VADOC's Mission Statement

 VADOC's Mission Statement:

The mission of the Virginia Department of Corrections (VADOC) is to "safely provide effective incarceration, supervision, and evidence-based re-entry services to inmates and supervisees."

Here are some of the specific goals of the VADOC:

• Ensure the safety and security of inmates and staff.
• Provide inmates with opportunities to improve their education, skills, and behavior.
• Prepare inmates for successful re-entry into society.
• Work with communities to reduce recidivism.

"With all due respect to VADOC its not its mission to operate a victim of crimes program which its petty exploitation of victims of crime"

vapac

We Demand Prison Phone Justice Jpay and Securus

We are the family, friends & prisoners who jpay and Securus are feasting off our blood, sharing profits with states and investors from slave-like phone rates & fees. We demand prison phone justice!

By vapac

Will Become Another Problem Our Sapience Solves - By William Thorpe

They terrorize us in life to scare us with death.

The ability to kill a slave isn't a willingness to kill slaves,

The predator culls the herd otherwise it perish, which is what terrorized life and scared with death experience unknowingly,

"We have nothing to fear but fear itself" was mobilization against the other      Yes "We the people......" Government is only possible, our suppositions, keeping us in file in class war life,

So "Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war" So let us truly go there finally, finally experience the recriminative utter silence, primordial silence of annihilation: when trees fall without sound. Where supremacy presumptions stand laid bare coming to terms with "The devil is in the detail" and that usury, it's derivatives and terroristic valuation and the death exploitation will become another problem our sapience solves,

They terrorize us in life to scare us with death.

By William Thorpe

Prison Is Speech By The State and It's Organized Violence By William Thorpe

The colloquialism "The only thing prison provides is time and what the prisoner does with the time is solely his choice."

On the surface and superficially it sounds commonsensical making all the sense in the world because it fits the narrative of the national status quo and its pursuit of a supposed responsibility and its individual accountability. But upon scrutiny, we find it is just another gibberish and idealistic utterance in the employ of the controlling functions of the state and its national status quo. And why should we simply stop with prison being the only environment requiring the accountability of individual responsibility        Lets expand it to general life, beginning with the argument point from our political and religious reactionary brethren, the life begins at conception demagoguery and let's hold that construct of life responsible and accountable for itself independent of the mother and humor at its collapse in the objectivity of its anticipation. Which by the way as much as our reactionary brethren push for life at conception, the fact it is still based on the responsibility and accountability of the mother as an independent anticipation, in no uncertain terms mocks the responsibility and accountability supposition.

And it makes the same point, that as much as the controlling mechanism of the status quo expects a self-policing imperative with our buy into a superficial and speculative grasp of individual responsibility and accountability. The fact remains, prison provides more than time. Prison is speech by the state and it's organized violence. Prison as function of the state assumes responsibility and accountability for and of the imprisoned in dicta to provide.

Thus the responsibility and accountability of the state to the prisoner as it exercises it's organized violence speech of imprisonment should not be excused nor apologized away with the naive and delusional observation that the prisoner in and for theirself should have the presence of mind and ambition to experience the passage of the imprisonment time in a supposed manner when the very lack or bias of the supposed is what resulted the prisoners confinement to begin with.

The adage "the devil is in the details" isn't sophistry and society and its inherent relations cannot escape its scrutiny and consequences of those relations will compel such scrutiny regardless of whether we are intellectually-material enough or still indulging in the intellectual-liberalism of our subjectivity. Because even the sun bows down to reason as the practice of our brethren in 1789 reminded us and again we were taught from 1818-1828 that colloquial traditions and culture are just that mechanisms of the supposed, to be brushed aside as feeble articles of backwardness while new realizations in the employ of progress enable the emergence of a new culture and tradition which in the prison context is reform and holding state and it's organized violence responsible and accountable.

By William Thorpe

Consumer Behavior and Thinking Aloud

SPEECH By William Thorpe

The Exile of William Thorpe From Virginia to Texas, An Extraordinary Act

On May 29th, 2019 at approximately 6:30 am, a Wednesday. I had just had the starvation breakfast portions Red Onion State Prison in violation of its foodservice procedure, the Virginia Department of Corrections Food Service Manual and the cruel and unusual punishment prohibitions of the 8th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution provides prisoners it detains in Solitary Confinement. When a contingent of 8 of its prison guards, including 2 sergeants under the command of Lieutenant Lambert came to the cell door and told me that I was going on transportation and I won't be taking my property. I wasn't told where I was being transferred to.

What Lt. Lambert and his comical lies of not knowing where I was being transported to didn't know was I had been told, just the day before, by one of his colleagues that I would be transferred to Texas        So began the end result of a process by official elements of the Virginia Department of Corrections to exile me to good ole Texas. After a 3 hour plus ride on the Governor of Virginia's plane, under escort of 4 plus pilot and co-pilot, the plane landed at the Huntsville, Texas Airport. The Huntsville area of Texas is a gulag in its own right, growing prisons.

After 39 years of imprisonment in Virginia and 24 continuous years of ongoing Solitary Confinement. Virginia claimed I was a Security Threat as basis to execute a scheme of exiling me to Texas. Aspects of my exile to Texas are universal and common. During my detention at Virginia's Red Onion State Prison in Solitary Confinement, I worked to expose by publicizing specific and general violations of its prison officials and in extension official elements of the Virginia Department of Corrections.

The question my exile poses besides the obvious Governmental abuse with its deceptive security threat basis which is nothing more than cover for petty and crass extrajudicial vindictiveness for the Virginia Justice System is simple and it isn't limited to my circumstance. Besides regardless of the "legality" of the exile, it's motive details an extrajudicial act and its execution underscores an intrinsic aspect of our human condition which in a nutshell is: irrespective of the backdrop of law, there isn't a just and democratic accounting of its misuse. People will apply their petty tyrannical impulses, which in this instance prison officials under cover of law but in unlawful ways. Those prison officials who decided that my work, of exposing their violations and malfeasance as it were, was so intolerable, despite the fact it is inalienable, that they had to pervert the privilege the citizenry of Virginia had given them        to lawfully imprison humans, by misapplying the extraordinary authority of characterizing a prisoner, a security threat have no measure of its accounting save for publicity and it's exposures.

The only response my exile ask of all people who understand that prison officials, in particular, must be held accountable is:

• Demand I am returned to Virginia and released from Solitary Confinement
• Involve yourself in the work of holding officials of national [including state and local] justice system accountable so the question of what is justice and due process isn't stuck in an academic-speculative loop while in practice it is left to the savagery and Sado -barbarity of reactionary minds and hearts who substitute presumptions and suppositions for thought.

The work of Justice reform contrary to how it is formulated and presented to the public even by advocates isn't removed or exclusive of society's integral narrative, instead, it is fundamental and germane to it. The prison official is subject to a type of bias that society's apathy and ignorance has allowed and permitted to exist to the point it is assumed as an unimpeachable fact. A heightened recognition of this is vital to whether we are informed and practical in our anticipations. If society is to hold prison officials accountable and it must, the understanding of what is being done in the name of the Virginia taxpayer should not be left to colloquial hypocrisies.

 By William Thorpe detained at the Eastham Unit in Texas in Solitary Confinement

NOTE Get a Feel Of Eastham Unit Our appreciation for Photos by Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images

Another Reason For Transparency In Virginia Prisons

Virginia Prison Assaultive Behavior

Virginia ROSP Guards returning to their Assaultive Behavior. From March/April 2019 3 prisoners in handcuffs, shackles, held in solitary confinement beaten, Slammed face-first to ground NotCute Prison Staff BreakingLaw

On James A Bacon & The Virginia Department of Corrections Practice of Solitary Confinement & Transparency By William Thorpe

On 3/12/19; James A. Bacon expressed a continuum of that typical intellectual-liberalism that for reasons unbeknownst to its propagators has come to define conservatism and it's purported thought in a, quite frankly idealistic post titled: "Are Conclusions Preordained for Solitary Confinement Study?" Mr. Bacon's work is idealistic because it does nothing to advance society's knowledge and understanding of the practice and its critique.

Disparagingly referencing the ACLU, Amnesty International and other groups who at least have the social courage to question practices of Virginia's Department of Corrections as Mr. Bacon does is contextually irrelevant.

What Mr. Bacon ignores is requiring the Department of Corrections to statutorily collect data of its solitary confinement practices is specifically for the purpose of transparency. Meaning the public will now begin to grasp what is being done by prison officials in its name.

The department in its perpetual effort at concealing its practice,  which in any other context would have Mr. Bacon and his reactionary ilk bellowing about unelected officials being opaque       would rather the Virginia taxpayer remain ignorant of its malfeasant practices as it relates to complying with U.S. Virginia Constitutions, laws and it's very own Operating Procedures. In other words, if society is to hold it's prison officials accountable then it has to know what exactly is being done it its name and why       And nothing requires transparency as the practice of Solitary Confinement or Administrative Segregation which embodies that maxim, that adage and I paraphrase, absolute authority corrupts. which is exactly what it's use by the Virginia Department of Corrections and its absolute authority does with sadistic crass gravity.

I quote Mr. Bacon's "I normally embrace the philosophy that more data is better. But I worry that this study might be cruising to pre-ordained conclusions." And I remind Mr. Bacon that despite the revisionist narrative now vouge of alternative facts      we can and will debate conclusions but not facts and with the transparency of data on Solitary Confinement which now will be in the public domain Mr. Bacon with his retrograde world view will have access to the same facts his demonized "crusaders of the left" will.

In closing, Mr. Bacon is wrong, there is nothing "organized" or rather disorganized of "victims of criminal violence" as he opines. Victims of criminal violence have the organized fiat of the state and it's organized violence which Solitary Confinement is as total this side of execution the state practices.

By William Thorpe who is in Solitary Confinement at Virginia's Red Onion State Prison since 1998

Related Articles & Links

More on Solitary Confinement    Bacon's Rebellion

Will Virginia’s Real Recidivism Rate Please Stand Up?     Bacon's Rebellion

ACLU-VA & Coalition Partners Ask Gov. Northam To Amend Bills To Shed Light On Solitary Confinement

The Unholy Matrimony of the VERA INSTITUTE of JUSTICE [VERA] & the VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT of CORRECTIONS [VADOC], Consummated On A Bed Of Vain Glory, Greed, & Distortions: A Response To the 2018 VERA Love Letter on VADOC's Use of Restrictive Housing Known as Solitary Confinement By William Thorpe

The Report has nothing to do with laying bare the barbarity of Solitary Confinement

In the introduction and background to the Vera Institute of Justice [VERA] report on the use of Solitary Confinement by the Virginia Department of Correction by the Virginia Department of Corrections [VADOC]      Released on December 2018, we are told and I quote "in recent years, a diverse range of corrections practitioners, national and international organizations, policymakers, and the public have called for reform of restrictive housing [also known as segregation or Solitary Confinment] in prisons and jails." Peculiarly, what is missing from VERA's listing  of the call to account of the practice of Solitary Confinement is the prisoners, their families, and friends who have labored and suffered tirelessly to bring focus and scrutiny on the prison condition of Solitary Confinement through infinitude of litigation, protest, demonstrations, and political activities and from this omission the tone is set instructing us that VERA's work it's titled report, 'The safe alternatives to segregation initiatives: Finding and recommendations for the Virginia Department of Corrections.' has nothing to do with laying bare the barbarity of Solitary Confinement which the U.S. Supreme Court as far back as the 1890's; recognized as an "infamous" practice in it's In Re: Medley ruling. But instead is a $2.2 million propagandizing public relations gambit, which is what VERA received as commission. A front opened in 2011 by certain elements within VADOC's executive Directorate as justification for their taxpayer furnished  Per Diem. (2016)

Prison, Solitary Confinement and Political-Economy

Let me begin with: VADOC's antagonistic realities with its Solitary Confinement practices are self-inflicted, always were as long as it's operational philosophy is schizophrenic, will be.

Virginia's prison experiment has at its roots as all things American, the hypocrisies and tensions of Political-Economy and what the VERA December 2018 report on VADOC's Solitary Confinement has done, court jester-like is laud the VADOC sovereign of forward thinking for pseudo-reform of its self made and created problems. While neglecting to state the obvious, these pseudo-reforms are gambits specifically designed to exploit Political-Economic opportunities presented by the federal government in its ever ingenious habit of wealth redistribution via the two specifics of state-organized violence 1. The justice system, law, and order and 2. Defense and the military.  

Whether the practice was banishment, marooning or imprisonment, the expulsion, seclusion, isolation, and removal from the body politic of its members whom for whatever reason had run afoul of the organizing Political-Economy, the politics i.e. socio-norms and traditions has always existed in one form or another upon the emergence and its cognition of object and subject within the human condition and it's value-speculations. The question, however, has been as society recognizes and understands it's myriad aspects and nature of itself, what then is the least unhypocritical and  unidealsitic treatment it can bestow on its members it finds cause to be at odds and at war with, whether in principle or in deed.

Prison isn't any different and VADOC as sovereign over it's imprisoned prisoners has since its inception found cause regardless of legitimacy, idealistic or materially to remove certain prisoners fro it's prison general population and segregates them in Solitary Confinement. The question this practice of Solitary Confinement has always presented to society at large or the body politic in whose name the practice is done has been two fold 1. The antagonism of the practice, specifically it's import on the rule of law and 2.Treatment of the prisoners suffering the condition.

A Collaboration With The Repackaging of VADOC's Practice of Solitary Confinement

The VERA Institute of Justice collaborated with the Virginia Department of Corrections [and I am correct in characterizing the association as a collaboration and an unholy matrimony because nothing in the 2018 VERA report for VADOC suggest, it was anything but] In repackaging the intent and practice of Solitary Confinement and towards these ends,the report presents nuanced distortions, outright deception and lies.

The VADOC Solitary Confinement reform project known by it's deceptive and distortive moniker, segregation reduction and Step Down Program is according to VADOC's press releases and procedures, [Local Operating Procedure IOP 830A] and Operating Procedure, OP 841.4 restrictive housing, intended to reduce the prisoner population in Solitary Confinement detention.

Since its relative emergence in 2011, the StepDown Program as I've already indicated was a sham because if the objective was how to reduce the Solitary Confinement prisoner population, then VADOC Operating Procedure 861.3 and its process already existed to do  just that and all VADOC had to do was abide by it's own rules and procedures. More specifically United States Const. 14th Amendment and Virginia Constitution Article 1 Section 11 on Due Process of law, equal protection Clause  and the other Constitutional prohibitions against Ex Post Facto and Cruel and Unusual Punishment already existed with ample enough jurisprudence, which if not outright lecturing prison officials that prisoners cannot be willy nilly subjected to the type and sort of Solitary Confinement VADOC practices, it informed them their prison experiment was beyond  the pale. So VADOC and its executive elements knew perfectly well that it didn't need another burdensome bureaucratic construct, whose promulgations it would not comply with as it already doesn't comply with all the other existing ones simply to manage release of prisoners from Solitary Confinement and what it most definitely didn't need was a fraudulent, sham prison program, dealing with Solitary Confinement that had nothing to do with what caused the confinement in the first place.

Imagine this scenario: Cell partners in general population setting, not getting along for whatever reason. The cell house or building Unit Manager, building Lieutenant, Sergeants are all made aware of the situation by the cellmates asking for a cell change. The prison officials having been made aware of the situation ignore it, they are indifferent and do nothing about the situation despite the moral and ethical repugnancy of their indifference, they're Constitutionally obligated to provide a safe prison environment viz U.S. Const. 8th Amend. So one day the cellmates fight one injures or even kills the other. The surviving prisoner is now placed in Solitary Confinement, to make it out of Solitary Confinement, the prisoner is now informed he/she has to go through a Step-Down Program   The logic being something is wrong with the prisoner and from the line of discussions presented in the program's books titled Thinking For a Change and the Challenge Series      The logic being something is wrong with the prisoner and from the line of discussions presented in the program's books titled Thinking For A Change, not only is something wrong with the prisoner but per virtue of the imprisonment is so dysfunctional, they cannot think or work their way out of the metaphorical societal wet paper bag. Nowhere in this taxpayer-funded Solitary Confinement reduction programming which has created and established it's own Political-Economic eco-system is there any hint of the fact: had any of those prison officials responded as their professional authority commanded and required they had done. The cellmates would have been separated and there wouldn't have been a fight, injuries wouldn't have been sustained and a prisoner wouldn't have died. So the only question any serious and responsible minded human has to ask is if the prisoner behaved logically [otherwise society would not have self-defense laws] then VADOC must have another reason for exercising it's coercive imperative with demanding, a prisoner whose actions that landed him in Solitary Confinement which had nothing to do with the cartoonish and moronic elements of the Thinking For A Change Program is subjected to it under the guise of release from Solitary Confinement.

The VERA report unsurprisingly is silent on this portal, the reason for the placement is Solitary Confinement, instead, the VERA report is a classic example of the strawman argument, an affirmation of a dubious narrative utilized as a legitimate cause for response. The question then to be answered is what "Safe Alternative" was VERA reviewing when the only context facing any Virginian  and American is compliance with the rule of law and prison officials as others in the justice system class, more than any other class of citizens are morally, ethically and professionally bound to follow and comply with the rule of law and there isn't any Virginia or American law that allows and permits the indefinite Solitary Confinement of a prisoner under sham and arbitrary process, which is what VADOC under the applications of its 861.3 was doing and despite the fane fare and pompom waving by VERA [see pp.10 reforms prior to during VERA's  assessment, of report] and other deluded apologists of the new restrictive housing OP 841.4 as a reform of indefinite Solitary Confinement, nothing in its language says so.

What I'm illustrating is analogues in practice to vehicular offenders required to undertake courses in driver education as part of judicial action. But principle is connivingly askew in its VADOC segregation reduction programming and one would think that if VERA, was an honest broker actually reviewing a formulation and practice of an aspect of state-organized violence: The restriction and deprivation of liberty which is what Solitary Confinement dow and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Circuit Court, which VADOC is under its jurisprudential jurisdiction has asserted in a number of cases, i.e Incumaa v Stirling, that a prisoner has a liberty interest to be free from Solitary Confinement then responding to the antagonistic basis within VADOC's operational philosophy would have been the first thing VERA would have and should have done. But the pursuit of vain glory and greed were too much for VERA  to pass up. So once again we find ourselves dealing with another set of presumptions and suppositions that do nothing for social clarity on a crucial and pivotal question, that is at the heart of the social-contract: how society wields its violence against its members.

Nonetheless, collaboration in its myriad forms can be exposed and called to account despite being a lackey for the sovereign. So despite VERA's relatively correct summarization of the Step Down Programs procedural description. Vera's assessment, however, is solely based on the words on paper and not their actual, organic and material applicative fact. So when, for example VERA writes "an integral part of the Step Down Program model is the requirement that incarcerated people be assessed regularly by multidisciplinary teams of staff using validated instruments to determine criminal risks, underlying, reasons for behavior that led to placement in security level S and motivation to change "[pp.10 Vera Report-my emphisis] Can VERA vouch that what it is presenting to the public is correct? Has VERA sat in on any review/hearings, with their jargonistic acronyms, ICA [Institutional Classification Authority], ERI [External Review Team], MDT [Multidisciplinary Team], BMC [Building Managment-Committee] UMT [Unit Management Team], DDT [Dual Treatment Team] and experienced by witnessing the application of the words of the various VADOC Operating Procedures, Op 861.3, LOP 830A, OP 841.4?

Can VERA explain to an ignorant and illiterate public [to the machinations of VADOC] why a prisoner can be placed on IM [Intense Management] status, allegedly using "validated instruments," and then 6 years later switched over to SM [Special Managment] status, again allegedly using "validated instruments" yet nothing changed in the prisoners circumstance other than the passage of 6 years spent in Solitary Confinement? And thas a problem.

VERA so enamored with the possibility, in its self-revelatory characterization, of being "excited to partner" [pp.5 of VERA report] with VADOC that not only did it not grasp the gratuitous for itself barbarity, because VERA in a stockholmesque syndrome manner apes the VADOC sovereign, it accepts VADOC's narrative and values without any tint of circumspection, that it is unwilling to question VADOC's declarations as an impartial entity merely pursuing the mandate given it by the Commonwealth of Virginia. Because it could not, it had sold out whatever vantage it had for that proverbial bowl of gruel, and therefore had no standing, any basis none whatsoever to purportedly review, assess and recommend changes or alternatives to a practice which I have already shown is strawman based.

Vera Recommendations: An Idealisic Academic Indulgence

If the "validated instruments" VERA accepts as mechanisms of VADOC reforms are it's EBP God [or evidence-based practice] or better put that old carrot and stick or carrot on a stick ploy. Then VADOC's Step Down Program can simply be reduced to participation in it means the prisoner can watch T.V.  and buy snacks from the commissary and after a passage of years and sham, pro forma reviews and hearings and the prisoner greyed and grizzled, they might be released to a general population. This incentive, moral hazard, aversion manipulation based theory is as old as that first time a caveman brained another. So why are we being given the hard sell by VERA that VADOC has finally solved the problem of mind reading and it's human subjective.

Secondly, by conflating programs i.e Reentry [A program intended to prepare soon to be prisoners back to society, and even this program is a sham] STAR [pp.10-11] [Steps To Achieve Reintergration]. SAM [pp.11-12] [Shared Allied Mnagment] and Mental Health [Secure Diversionary Treatment      which by the way can be a consequence of Solitary Confinement] with the singular specific issue of indefinite abject Solitary Confinement under conditions intended to dehumanize and degrade the prisoner in all forms and manners [see ACLU OF VIRGINIA May 10th 2018 Report" Silent Injustice, for more transparent accounting of Solitary Confinement at Red Onion State Prison   What I will also add is the daily, nightly any time a prisoner exits their cell strip and cavity searches, where the prisoner removes all clothing, places it in the traybox , then stands naked in the middle of the cell, turn around, bends over spreads buttocks, squats coughs, show the soles of the feet, turns back around to face the guards at the door, lift the penis and testicles, opens the mouth, all before the prisoner is allowed to exit the cell and this level of strip search is really designed to dicourage and disuade from recieving showers and outside exercise] which VERA does with its love letter report to VADOC. It also confuses and distorts the focus of handling accountable the governmental activity of Solitary Confinement an activity with the propensity to be opaque and deceptive, distracting an already unfocused, inattentive public with obfuscation and lies because it can only maintain the integrity of it's self-interest and existence by the old "Business as usual" repackaged as reform so when VERA writes glorifying of Red Onion State Prison [ROSP] and it's IM and SM Program [pp. 5-8] and in particular the existence of the IM closed pod as if it is born out of a legitimate need only enables the farce of its strawman genesis. Were VERA an objective and honest broker it would've cautioned VADOC not to engage in extra-judicial activity that violates and is outside the scope of its authority of "legal" imprisonment. Despite the authority granted the Director of Corrections at Virginia Code Section 53.1-10, the Nixonian assertion of "if the president does it, it's legal" isn't a totalitarian-fiat granted the VADOC sovereign, where because the sovereign assert it as need it is then fact. So as such engaging in a game of recommendations, as VERA has when the only conclusions to be reached on all aspects of VADOC Solitary Confinement practices is abolishment and complete shut down of the Step-Down Program not only is mystifying but more telling, an idealistic and academic indulgence.

What pompom waving VERA is up against is simply this: Its report allows Virginia Director of Corrections Harold Clarke to make utterances as "I appreciate VERA recognizing the commitment made by VADOC in providing second chances for even those offenders deemed to be the most dangerous...."[12/20/18 VADOC press release, my emphasis] This quote is revealing because it states bluntly that VADOC's imprisonment is in conflict with rule of law. Because if nothing in Virginia and American law permit the indefinite Solitary Confinement of human beings then the idea of [A] "Second Chance" is mooted. There isn't a condition or circumstance necessitating a second chance. The Virginia  Constitution nor it's statutory code gives the Director of Corrections, the power, and authority to imprison by Solitary Confinement a prisoner indefinitely under conditions which a U.S. Federal Judge in Porter v.Clarke found to violate the U.S. Const, 8th Amend, prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

For reasons which VERA didn't explain yet, it used as basis was its acceptance of VADOC's "administrative Data,, which included demographic, sentence information, disciplinary, incident records," without questioning it's accuracy, considering some of the claims against VADOC, are the veracity of its data. The consequences of this data are its use. For instance, why prisoner U with a comparable administrative data with prisoner R was selected for IM status and R wasn't if as VERA proclaims, VADOC's practices are "validated instruments" based. Now had VERA actually and comprehensively spoken to and interviewed prisoners, particularly, that special class, the level S prisoner at ROSP, who in particular are subject to such selective classification. The issue and it's realization would've dawned on VERA, that placement in the IM program by those initial architects of the Step-Down Program had nothing to do with "validated instruments" but everything to do the reptilian instinct of retaliation, vindictiveness, crass racism, settling scores and a prisoner simply being conveniently present: all constructing block for that fundamental opportunity, those original VADOC architects of the Step Down Program perceived as they stumbled upon a Politica-Economy availability, a trough of taxpayer largesse to support their chieftainship, to which since 2011 has been exploited.

When VERA writes on pp.8 [VERA Report] "staff that had been at ROSP since the Step-Down program's inception explained how the expectations of leadership had changed, as staff are now responsible for helping to reduce the use of segregation." [my emphisis]. What VERA isn't telling us is the meaning of "expectations of leadership had changed" and what that technocratic innocuous sounding word combination conceals is: ROSP officials and VADOC executive elements were pulling back from their en masse Solitary Confinement practices for reasons I have thoroughly illustrated and it's mechanisms of framing, lying, fabricating bogus and contrived infractions and charges against prisoners to keep prisoners in Solitary Confinement. Any simple and cursory review of ROSP records, specifically, incident reports, use of chemical agents [i.e OC Pepper Gas] , cell extractions, stripped cells, infractions, restricted feeding [i.e Diet Loaf], use of ambulatory, 4 & 5 point restraints [i.e prisoners chained and strapped to bunk] alleged assaults on ROSP guards resulting in prison officials beating the prisoner, incidents with feces, denials of showers and outside exercise under the pretext of prisoner failing to comply with the extreme nature of ROSP strip search procedure        would reveal that from 2011 through 2016 there was an inordinate and exponential amount of what I've listed occurring, to also include the purported discoveries of contraband and weapons in prisoners cells and on person. Which are all schemes prison officials in Virginia use to either stack on and increase a prisoners sentence or keep a prisoner in Solitary Confinement. Also through the same period, VADOC will also claim a ridiculous and dramatic decrease in prisoner complaint and grievance filing even though it was at the height and zenith of ROSP official and guard. criminality and malfeasance. The fact is prisoners were filing complaints and grievances daily, but ROSP grievance department in collusion with VADOC executive elements were simply refusing to log, record and process the complaints and grievances by stealing and destroying them so VADOC could then claim that the Step-Down Program, with its TV access and commissary snacks, had so thoroughly pacified level S prisoners [who were as I've listed above being brutalized in all forms and manner] that Solitary Confinement had instantly ceased being the "infamous" practice the in RE: Medley court had declared, so there wasn't any violations to be complained of, no grievance to be filed. Yet the numerous litigations filed by ROSP prisoners and petitions sent to the Governor of Virginia and other politicians and prison reform advocates and activist during that same period belie VADOC contentions.

At recommendations #4 on pp.17- [conduct an in-depth, independent process and impact evaluation of the Step-Down Program- VERA report] Do we encounter a knee jerk realization by VERA that to save a hint of objectivity it "recommends that VADOC consult with an external researcher who would have the ability and capacity to further evaluate the Step-Down Program...This researcher could closely examine all relevant data, interview numerous staff and incarcerated people..." [my emphisis] to spare us the spectacle of VADOC touting validation of its Solitary Confinement practices repackaged, the above excerpt should have been titled by VERA : Memo To Self Before Release of Love Letter To and Propaganda For VADOC.

VERA's recommendation #1 on pp.27 [to support successful management without the use of disciplinary segregation....] [A. Consider a "swift and certain" response model with a structured response matrix, as an alternative or supplement to the formal disciplinary process] Also #1 on pp. 20 [Increase the use of designated "cool-down" spaces       VERA report]

Both of these recommendations reveal a troubling aspect of VERA and it's either naive or insidiously cavalier attitude towards due process and the rule of law.

Prison and the imprisonment are the facts of the rule of law and its process. This statement makes no comment on the justness and appropriateness of the law asserted. What I'm focusing on is the fact that prison and the imprisonment are governmental activity and as such, as it encounters the individual, which the prisoner is a "process" has to exist. Prison officials and guards exist in the imprisonment scheme as organic entities of the rule of law or the organized violence of the state and its process so to suggest and recommend that a prison official and guard can simply ignore and brush aside "process" and summarily "punish" the prisoner regardless of euphemism used to characterize the punishment, it is still a deprivation of either property or liberty and due process of the law has to, regardless of limited and de minimus prison context exist. The U.S. Supreme Court in Wolf v. McDonald ruled this. VERA might not make much of this and it is obvious that it doesn't. But the perennial short-sightedness and myopia of prison official, who hasn't encountered "punishment" they couldn't label EBP will simply accelerate societies acculturation to the Fascist expedience and convenience which prison already straddles and we already see the prison officials jargon openly used in society, with "locking down" schools and entire cities.

I find it strange that the authors of the VERA report, Byron Kline, Elena Vanko, and Leon Digard are ignorant of this fact of which the entire prison construct and its imprisonment application is based on.

As I've already pointed out conflating the various VADOC programs with the specific issue of Solitary Confinement under conditions intended to dehumanize and destroy the prisoner, does not resolve the issue. Instead what happens is construction upon construction of responses layered upon the other which VERA's recommendations reveal. But to get at the Solitary Confinement antagonism VADOC and it's VERA collaborator have to honestly and finally face up to the contradiction and as VERA's report shows nither is willing.

Yes the mental health consequences of VADOC's Solitary Confinement practices is an extremely important, if not the most important issue which the In Re: Medley Court also recognized as creating a "fatuous" condition in prisoners and just as prisoners not under a capital sanction are not sent to prison to die so are prisoners not sent to prison to be driven mad and insane by the state, it's government and VADOC. So making anecdotal comments as VERA does from pp. 29-33 in it's Love Letter report to VADOC is insulting and a disservice.

For starters, VADOC and its primarily security oriented staff shouldn't have anything to do with mental health in its prisons. The QMHP [Qulaified Mental Health Professioanl]  position is particularly egregious in its apathy and fraudulent, simply checking the box to get a paycheck attitude i.e Red Onion State Prison and Sussex 1 State Prison.

Again I have to ask has VERA carefully reviewed the practice of the QMHP and SDTP [ Secure Diversionary Treatment Program] to actually see the specialized and professional words in the various VADOC OP on Mental Health in action? It is alleged that promptly after the opening of the SDTP       Mental Health Unit at Wallens Ridge State Prison in 2018; a prisoner committed suicide in it. Mental Health in free society is challenging and provocative. Now imagine the prison setting where every facet is antagonistic and combative and VERA expects us to applaud VADOC sovereign dor having given its prison guards, mental health first aid, correctional crisis intervention training along with the Step-Down program treatment officers as solution to mental health issues which its Solitary Confinement practices created in the first place?

Conclusion

In conclusion, much has been made by VERA, VADOC and its apologist including Brian Moran, Virginia's Secretary for Public Safety and Homeland Security, the overlord of VADOC about a supposed decrease in level S prisoner from 500 to the current 72. Despite factual disagreements over the figures, the issue is the assertion is made as if this decrease is a validation of the Step-Down program. the truth is anything but and the only thing that the decrease means is VADOC decided for its own ends and ulterior motives to allow it. Because a correct assessment by a truly objective fact finder and not the pompom waving of the likes of VERA,  will tell that the release and decrease had nothing to do with the purported workings of a program that is nothing more than a trough for a cabal of prison officials to exploit and grow fat off taxpayer largesse. 

So when VERA writes on pp.15 [VERA report] that it witnessed prisoners in a closed pod walking unrestrained to showers and exercise alone as facts of the performance of the Step-Down program, it is participating as a cog in VADOC's ulterior motive, then it fails to disclose that not long after it made the observation, the practice was discontinued under a sham excuse that a prisoner had contraband and prisoners in the closed pod were returned to being shackled, cuffed with a dog leash and singularly escorted by two prison guards. What VERA then refers to as contact for phase II prisoner in closed pod, ibid pp.15 [VERA report] as another performance fact, shouldn't be confused with a genuine contact visit on a prison general population. This "contact" visit is with the prisoner shackled to "a table", the type of metal table VERA describes
as Secure Programming Desk, a description that has nothing in common with a desk as a prison bunk has to do with a bed. Another characterization, quite revealing of the type of ploy of the closed pod is as soon as prisoners are in Solitary Confinement in the closed pod, escorting guards have to wear Kevlar Vest. Yet the same prisoner when not in the closed pod but held in Solitary Confinement in other ROSP detention units, escorting guard do not wear Kevlar vest.

The Step Down Program and I can't stress it enough is simply a ploy, particularly the IM status which has had at least 26 prisoners out of 44 returned from the closed pod to more restrictive or less amount of commissary snacks Solitary Confinement, since 2013, for the purpose of keeping the program going. Because the causes of Solitary Confinement have nothing to do with the existence or lack of it and besides a tweak here and a burnish there, there is nothing and I emphasize nothing new and forward thinking about VADOC's purported reforms.

VADOC's system wide Solitary Confinement during the1970s through the early 1990s and opening of Greensville Correctional Center are relatively what we are now being told are reforms.

VADOC's Mecklenburg Correctional Center opened in the mid-1970s as the nations first Super-Max Prison [See 1978 Virginian-Pilot article]. Had its phase programs, 1,2,3 and phase 4 being the precursor to the current IM closed pod. Even the current classifications are petty unoriginal knockoffs  Mecklenburg had its SM or Special Management pod and prisoner. It also used the S classification and was then what ROSP is now. Till litigation, riots, protest, demonstrations, political activities brought its entire house of cards down on those VADOC executives who thought they had it figured as this current group 

So in 1998 with the largesse of the Clinton administration and scape-goating prisoners being the quickest path to Speculative Power for reactionary politicians of all stripes. Virginia as others embarked on prisoners as Political-Economy locomotive for its less-savvy environs, then another Political-Economic wrinkle appeared and prison as industry became less attractive but opportunity for exploitation presented itself in that "business as usual" repackaged as reform, which brings us to this phenomenon of a non-governmental entity aping the governmental sovereign VADOC.

The question and issue is simple: When society begins to hold prison officials accountable for their malfeasance actions and violations of the rule of law when prison officials comply with and follow their very own Operating Procedures and Policies, then society will begin to have clarity and a true accounting of Solitary Confinement practice and it causes thereby saving the trees used in printing reports as VERA's 2018 on VADOC's Solitary Confinement self-inflictions.

By

William Thorpe is in Solitary Confinement at Virginia's Red Onion State Prison.

References

December 2018The Safe Alternatives to Segregation Initiative: Findings and Recommendations for the Virginia Department of Corrections

Brown v. Hutto prisoners confined at VADOC Mecklenburg Correctional Center

A Story Of Professional Irresponsibility and Ethical Indifference By A Virginia Sussex l State Prison [SXISP] Mental Health Official By William Thorpe

On 8/30/18; a prisoner soon to be released was removed from Sussex l State Prison [SXISP] General Population [GP] and placed in Solitary Confinement Unit because he was allegedly cursing and acting out because SXISP guards wouldn't allow him use of a phone to set up an alternate home release plan because his mother was refusing to let him live with her once he was released.

On 8/31/18; a SXISP Mental Health official came to the prisoner's cell door, identified herself and said she was here to talk to him because he'd got locked up last night. To which the prisoner responded, and I paraphrase, he goes home in a week and his release plan fell through because his mom wouldn't let him live with her, so he had to use the phone to figure out alternatives and the officers wouldn't allow him its use. The prisoner was cogent and clear in expressing what his issue was. To which the Mental Health official responded and I am paraphrasing, the counselor for the Solitary Confinement unit didn't show up for work and Monday is Labor Day so she'd email the counselor about his situation after the Labor Day holiday.

Professional Duty and Ethical Responsibility 

Virginia Law provides a generalized requirement for a Mental Health official's contact with a prisoner initially placed in Solitary Confinement and Virginia Department of Corrections Operating Procedure [VADOCOP] 730.4, 730.5, 841.1 861.3 all specifically detail and define a VADOC Mental Health Officials Responsibility. This "Story" about a SXISP Mental Health officials contact with a prisoner initially placed in the prisons Solitary Confinement unit reveals, the legal obligations, professional duty and ethical responsibilities of a Virginia prison Mental Health official. But what it also seriously exposes is official misconduct and the culture of professional irresponsibility and ethical indifference that grows unchecked when prison officials accountability to the citizens of the Commonwealth of Virginia, which particularly includes its prisoners are allowed to be demagogued away by political reaction.

This Story: A Second Aspect  

The prisoner then told the SXISP Mental Health official that he had spent the entire night in the cell without a blanket and sheets and he was cold to which the Mental Health official responded: and this is a direct quote, you look pretty warm to me, your face is red", then she turned around and left the prisoners door. The Mental Health official never bothered to look through the glass window to verify the prisoner's claim of being without a blanket and sheets. Which the U.S. Supreme Court has long since settled the question: that prison officials have the legal obligation to provide prisoners with adequate clothing and not to do so violates the U.S. Constitution 8th Amendment dicta against the cruel and unusual punishment of prisoner. Also the Virginia Constitution and formulations of Virginia Statutorial Law also prohibits cruel and unusual punishment of prisoner.

Prisoner Official Accountability: It's Lack

For the reader and the Virginia public, I ask:

• Is the behavior of the SXISP Mental Health official reflective of the professional duty and ethical responsibilities anticipated by the Virginia taxpayer?
• The Virginia Department of Corrections is a sprawling $1.5 billion a year behemoth of taxpayer money and if it's function is so integral to Virginia society, are the watchdogs: Governmental and non-governmental up to it?                                                                                                                                                    

The callousness displayed cavalierly by the SXISP Mental Health official on 8/31/18; besides those specific violations of VADOC OP's i.e not even a pro forma inquiry into the state of the prisoner's mind, or a follow up on the inadequacy of the prisoners clothing. Instructs of and illustrates what endemic, systemic indifference looks like. We are constantly lectured by Senior Virginia Governmental officials and VADOC executives that Virginia penology is on the just side of history because for one, "low" recidivism says so [this work isn't dealing with recidivist claims by Virginia's Government] yet the actual behavior of Virginia prison officials in its prisons are anything but. From acts, which if were committed by a regular taxpaying citizen would be seen as felonies and prosecuted as such. To administrative malfeasance of the like existing at the U.S. Department for Veterans Affairs of which the Virginia mainstream media presumes its disclosures satisfies and completes its duty to educate the taxpaying citizen, while serious acts of governmental misconduct and unaccountability play out as nauseam behind the concertina wire and storm fences of its prisons, without a squeak from its mastheads.

Re-Entry Into Society

The release of a prisoner back into society is serious business and those responsible for its process should see it as such. When a prisoner within days of release informs the only prison official with administrative authority, he had contact with, within hours of his placement in Solitary Confinement, due to an issue with his home release plan because it has fallen through and he virtually has nowhere to go upon release and that prison official only sees the issue as an emailing one, for another prison official, a counselor who wouldn't be back to work till after the holidays, then the question has to be asked to what extent is this SXISP Mental Health official cognizant of her professional duty and ethical responsibilities and what exactly are the taxpayers of Virginia paying for?

Furthermore what has become of Brian Moran's Virginia Secretary for Public Safety and Homeland Security much vaunted "Re-Entry Program" and the assertion, no prisoner is released from Virginia prisons without Re-Entry Programming? Because had this prisoner been in the SXISP "Re-Entry Program" this wouldn't have been an issue necessitating critique.

By William Thorpe who is in Solitary Confinement currently at Sussex l State Prison

VADOC Post Orders and Food Service Professionalism Verses What It Really Looks Like

 

VAPAC States Hold Prisons Accountable & Demand Transparency!

Greetings from Virginia Prisons Accountability Committee" [VAPAC] member Prisoner William Thorpe has been confined in long-term solitary confinement since 1996 and at Virginia’s Red Onion State Prison since its opening in 1998. 

Greetings Brothers and Sistahs minds and hearts in the struggle. "VAPAC" Virginia Prisons Accountability Committee stands in solidarity. We in Virginia's gulag salute you from Red Onion State Prison where we encounter the proficiency of the state at breaking its own laws and violating its own rules with how its prison officials and guards act.

We state: Vapac is working tirelessly to sharpen the focus on (1) The narrative of imprisonment in Virginia. How we as vanguards characterize its fact, paying particular attention to the words we use, to the inevitability

(2) of holding accountable Prison officials and bringing transparency to their actions.

We at Virginia’s Red Onion State Prison in Solitary Confinement and general population state (1) The conditions of our confinement are specifically based on the relative degree of compliance Red Onion State Prison officials and it's rank and file guards have for Virginia laws and to the extent, they follow procedures and standards of the Virginia Department of Corrections.

A second point we must emphasize is: Contrary to public statements by executive leadership of Virginia Department of Corrections in Virginia's mainstream media about the astounding decrease in prisoner filed complaints and grievances at Red Onion. The truth is Red Onion's grievance department systemically refuses to process and file prisoner complaints and grievances. The point is Red Onion Steals Prisoner filed complaints and grievances. This issue is one, on which we call upon all conscientious minds and hearts help resolve.

Last but not least Brothers and Sistahs we call for Red Onion State Prison to be investigated by an independent agency removed from the Virginia Department of Corrections. Let's not forget our brothers, William "Balagoon" Thorpe aka Sporty Black (photo) who has been confined since 1998 and Henry Gorham aka Bo Billy who was recently released into Red Onion general population after spending over 20 years in Solitary Confinement.

We send gratitude to all who have joined, there is much we must accomplish so we are asking those families and friends who are already members and followers who care deeply about prison issues to become proactive and ask others to become involved, please share our platforms ask others to join if you are a first comer? We invite you to join, we must speak collectively, with one voice to make changes visit out other platforms:
Facebook ~ https://www.facebook.com/vapac/ (public)
Facebook ~ https://www.facebook.com/groups/vapacommittee/
Twitter ~ @vapacommittee ~ https://twitter.com/
Email ~ vapacommittee@gmail.com
Write Us ~
vapac
P.O. Box 213
Clintwood, VA. 24228

By William Thorpe submitted by vapac

Related articles

• Red Onion State Prison Obstucts Prisoner Complaints While Touting It's Reduction (vapac.blogspot.com)
• On Death Row In The State Of Texas, Last Meals and Backwards Republican Politicians (wwwapropos.blogspot.com)
• Solitary Watch and The Antagonism Of Idealistic-Journalism and Accountability (vapac.blogspot.com)

On The March 30th 2017 Tour of Red Onion State Prison [ROSP] By Interfaith Action for Human Rights [IAHR]

On Thursday, March 30th, 2017; a coterie of self-styled advocates for prison reform in Virginia including members of the group, Interfaith Action for Human Rights [IAHR] toured Virginia's Red Onion State Prison [ROSP].

The group walked past cells in c-building ROSP's primary solitary confinement building. Cells which held and hold prisoners who are denied outside exercise, showers and sometimes meals. They walked past cells improperly and inadequately holding mental health prisoners. [it is noteworthy that since 2014, 3 prisoners in solitary confinement in ROSP's C-Building have committed suicide], They walked past the cells holding prisoners, some of whom have been in Solitary Confinement over 20 years and the walk through, tour for them was a festive affair. Their voices rang giddy with the excitement of being inside the ROSP environment. As one asked their tour guide [a member of ROSP's investigative or intelligence department] could they go out into the outside exercise cages! Then a prisoner's voice yelling through a cell door, in C-Buildings 3/pod called to account the spectacle that prisoners are not animal exhibits or displays in a zoo.

IAHR in its subsequent newsletter/email titled "Report on visit to Red Onion State Prison" gave itself the proverbial congratulatory pat on the back.

What IAHR and its ilk ignore is: 1. Prison officials work for citizens of society which also includes prisoners. 2. Advocates for prison reform shouldn't be motivated by friendship with prisoners or prison officials. What I mean by prison reform shouldn't be motivated by amicability with either prisoners or prison officials is this: Prison reform is necessary because prison and imprisonment stand at the accountability apogee of society, playing a crucial and pivotal role to the social contract and compact. Because when society practice of imprisonment is done in an idealistic and reactionary manner, society as a whole suffers and pays the price. Because prisoners, once released from the imprisonment, who have been brutalized and dehumanized while in prison will now interact with an unsuspecting society in alienating and destructive ways and daily news accounts bear this out. to which prison officials are quick to shift the narrative and blame prisoners and the released prisoner for whatever stupid mayhem the released prisoner brings society. But the reality is prison officials are squarely and primarily to blame because of the idealistic conditions and sadistic treatment they subjected that imprisoned human to. Conditions which if the prisoner before the imprisonment was deviant, prison officials and their prison experimentation have now catalyzed and enabled the maturation of the deviancy. So society's interest in prison reform is primarily all about society's self-interest because to put it simply, accountability irrespective of the subjective is the objective of the social-contract and compact.

But as it related to IAHR and their March 30, 2017, ROSP tour, IAHR is oblivious to all that I have said. If Government is, to quote Abraham Lincoln, "of, by and for the people", prison officials are functionaries of government and are not exempt from the"..... by and for the people" nature of government and the only dilemma [which IAHR in its "Report on visit to Red Onion" describes itself as facing] was when it was confronted with the inadequacy and immaturity of its understanding and perspective of what is the prison official in a modern American prison. Which was starkly exposed by IAHR's behavior, its interaction with ROSP officials prior to and during the March 30, 2017, tour within the fraudulent context that it is about prison officials and the gentility of their sensibilities.

IAHR doesn't see the prison officials as a functionary of government which then means it doesn't understand that the only interactive operative prison officials have with society is that of accountability, specifically treatment of the imprisoned and how it readies and prepares them for release in a practical manner and not self-serving sloganeering for budgetary opportunities.

Instead, IAHR's behavior on March 30th, 2017, revealed it has a fantasy, an idea, a supposition that prison officials are to be reasoned with, cajoled or implored. Which then upends the only relevant fact: Which as I've stated, prison officials are functionaries of government and are bound by law, procedures, and policies to which they must and can only be held accountable.

Had IAHR interacted with ROSP officials within accountability imperative and context it wouldn't have accepted Virginia Department of Corrections and ROSP's  pre-condition for the tour, that it shouldn't talk to prisoners, whom it claims its advocacy is for?  Maybe prison officials wouldn't have permitted the tour. But then IAHR could have challenged such a decision and the obvious lack of accountability by 1. Legal action to obtain access to ROSP and 2. Politicizing the issue of access to ROSP and if it took a ballot initiative to specify public access to prisons which are governmental function funded by tax payers, so be it.

Instead on March 30th, 2017, IAHR and advocates for prison reform walked right past cells holding prisoners at Red Onion State whose conditions and experiences are the self-claimed basis and motive-force for the advocacy. Once again IAHR and prison reform advocates toured Solitary Confinement building at ROSP, walking right past cells that held and hold prisoners who experience daily violations of the United States, Virginia Law, and Prison procedures and policies. But because of a pre-condition that only mocked and undercut the very reason for prison reform advocacy, IAHR rendered itself impotent.

By William Thorpe

William Thorpe is held in Solitary Confinement at Virginia's Red Onion State Prison.