite the program’s stated purpose, inmates are still being confined longer “than is justified.” 

Current and formerly incarcerated individuals have told The Mercury that lockdowns are a frequent occurrence in Virginia prisons — sometimes triggered by fights for security reasons, other times seemingly used as a method of population control when staffing is low. 

During a late January phone call with The Mercury, Kevin Rashid Johnson appeared to experience one firsthand. As he spoke, sirens blared in the background, signaling the start of a lockdown he said before the call ended.  

Johnson, who previously led a hunger strike at Red Onion, is now incarcerated at Keen Mountain Correctional Center in Oakwood and has been in several facilities around Virginia amid his life sentence for murder. He was one of the first to alert reporters and activists about the men who burned themselves last year and has been vocal in his dissatisfaction with Dotson’s response. 

“This man goes in the media, ‘Oh, it’s just (inmates) being manipulative,’” Johnson paraphrased. “Who the hell is going to set themselves on fire trying to be manipulative? That goes to one of the most primal fears in man — fire.”

Without naming Johnson or specific advocates, Dotson dismissed their pushback when confirming the burnings, calling them “bad-faith efforts to try to score cheap political points by advocacy groups.” 

Johnson, however, urges people to consider what drives someone to harm themselves in the first place. A Black man incarcerated in Southwest Virginia, Johnson says his time in prison has been marked by racism from a system largely staffed by white officers. 

With a formal investigation into Red Onion on the horizon, Johnson remains skeptical of what, if anything, will change. 

Corrections Ombudsman Andrea Sapone stepped into her role last September, and by December she was already hearing from members of the legislature’s Corrections Oversight and Public Safety committees, as well as members of the public advocating for their incarcerated loved ones. In response, she announced plans to streamline the complaint process for future investigations and plans to launch an inquiry into Red Onion. As of late February, her office has filled four of the five positions needed to carry that investigation.

However, Johnson sees an inherent conflict of interest in the process. Since Sapone works for the state, he believes an independent third party should handle the  investigation. 

Others, meanwhile, see Sapone’s position — created through legislation — as a step toward meaningful oversight and accountability in the prison system. 

A crowd gathers near Virginia’s Capitol on Jan. 8, 2024 for a rally about allegations of abuse stemming from some Virginia prisons. (Photo by Charlotte Rene Woods/Virginia Mercury)

‘High rehabilitative needs’

Flames appear to have quite literally ignited at a juvenile facility in Virginia.

Transcripts from a 911 call obtained by The Richmond Times-Dispatch detail a chaotic scene on Feb. 9 at Bon Air Correctional Center, where a “jailbreak of sorts” unfolded. A group of minors gained control of their housing unit and started a fire, while the sole guard on duty barricaded herself in her office to call for backup. State police responded with pepperball guns to regain control of the situation.

An internal investigation is underway, and “charges are pending,” according to  Department of Juvenile Justice spokeswoman Melodie Martin. She noted that many youth housed at Bon Air have committed violent crimes. 

“This is a very challenging population with high rehabilitative needs. Occasionally, some of the behavior exhibited in the community repeats itself in the facility,” Martin said in an email. “This is to be expected through the therapeutic process, and we support and thank the dedicated staff who invest in this high need population.”

But advocates argue that incidents like the one on Feb. 9 might also stem from persistent concerns about living and working conditions that they have warned about for years. 

Martin declined to disclose specific staffing numbers but said vacancies at Bon Air dropped by 39% between January and June of last year. She added that the Feb. 9 call for assistance was “not based on staffing,” but rather the department’s protocol prohibiting the use of “chemical agents or other law enforcement tools” on facility residents — leaving state police to deploy pepperball guns instead. 

But, much like VADOC, allegations have surfaced that low staffing levels may contribute to unsafe conditions for both employees and residents, as well as reduced access to rehabilitative programming. 

Staff exit surveys obtained by the Legal Aid Justice Center and advocacy group Rise For Youth reveal mounting frustrations among former employees. 

“Y’all ask for too much being that we’re always on single coverage,” one survey from Feb. 22, 2024, read. “(I am) tired of getting drafted everyday.”

Another former employee expressed concern about how staffing shortages impact the youth at Bon Air. 

“Residents on the existing side of campus are constantly locked down due to staff shortage which is completely inhumane. If my child were locked up at this facility, as a parent, I would be extremely upset about the dynamic,” a respondent wrote in a survey dated March 11, 2024.

They added that staff are “overworked and underpaid” and that the staffing crisis poses a direct security risk. 

Interviews conducted by the Legal Aid Justice Center with some Bon Air inmates revealed that school has not always been available to them and many feel they are frequently in a state of “lockdown.” 

Both staff and incarcerated youth “are hurting,” said Valeria Slater, director of Rise For Youth. She wasn’t surprised by the February outbreak of violence among some. 

“If you are not providing all that’s necessary for these young people to truly be successful, then there is going to be deterioration — it’s a natural consequence,” she said “So when the fire broke out, I mean, how was it not anticipated that eventually it would boil over?”

For former Department of Juvenile Justice Director Andrew Block, the situation is troubling.

“My heart goes out to the staff and kids who I’m sure are incredibly stressed and scared and exhausted,” he said.

Del. Rae Cousins, D-Richmond, has been gathering feedback from families of incarcerated individuals in both adult and juvenile facilities since taking office last year. When it comes to the Department of Juvenile Justice, she said the response from officials does not seem to align with the concerns raised by families or the documented complaints from former staff. 

“It’s sort of like two different accounts,” Cousins said, adding that she wants to get to the bottom of the discrepancies. 

Both Cousins and Block believe the Commission on Youth could play a role in addressing these issues, whether through focused hearings or a formal study to explore legislative or departmental actions.

“I am gathering information from advocates and plan to speak with the commission members in the next month or so,” Cousins said. 

Potential solutions so far

While targeted reforms for facilities like Red Onion and Bon Air may be on the horizon, broader legislative efforts to improve conditions in Virginia’s correctional system are also underway.

Sen. Lamont Bagby, D-Henrico, and Del. Karen Keys-Gamarra, D-Fairfax, sponsored measures aimed at reforming how facilities handle restrictive or solitary housing. The legislation requires that before an individual is placed in a restrictive setting, they must first be considered for a less-severe alternative. If isolation is deemed necessary, they must undergo both physical and mental evaluations. 

Del. Holly Seibold, D-Fairfax, a co-patron on the bill, voiced concerns that restrictive housing often perpetuates itself — trapping people in a cycle where declining mental health makes it even harder for them to adjust their behavior and transition out of isolation.

During a visit to Red Onion and Wallens Ridge facilities last summer, Seibold was “shocked” by the numbers of people held in solitary conditions. While state law mandates that such incarcerated individuals receive time outside their cells, she was troubled by the way the policy was being applied.

“They were technically outside, but in cage-like structures,” Seibold said. “That was really disturbing. Yes, they’re outside, but they’re still isolated in a cage. So to me, that’s still a continuation of solitary.”

The current law requiring out-of-cell time was signed by Gov. Glenn Youngkin in 2023. Now, the new bill aimed at expanding solitary reforms awaits his decision.

If signed, advocates say, the law would impact both youth and adult correctional facilities. 

“It says ‘persons in correctional center centers’ — that means Bon Air counts,” Slater said. 

Another measure from Bagby, which passed with bipartisan support, seeks to prohibit the shackling of youth during court proceedings. Under current law, juveniles can be restrained in court regardless of their behavior or the nature of their offense — a practice that several states have already outlawed.

As young people first enter the criminal justice system, some advocates argue that keeping them out of incarceration altogether could reduce the likelihood of future offenses.

Tom Woods, an associate with the Annie E. Casey Foundation, believes Virginia could reinstate criminal justice reforms he helped shape more than a decade ago. 

A decade ago, then-Department of Juvenile Justice Director Andrew Block consulted with Woods to reform how long certain offenders were confined in correctional facilities, diverting some to probation programs that allowed them to remain with their families. 

The goal, they explained, was twofold: to prevent unnecessary incarceration and to create a more manageable staff-to-resident ratio in facilities. 

“Every day and every hour” in juvenile facilities needs to be directed towards rehabilitation and preparing those in custody to leave, Woods said. 

Since then, leadership changes have brought policy shifts, moving away from those reforms. But Woods argues that reinstating them could not only improve outcomes for youth but also help ease Bon Air’s staffing struggles.

“It takes a certain kind of person and time to get the right people in the right positions,” Woods said. “If you’re already feeling the pressure in terms of the population as it is, you need to look for ways to reduce that pressure quickly.”

By Charlotte Rene Woods, Virginia Mercury

COME ON VIRGINIA DEMOCRATS STOP GIVING GROUND TO REPUBLICANS ON ISSUES OF PRISON REFORM, LAW AND JUSTICE WHEN THEY HAVE SHOWN IN THE AGE OF TRUMP TO BE LAWLESS, PHONY, FRAUDULENT AND SABOTEURS OF "PUBLIC SAFETY" By William Thorpe

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

Think about this, under the Republican Administration of Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin and his rank and file Republican foot soldiers, Virginia pretty much leads the Nation in Prison Official savagery. From attacking the Virginia prisoner with civil rights era like dogs, to creating conditions that in its protest, prisoners are reduced to setting themselves on fire, Yup a la, the protest self-immolation of Buddhist monks, of another savage condition, the Vietnam war, which come to think of it was another Republican enterprise, so what we have is a Republican Government and Administration run amuck, self-realizing itself by brutalizing its prisoners, citizens no less. The administration of law and justice in the Commonwealth of Virginia has been and is a thinly veiled incorrigible undertaking, in pursuit of, what the traitor, the once president of Virginia's pernicious secessionist delusions, Jefferson Davis articulated with his April 12,1860 ".....[S]tamped from the beginning" speech, where he lectured the Nation with, "inequality of the white and black races "was "stamped from the beginning", and we see it's continuum in the selective application and administration of law and its process, where the deviance and criminality of the accused Black Virginian, is scapegoated and accentuated while that of the president of The United States Donald Trump is extenuated and glossed over by the Virginia Republican and Governor Glenn Youngkin. Trump didn't corrupt Republicans and the Virginia Republican, he only revealed and exposed the rot that was already there. Individually and as The People we always knew that the Virginia Republican was full of it, that their " law and order "talk was that, if it works keep doing it, Romanesque "bread and circuses" gambit, which to quote another President, Lyndon Johnson, a Democrat by the way, "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you", (unquote) and regardless of which formulation one grasps, we see its application in Virginia's Justice Infrastructure and its Department of Corrections. Because no matter how its dressed up its animus and distracting purpose and function is evident. This work is not a contrarian labor against the accountability and responsibility terms of The Social Contract, its violation and compromise of "public safety", what this work however asserts is the simple: law and justice shouldn't become a constant euphemistic strawman for motives its proponents are craven and idealistic to state.

These Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump Republicans and their Virginian brethren are inherently, inexorably and inevitably at odds with the law of the United States Constitution despite their ad nauseam self-declaration of its defense, as such they are in every regard lawless. The Virginia prisoner as their National or American brethren occupies that compelling or fulfilling motive, which despite the seeming contradiction, considering that a formidable part of American jurisprudence, in that self-negating manner is devoted to denying prisoners standing, are the force taking the law on its word. Asking that it fulfills its intention, it ablates its impurities, its distortions, as the 1871 Virginia Supreme Court in RUFFIN v. COMMONWEALTH 62 Va.790 and I quote, "The Bill of Rights is a declaration of general principles to govern a society of freemen, and not of convicted felons", exposes. With the prisoner as with all dehumanized facts of The Social Contract do we see the struggle that its terms or its Constitutionalized aspirations are realized, in otherwards the civilizing of humanness.

In their scheming and quest for political supremacy and dictatorship, The Virginia Republican legatee, of the Jefferson Davis white-supremacist depravity, has effectuated Lyndon Johnson's "if you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man,...." insight, with the scapegoating and exploitation of the human propensity for deviance and criminality, a most basic human condition by racializing it, making it a Black People thing, as electoral means, an insidious medium of securing a majority White People vote. In other words, instead of doing the responsible, and in the practical interest of The Social Contract, repudiation of, no matter how intoxicating the prospect of exploiting the voters ignorance and delusions, enlightening the voter, the Virginia Republican politician instead chooses to exploit, by reanimating the stench of RUFFIN v. COMMONWEALTH 62 Va.790 and its on this ground, on this reactionary self-defeatist, cutting of the nose to spite the face politics and its Sisyphean short term gain, that forever the Virginia Democrat has cowered and surrendered the activity of Social Contract development, it's advancement and integrity which an accountable application of law and justice is reform of The Virginia Department of Corrections and its prison system. Now as I've explained, despite the fact the Prisoner, the Virginia prisoner is confronted with reactionary anti-reform headwinds, the recognition and actual substantive assertion of The Social Contract is realized due to the activity of the prisoner. If the Virginia Democrat hasn't been so demonstrably craven and to a degree subject to the rank and fetid allure of the sirenic distortions and corruption of the Jefferson Davis supremacist delusions afflicting the Virginia Republican, prison reform in Virginia wouldn't be perverted into a liability but a compelling necessity. So what have we seen as effects of the idealistic sophistry of the Virginia Supreme Courts 1871 ruling in RUFFIN v. COMMONWEALTH? Its relative comprehensive denunciation, stated in Supreme Court of The United States rulings found in JOHNSON v. CALIFORNIA 543 U.S.499 [dissent Thomas and Scalia], SHAW v. MURPHY 532 U.S.223, LEWIS v. CASEY 518 U.S.343, JONES v .N.C.PRISONERS' LABOR UNION INC.433 U.S.119, MEACHUM v. FANO 427 U.S.215 [dissent Stevens] and Virginia has cited RUFFIN no less than 15 times, as recently as 2024 in MARLOWE v. Sw. VA. Reg 'L Jail Auth. 81 VA. App. 415. The RUFFIN ruling has also caused these works, THE PUZZLES OF PRISONERS AND RIGHTS: AN ESSAY IN HONOR OF FRANK JOHNSON, 71 ALA.L.REV.665 then ALSO (UN)CONSTITUTIONAL PUNISHMENT: EIGHT AMENDMENT SILOS, PENOLOGICAL PURPOSES, AND PEOPLES "RUIN" 129 YALE L.J.F.365 both works by JUDITH RESNIK, then SLAVERY AS PUNISHMENT: ORIGINAL PUBLIC MEANING, CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT, AND THE NEGLECTED CLAUSE IN THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT 51 ARIZ.L.REV.982 by SCOTT W. HOWE, then RIGHTS VIOLATIONS AS PUNISHMENT, 111 CALIF.L.REV.1305 by KATE WEISBUD and last but not least RIGHTS WITHOUT REMEDY: THE MYTH OF STATE COURTS ACCESSIBILITY AFTER THE PRISON LITIGATION REFORM ACT 30 CARDOZO L. REV.645 by ALISON BRILL. The point all of this makes is the Virginia Democrat and all honest and practical people shouldn't cower from aggressively stating and defending the work of prison reform.

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