WE CALL ON THE VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS TO ACTUALLY ENGAGE WITH US THE PEOPLE OF VIRGINIA IN A PUBLIC FORUM By William Thorpe

Yes The Commonwealth of Virginia has those we elect to represent The People's interest and hold accountable actions by those the People delegate authority to via the myriad of applicable means, which direct engagement by the People is basic and fundamental and irrespective of representative government and governance cannot be ceded and when circumstances arise that require direct engagement with the People of Virginia it must be honored and respected. The Virginia Department of Corrections occupies and provides a specific and unparalleled service within the terms of the Commonwealth's Social Contract.

Okay, despite the prerogatives and privileges given the Virginia Department of Corrections by the People of Virginia along with the intrinsic and implicit benefit of the doubt or deference to its Executive decisions and exclusivity. The Department isn't above reproach and scrutiny and when from all appearances and performances those elected by the People of Virginia to fulfill oversight over the Departments activities and philosophy have in principle and deed, regardless of reasons abrogated the Peoples trust and faith in their ability to do so and in order to maturely realize their responsibilities and obligations as citizens and People of Virginia, on whether to continue on with the nature of The Department or .require a fundamental reform--- The People as motive force of all that is the Commonwealth of Virginia have recourse to demand direct engagement with the Virginia Prison Official whom they have delegated and given the privilege of performing the Social Contract service of imprisoning people. The Virginia Department of Corrections, based on all available evidence has compromised and violated one of the fundamental terms of Social Contract as realized by the Human Condition and its with such recognition the People of Virginia including the Virginia Prisoner exercise the demand of direct engagement with the Department.

Oversight of governance and governmental acts means those The People have entrusted with the responsibility will have that all seeing and watchful eye of what is being done in the name of The People. A review of Court filings in Virginia Courts will show that claims and allegations of reprehensible and unbefitting behavior of The Commonwealth of Virginia have been lodged against the Virginia Prison Official over and over, repeatedly, consistently making the same claims, implying that not only isn't the requisite oversight of the Department of Corrections non existent, but that fundamental, "good moral character ", expectation and requirement of governmental action is ignored.

BLACK'S LAW 2d EDITION, defines "Good Moral Character", like this:1. A pattern of behavior that is consistent with the community's current ethical standard and that shows an absence of deceit or morally reprehensible conduct. 2 A pattern of behavior conforming to a profession's ethical standards and showing an absence of moral turpitude. Now my contention as I present it to the People of Virginia for engagement with The Virginia Department of Corrections and the Prison Official, is simply this the Department as expression of the sovereignty of The People is in complete and comprehensive violation of the "good moral character" behavior of the Virginia Prison Official.

The engagement seeked by the People of Virginia, with The Virginia Department of Corrections is specifically for educational purposes, so the People will be better equipped to vote their interest in the upcoming 2025 Statewide elections. Because the issue isn't about how something is explained away. What is being done to the Virginia prisoner in all it's variegated gradations by the Virginia prison official in the name and under the authority of The People of Virginia is adjudged by that one and only Judge, HISTORY, where the People of The current Commonwealth will either live in infamy for dereliction and complicity with all that the Human Condition struggles against or The People of the Commonwealth will eternally stand as completely realized Humans because they reclaim their authority by correcting the impunity of the Virginia prison official .

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

REFORM OF VIRGINIA'S IMPRISONMENT SCHEME REQUIRES AND DEMANDS A CORRECT ACCOUNTING OF THE COMMONWEALTH'S HISTORY, TO SHOVE ASIDE THE SOPHISTRY OF IT'S ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL BENEFICIARIES By William Thorpe

I BEGIN: Imprisonment in Virginia as Nationally begun its morph into its present state as a direct result of The Civil War and the Faustian, bargain with the devil, that created The 13th Amendment to the U.S Constitution and its "except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall having been duly convicted" clause or should be correctly described as that back door back into slavery and the nullification of all that the Civil War stated. Because the Civil War was about the destruction of States Rights to enslave people, but in the process of abolishing slavery legally and politically, that back door of its continuum "shall have been duly convicted" provided those who couldn't see life without slavery, a sliver of opportunity that yes, their political-economy model of unrequited and unremunerated labor would still thrive. So laws were quickly and hurriedly enacted and passed to reenslave the newly freed and liberated enslaved, by entrapment into imprisonment.

Yes its undeniable and inarguable that people, the Human commits monstrous acts and deeds and it isn't my intention with this work to lead you the reader to an example, you can use your own reference point, but what I will point out is the apogee or zenith of monstrous commissions isn't by a private citizen or even groups of private citizens, but without qualification and condition, monstrous acts and deeds are always and I emphasize always committed and perpetrated by a Politics, its economic interest and pursuits under the sovereignty of the citizenry or People under the rule of law and the administration of its process. Virginia, within our National context paved the way for the application of that perfidious back door of reenslavement, which we experience as the Virginia Department of Corrections and its prison system. No one honest person will declare that any Social construct is beyond reform, yet that is the shameless position of those who benefit from the application of, specifically imprisonment in the Commonwealth. Our work is to expose the dishonesty of their arguments and show that notwithstanding the fact that yes "Justice", in whatever civilized form is a necessary component of any mature Social Contract, which the Commonwealth sure as hell claims to be, however we shouldn't become complicit in its perversion, by those who lost the Civil War.

Our work, meaning focus is on reforming Virginia's imprisonment scheme, subsequently its conditions and circumstances. As such we must shove aside the misanthropic and degenerate sophistry of its reactionary proponents and their invidious allied elements, by removing whatever veneer they exploit in their labors of distorting the salient and fundamental terms of reform and its demands. The People of the Commonwealth of Virginia fall into any number of categories relative to any necessary reform of aspects and terms of The Social Contract, which the imprisonment scheme and its Justice Infrastructure is a fundamental question. There is that category of holdovers from the pre-Civil War era and its antebellum psychosis, incapable of renouncing and repudiating the intellectual-liberalism of supremacy and its political-economy, as such will execute the most insensate arguments against any hint or push for reform of Virginia imprisonment and independent of political Party affiliation we find them cloaked in all the idealistic thought produced by the Human Condition. Nationalism in all its incarnations, Conservatism and its supremacist delusions, Theocracy and its perpetual hypocrisies and all the other absurdities emanating from the hodgepodge listed above. Historically anti-prison reformers in Virginia have exploited all sorts of gimmicks as means and mechanisms of garnering support.

Opposition to prison reform is easy. All it takes is a visceral evocation of any number of deeds, perpetrated by any of our hapless members of humanity and reactionaries are off to the races with it and the work of reforming Virginia's imprisonment scheme isn't any different. From the stock prison isn't a Holiday Inn, to all the various apologies and excuses given by supporters of the savagery and barbarism of the Virginia prison official while conveniently and insidiously sacrificing the very foundational and fundamental lattice and glue of Virginia's Social Contract and its terms with their reprobate logic. What I mean by, conveniently and insidiously sacrificing the very foundational and fundamental lattice and glue of Virginia's Social Contract, is this: First of all Virginia's Social Contract or the fundamental construction of the Commonwealth of Virginia as a sovereign entity is a work of Law, in other words, Society composes itself then it declares the process as acts of Law, so everything of society or in this case Virginia are materializations of Law. As such, consequently and significantly the imprisonment scheme is its manifestation. The entire prison construct is comprehensively Law.

It isn't my intent to saddle you the reader with formulations of ideas and concepts that are borne on propositions that the World has been explained and our work is to change or reform it. Because these conceptual facts are resolved and undisputed, there isn't an aspect, circumstance or condition that is outside, in this case of Virginia Law, contrary to the sophistry produced by Court rulings, that want to have it both ways. If imprisonment in Virginia is a process of law, if the condition itself is constructed on terms of law then every aspect of its presumptions, by Virginia's Government is under law. However, firstly Virginia prison anti-reformers, understand this fact more comprehensively than the reformers, as such upon its anticipation, the reactionaries or anti-reformes have recharacterized everything about Virginia's pursuit and application of its Justice Infrastructure to achieve the distortion, that the nature, circumstance and condition of imprisonment in the Commonwealth is an ad hoc construct solely up to the dictatorial whim of antebellumnesque suppositions.

We see this clearly in the recharacterization and misappropriation of the descriptive, "Public Safety". Because Virginia reactionaries and their ally anti-prison reformers, have understood that, to maintain their antebellumnesque psychosis, commandeering definitions of Virginia governmental functions and services is a must. In other words it's that political maneuver of defining the opposition, so we see the descriptive, Public Safety applied in ways that have nothing to do with safety. Chuck D of the Group Public Enemy, captured this phenomenon aptly, with his commentary on the function of the 911 service. We all understand 911,to be a governmental service of assistance. Well Chuck D and Flava Flav gave voice to what some of our community members experience with it, when he classically memorialized the observation with the lyric,"911 is a joke in your town",meaning, despite the fact the entire Society contributes to the existence and purpose of the 911 service, it isn't equitably accessed. Which is the same thing with the misappropriation of the definition, Public Safety, deployed by reactionaries and their retrograde allies in their war against the Virginia prisoner by opposing reform of the practices and attitudes of the Virginia Department of Corrections in the administration of its prisons. What we experience is a mindless opposition to the reform of Virginia's imprisonment scheme, without rhyme or reason, which can only be explained by the realization that Virginia's reactionaries are caught, stuck and trapped in a netherworld of pre Civil War Virginia.

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

VIRGINIA DEMOCRATS AND THE POLITICS OF IMPRISONMENT IN THE COMMONWEALTH by William Thorpe

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

That thing of, "if you can't speak for yourself, someone else will "and its almost a given that, it won't be in your interest, doesn't just apply to the usual suspects, meaning those perennially defined by the exploitive status quo narrative, that means prisoners and the dynamic and history that produces and creates us, but also major Political Partys, like The Democratic Party of Virginia or as I'll use it in this work, Virginia Democrats. Because forever Virginia Democrats have allowed others to define them on issues of imprisonment in The Commonwealth by speaking not necessarily for them but on them and naturally, you guessed it disadvantaging not merely card carrying Democrats, but the entire Social Contract and its integrity because anything and I underscore and emphasize, anything that undermines the faith and trust in the narrative of Virginia's Social Contract, which the maladministration of Virginia's Justice Infrastructure and imprisonment typically highlights, only metastasizes that inevitable rot. I begin: Virginia Democrats notwithstanding the impactful work they, gave the Commonwealth under the leadership of Governor Ralph Northam, by way of certain reforms of Virginia's Justice Infrastructure and imprisonment scheme, seem to be regressing to their habit of allowing others to frame their intentions and define them in ridiculous and frivolous ways as it relates to and concerns imprisonment in the Commonwealth.

Contrary to the propaganda of Virginia's imprisonment scheme, it isn't about justice or punishment or even rehabilitation and as a latest example and simple proof of this is the focus and efforts of Jason Miyares in his position as Attorney General, to scrap a Virginia law that has not only incentivized Virginia prisoner constructive behavior, but ensured that 64.5% of released prisoners didn't reoffend. The law in question was one demanded by the Virginia citizenry, who at least are not burdened with the truth that Virginia's imprisonment scheme is an undeniable, cataclysmic, catastrophic and unmitigated disaster, evidenced by the spectacle and an incredulous one at that of the attorney general denouncing a law that is creating stable citizen behavior of released imprisoned Virginians. Virginia Democrats were pliant accomplices in the Republican speculative work of abolishing parole in the Commonwealth in 1995 which by employing Republican logic, metric and sophistry has been a complete failure, because they still beat the crime drum, expecting us to forget and ignore that abolishing parole was sold as a end all. No one expects a end all, when the question is human behavior and the focus of this work isn't to indulge in its speculation. What I'm getting at is reminding Virginia Democrats that they have a lot and much to say on the terms of Virginia's Social Contract within its imprisonment scheme.

The Politics of Imprisonment in Virginia is simple, its on Virginia Republican terms, meaning they exploit the malbehavior of criminality and deviance and the obvious harm on victims to speculative political power, while braining Virginia Democrats over the head with the invective and slur, "soft on crime", therefore rendering Democrats reform polemic impotent. What is fascinating about this, or rather what the politics of imprisonment reveals is the fear Virginia Democrats harbor over crime as their Achilles heel. Because the opposite is true, Republicans are the ones who support and enable the criminality of impunity by the Virginia prison official. But what Republicans have been able to effectively do is recharacterize what should be considered as crime, what the People of Virginia should focus on as impacting, again the Republican definition of Public Safety, in other words its that classic distraction by the matador with the red cape to the Bull, while concealing the plunging sword. Because the criminality perpetrated by the Virginia prison official destroys faith and trust in Virginia's Social Contract.

First of all Republicans and the Virginia Republican would rather care less about crime, save for the fact its a convenient tool and mechanism to extract votes from the people of Virginia to accomplish their one and only intent, which is crass social recognition and plunder of the accompanying accoutrements of political leadership, because their stated raison d'tre, disqualifies them from any practical and honest contribution to that Madisonian concept and aspiration of a "more perfect union", which is what reform of and introspective examination of aspects of The Social Contract ask of The People, particularly within the apparatus of the Justice Infrastructure and the imprisonment scheme and we already know this, as such we hold The Democratic Party, who at least professes to have an inkling that even if ones "thought" only goes as far as the venality of political vanity, meaning that unwillingness to care about The People, still there has to be some sort of consideration of the subjects and basis of the exploitation, responsible for going along with the distortive narrative on criminal issues lobbed by Virginia Republicans who really have not a care on what is in the best interest of the People of Virginia.

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

WHAT DOESN'T VIRGINIA DEMOCRATS RUNNING FOR STATE WIDE ELECTIONS IN 2025 GET THAT DOING TIME IN VIRGINIA PRISONS ISN'T OPPORTUNITY FOR PRISON OFFICIALS TO BREAK THE LAW IN THEIR TREATMENT OF PRISONERS ? By William Thorpe

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

Look we already know where Virginia Republicans and their National brethren stand on law and its due process--THEY IGNORE AND VIOLATE IT. No one in their right mind would waste time impressing Republicans with the fact that without the law and its processes that they ignore and violate they wouldn't be in the position of violating it. The issue however is with Democrats who at least present an inkling that, they understand that President JOHN ADAMS wasn't a dotard or daft when he reminded us through his compatriots and contemporaries, that the newly constructed and nascently emerging UNITED STATES, was a Nation of "laws and not of men", which is the requisite and necessary "reagent", of constructing forthrightness and even JOHN ADAMS couldn't have fore saw the present condition, where accountability isn't to due process of law, but to men.

Recently Virginia Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares was again in the news hectoring and lecturing Virginia legislators, with his cat nip fascination over Virginia prisoners receiving "good time" or Earned Sentence Credits, which of all that is wrong with The Commonwealth's Social Contract, is his singular focus and he's quoted as saying, "Too many elected officials have decided to use the law as a social experiment rather than as a shield", because his point is, supposedly 35.5% of 7,193 Virginia prisoners released due to the Earned Sentence Credits law reoffended, therefore the law not only is suspect but it renders its proponents vulnerable to that ridiculous, infantile and idealistic Republican critique of "social experiment" or its other formulation popularized by the clay feet of reactionary politics, Newt Gingrich, "social engineering".

Look people this is crazy. Here we have the Attorney General of Virginia, a Constitutional Office, as such is intended to inspire and consequently be forward looking. Yet the current occupant, Jason Miyares is giving us the most insensate of arguments, which quite frankly is indefensible and is only tolerated because of the deference and benefit of the doubt given and accorded the office. We are told that a law which a majority of Virginians voted for because they demanded reform of an imprisonment scheme and condition done in their name and authority, must be scrapped, because Jason Miyares and the "thought" that he represents, is politically at odds with it? And the argument is because 35.5% of Virginians released from prison under the law, supposedly reoffended and you know what let's even ignore context and deal with our Attorney General's argument on its terms, yeah the Jason Miyares vantage, which is if 2,553.15 of 7,193 released prisoners reoffended, it means,4,639.485 didn't and in what world wouldn't that be a cause for celebration?. People think about this 64.5% of prisoners released under a law incentivizing the Virginia prisoner's behavior DIDN'T REOFFEND and our Attorney General Jason Miyares wants to scrap the law ?.

The point I'm making brings me to my central focus, these past 3+ years rule of Republican as Governor of Virginia Glenn Youngkin have been that colloquial, when you think it can't get worse, Virginia Republicans say oh hell yeah we'll make it worse, because who would have thought that we'd see the Virginia prisoner reduced to perdition and it's desperation of self-immolation? and that wasn't beyond the pale enough till the Director of The Virginia Department of Corrections Chadwick Dotson, opened his mouth dismissing the fact that prisoners entrusted to his care where setting themselves on fire, who by the way before assuming the position as Director was Chairman of The Virginia Parole Board and before that was a Circuit Judge of Wise County. I mean in a sane, sensible and incorruptible world we would retrace and review every single decision Chadwick Dotson has ever made in his professional life, because his comments alone on the prisoner self-immolation at Koncentration Kamp Red Onion State Prison are defacto disqualifiers, and aren't Judges supposed to exhibit Solomonic wisdom?. Anyway the point is, in light of all of this sword of Damocles savagery and barbarism hanging over Virginia Republicans and their prison policies, Virginia Democrats running for Statewide and Local Elections in November have revealed themselves, despite the fact that during their last ascension to the reins of Virginia Governance and Government, they accomplished significant prison reforms, incapable of saying what all rule of law and its due process Virginia adherent understand, which is The Virginia Department of Corrections is corrupt and begs for an accounting. Which is what these November Elections anticipate.

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

BESIDES THE VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, THE ONES WE HOLD RESPONSIBLE FOR THE BARBARIC AND CRIMINAL HEALTH CARE GIVEN THE VIRGINIA PRISONER ARE THE TRADE GROUPS AND ASSOCIATIONS OF HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONALS By William Thorpe

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

The Hippocratic Oath exist for a reason, it is the measure and standard of the professional behavior of Doctors and Medical workers. It doesn't have sub paragraphs or categorys exempting prisoners, more specifically relating to this work, the Virginia Prisoner, from its unqualified obligation and responsibility of providing medical care. However time and time, again and again, what we experience and know from the existence of exhaustive examples of the compromising and violative nature, type and circumstances of medical care and treatment allowed the Virginia prisoner is the shameful betrayal of the unchallenged requirement of the Hippocratic Oath, by members of Virginia's medical professional and health care community, who are unconditionally accorded and given respectability and its concordant, benefit of the doubt by The People of The Commonwealth of Virginia, besides their professional existence but even more note worthy, their existence as private persons. I begin: Henry "Bobilly" Gorham Jr., a Virginia prisoner who recently died at The Greensville Correctional Center after being continuously imprisoned over a mind boggling and obscenely unfathomably, unimaginably 50+ years in Virginia's cages, of the ridiculous claims of pancreatic and liver cancer as "natural causes", which I chastised in an earlier work that no Black Person ever since the impact of slavery and colonialism, has died of natural causes and Bobilly was a Black Man, then we are confronted with the issue The People of The Commonwealth avert their scrutiny from, which is, the legality construct of imprisonment requires accountability of its every single aspect, beginning with, NO VIRGINIAN IS SENT TO PRISON TO DIE.

When The People of Virginia exercise their organized violence of detaining and confining a Virginian in prison under due process of law for a set amount of time, practically there isn't under law the presumption that the natural course of events of the human existence are corollary with the imprisonment, because human existence is a confluence and congruence of interacting circumstances, sets of relations that do not exist independent of each other and the characterization loss of liberty due to imprisonment isn't able under law to legitimately account for, unless we accept that the detention and confinement of imprisonment despite process of law is still and relatively an arbitrary and ad hoc enterprise. Because if the State of Virginia which is The People are not generally and specifically responsible and accountable for the fact that a sovereign distinct individual human being, and by all honest metrics, there isn't, such a recognition and the acceptance, notwithstanding the state of being subject to the compulsion and coercive fiat of the organized violence of Virginia's Social Contract and imprisonment, that the conditions and the very nature of the imprisonment, not only is existing in a netherworld of selective responsibilities, but is making a mockery of the notion that the detention and confinement is not only lawful but just.

Henry "Bobilly" Gorham isn't the first Virginia prisoner to die on the betrayal of the Hippocratic Oath by Virginia's medical community, nor is he the first of those I was in solidarity with in the trenches of Virginia's hell holes. Bobilly's death and contrary to the crass hatred of Virginia's reactionaries, his immortalization, put in stark and clear relief, the intrinsic and incipient corruption of The People of Virginia's desire to exact accountability selectively, while unwilling and quite frankly simply incapable of demanding the same accountability from its institutions and those it privileges. First of all the existence of Bobilly and all the contemporary and to come Bobilly's make a mockery of the mythology Virginia's establishment recount to the implacability of facts and their revisionist impermeability. So Virginia can say it imprisoned Bobilly to his death for over 50+years and that ringing "the emperor has no clothes" voice will in perpetuity resound, 'at the expense of accountability'. Which is what Virginia's medical establishment has shamelessly sacrificed by being complicit with the unaccountable and ad hoc practices of the Virginia prison official, pursuing the idealistic impulses of the people of Virginia and the as I have presented, outside of law conditions of imprisonment. We do not ask Virginia's medical community to defend or apologize for imprisonment, but what we indict the community of, is, its cravenness and the accompanying complicity, when it sacrifices its morality and ethics at the behest of prison officials who clearly, not only are not sympathetic to the Hippocratic Oath but could care less about it. The only question before the Virginia medical community is, on whose terms?

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

LUCA POWELL OF RICHMOND TIMES TOLD US THAT THE DEAD AND IMMORTAL HENRY "BOBILLY" GORHAM WAS INVOLVED IN A MECKLENBURG INCIDENT, WELL IT NEVER HAPPENED By William Thorpe

Image Kevin Jeans

In the recent Richmond Times piece: HENRY GORHAM JR.WHO FOUGHT DECADES FOR PAROLE DIES AT GREENSVILLE PRISON by Luca Powell, we are told that Henry "Bobilly" Gorham was sentenced to 40 years additional time in prison by a Richmond Judge for his involvement in a 1985 Mecklenburg escape incident that included the Briley Brothers. Then further in the Powell article giving a narrative of the odious and suspicious circumstances of the rescind of the 2021 vote by Virginia Parole Board members KEMBA PRADIA and TONYA CHAPMAN, to grant Henry "Bobilly" Gorham parole, we are introduced to the Mecklenburg incident as qualifier for the reversal of vote to parole Bobilly. I write to state this: The Mecklenburg escape of 6 Virginia death row prisoners happened on May 31st,1984 and they were Earl Clanton, Peterson, Lem Tuggle, Jones, Linwood and James Briley. The escape happened from Building-1, which held death row, solitary confinement and orientation. Bobilly wasn't in Building-1, on the night of the escape, May 31st,1984, he was in B-pod of Building-5. I, was in A-pod of Building-1, the night of the escape doing 30 days isolation or punitive solitary confinement.

There are a couple of disturbing, elements with Powell's article. Firstly on the surface it seems the article is conveying the fact, The Virginia Parole Board violated its own procedures and Bobilly's parole advocate Karen Morrison clearly says as much which is affirmed by the cavalier dismissal given the revelation by the current Chair of The Parole Board, Patricia West. Secondly the article treats Bobilly's cancer as if The Virginia Department of Corrections barbaric history of prisoner medical neglect isn't the one and only culprit responsible. Then the most disturbing thrust of Powell's work, which I started this work with, is the conflation and it's disqualifying inference with Mecklenburg's 1984 death row escape as apology and quasi justification for the rescinding of Bobilly's 2021 vote by the above named Board members, to grant parole. Fourthly Virginia's Parole Board is a legally constituted exercise of The Commonwealth's Political authority, hence assuming the necessary responsibilities and convention. As such Patricia West whether in her professional or the more dubious, private existence is without authority to opine on a suspect but "legal" action by parole board members, whether current or former. The comments by Ms. West in Luca Powell's article are crass heresay and doesn't in any form, manner shed light on and give and provide The People of Virginia, who are responsible for Henry "Bobilly" Gorham's death, its requisite accounting. Because the imprisonment and detention of Bobilly by The People of Virginia wasn't a sanction and authority of death. Simply put he wasn't sent to prison to die. There was nothing "natural causes" about Bobilly's death as Powell's deflective article summarily declares. The idea and its practice that a Virginian can be imprisoned under and by the authority of The People of The Commonwealth of Virginia and then killed due to extra-judicial and ad hoc practices by the Virginia prison official tasked with the imprisonment is outside of law and is murder. This is the circumstance of Henry Bobilly Gorham's death and our speech to Luca Powell and The Richmond Times is lend your prodigious voice to that of its investigation.

We call for an investigation into the handling of Bobilly's parole process, the type, nature and sort of information used by The Parole Board and the fact that there obviously was a collusion and conspiracy that resulted in Board members KEMBA PRADIA and TONYA CHAPMAN second guessing their initial judgement to grant Henry "Bobilly" Gorham parole. For one the reason given in the hearsay comments by Patricia West, for the parole vote reversal, [ his, "extensive criminal record "and that he needed a "longer period of stable adjustment"] is an insult to The People of Virginia, who are accountable for the corrupt convergence resulting in Bobilly's death. First of all and this provides us the opportunity to actually get at the parole debate. Parole as part of the criminal justice system is also an aspect of the pardon, clemency and commutation expressions of the Politics or Law and its terms of the Social Contract. So for example we all experienced Donald Trump authorize the reversals of the convictions and release from imprisonment of those who stormed the U.S Congress on January 6th, because their convictions and imprisonment ran counter and at odds with the politics he embodied, say what you will about it, it reveals and is testament to the nature of Law or the terms of a Social Contract. I've went into this to expose the fraud and corruption of the THOUGHT, wielded by The Virginia Parole Board, with its "extensive criminal record" and ."longer period of stable adjustment", verbiage when, vindictively, for reasons only known to them, they act contrary to the very reason of the existence of parole as a practical part of imprisonment. Bobiilly's case and situation present this and all that is corrupt with the process in all its odious impunity. When John Adams anticipated Lincolns' at Gettysburg, "of the people, by the people and for the people", with his fore runner, "a government of law and not of men", he clearly saw, envisioned and had in mind actions by minds and hearts of the Patricia West's of the world and the petty dictatorship of the, for example, The Virginia Parole Board. Because the only lesson our Virginia version of the Social Contract instructs the Human Condition is, disassembleged, distortion, reduction, perversion and duplicity.

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

I DEDICATE THIS SONG, CRAZY BALDHEAD by BOB MARLEY TO THE VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS AND ITS ENABLER POLITICIAN ALLIES By William Thorpe

Crazy Baldhead / Running Away (Live At The Rainbow 4th June 1977)

Recently Henry "Bobilly" Gorham Jr. died imprisoned under the jurisdiction and custody of The Commonwealth of Virginia and its Department of Corrections. The death was accounted for as "natural causes". I begin: No Black Person, not the Uncle Toms, and collaborators in these United States or anywhere in the World, dies of "natural causes", not since Arabs, Persians and Europeans decided that subjugating and exploiting Black People would be the basis of their political-economy and the re-creating of their existence. No amount of Thomas Sowell's intellectual-liberalism and its sophistic apologies, distorts this. This work isn't about mocking Thomas Sowell and his in-perpetuity servility, rather its to declare to those Virginia reactionaries and their war on the Virginia Prisoner, that HENRY "BOBILLY" GORHAM, MALIK AKBAR "CUP CAKE"WAKIL, AHOTO TAYSIR MULAZIM, RICO FREDERICK "DOC" HOLIDAY, ROSCOE "SCOE" LAWSON. DONALD "TREE" SUTHERLAND and all THE LEGENDS are IMMORTAL on their own terms, which is what will always be breathed on. BAYETE and AVE! MORITURI TE SALUTANT.

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

They Buried His Freedom. Help Us Bury Bo Billy with Dignity

 

By vapac

THE PEOPLE OF VIRGINIA AND THE VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTION'S WESTERN REGION By William Thorpe

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

The issue isn't what Region The Virginia Department of Corrections detains prisoners at. If ex-coal miners want to resurrect their existence by feeding at the Public Trough with working in Prisons. Our work must be on vigorously holding their operational philosophy and the subsequent job performance ACCOUNTABLE, not on their terms but that of THE PEOPLE OF VIRGINIA. There isn't any debate to be had and argument to be made about and over the fact that the operational philosophy and job performance of the Virginia Prison Official at The Virginia Department of Correction's Western Region is simply savage and barbarous, all one has to do is check out its voluminous chronicles at Virginia's various Courts. The accounts are so egregious that The Richmond-Times and Dispatch, a publication that typically turns a blind eye to Virginia Prison Official criminality has had to begrudgingly publicize certain accounts and prisoner claims. So we hold our Political, Legislative, Business, Labor, Educational and Religious Leaders and Institutions comprehensively and totally responsible for the impunity of The Virginia Prison Official of the Western Region. The basis is simple, Virginia's Institutional Leadership tout the States' positives as conducive and progressive for Human development which is true but what is also true is, its Prison Officials are stuck in the antebellum mind set of pre-Civil War and behave it. As such, that same energy directed towards selling the State's positives must be equally spent on civilizing the professional performance of the Virginia Prison official.

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

VIRGINIA REPUBLICAN STATE SENATOR DANNY DIGGS, YORK COUNTY--SAID, PAROLE WASN'T WORKING, IMPLYING THATS WHY IT WAS ABOLISHED.I RESPOND: IS IMPRISONMENT WORKING? By William Thorpe

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

When Virginia's JAMES MADISON penned THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES and THE FEDERALIST PAPERS, he didn't say because Leadership and Political Order under The British King George III was tyrannical and despotic, so the anticipatory and newly emerging United States would be ANARCHISTIC, instead he stated, The Constitution or Supreme Law was "In order to form a MORE perfect union".[my emphasis].Indicating the simple recognition, that, governance and political order, which the organized violence or the police powers and coercive authority of a State as expressed in its Justice Infrastructure, which imprisonment is fact, is always a work in progress. In other words there isn't a "final solution", to anything, besides the commonsense of always improving on the social good. This wasn't Madison's ingenuity, but simple practicality and honesty. Which Virginia's Leadership from inception, including Madison himself not only have compromised and perverted continuing with Brown v. Board of Education along with a host of other issues, including matters of imprisonment and criminal justice, since the Supremacy of The Civil Rights Act of 1964 post Civil War, but have abandoned and replaced it with the same whimsies of King George III and his prime minister George Grenville that eventually caused James Madison to pen THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES.

AND Virginia Republican State Senator Danny Diggs is continuing the corruption of those whimsies. Before I continue I must say this, Senator Danny Diggs, as the rest of his Republican ilk, locally and Nationally are quick to lecture us on issues and matters of Law and Justice while their leader, who happens to be the current President of The United States is an unapologetic felon and we haven't heard of Danny Diggs or any other Virginia Republican mouth piece dare say one word on it, yet Virginia Republicans are quite prim and pat to castigate and scapegoat the Virginia prisoner, exhibiting a level of intellectual-liberalism and its hapless hypocrisy that James Madison, himself a past master at duplicity, supremacism and hypocrisy would've been agaped mouthed. I begin: Virginia Republican State Senator Danny Diggs is reported to have recently said this on the issue of repeal of the abolishment of parole in Virginia, "maybe a study on a better version of parole than what we had before because we went from an unworking version to nothing". Okay, when James Madison penned Our National Constitution, he wasn't under the delusion and illusion that the political-economy and order under King George III, wasn't working because as soon as "something" comes into existence, its FOR and AGAINST, meaning there are beneficiaries and losers.

Danny Diggs is quoted as saying which I excerpted "because we went from an unworking version to nothing", [speaking of parole].Now, I'm not a student or consumer of Senator Danny Diggs Thought, as such what I must go on are his affiliations, which is, he's a Republican and Republicans since they defended The Union during the Civil War, haven't requited themselves sensibly on their own historical terms, beginning with their betrayal of themselves and all those who fought and died in defense of The Union, with the infernal, reprehensible and craven COMPROMISE OF 1877 which we can accurately characterize as, (despite the Republican passage of The Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to The Constitution of The United States on 1865 and 1868 respectively), making a mockery not only of The Civil War, but The 1776 Revolution itself. Furthermore, besides the only positive of removing The United States off the gold and silver standard by the Republican President Richard Nixon, Republicans have pretty much stood for being insidious and reactionary. So we are not surprised that a Virginia Republican Senator would give us that " Parole "as part of and historical fact of the Justice Infrastructure was fraudulent and "unworking".

Even the aptitude of Niccolo Machiavelli wouldn't dare declare that something steeped in crass subjectivity, purposefully constructed on subjectivity was and is an absolute failure as Danny Diggs critique of Virginia's Parole process, Pré 1995 primly pronounces. Maybe what Danny Diggs needs is a truncated primer on Virginia's imprisonment scheme and its relative exploitation of Parole as mitigation. Prior to The Civil War, circa 1861 mass imprisonment wasn't a social fact in Virginia, but post and after the Civil War, with the liberation and change in the political status of the formerly enslaved African, henceforth Black person, Virginia along with its traitorous sister Confederate States, seized on the newly minted 13th Amendment and its continuing slavery loophole, "except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted", to backdoor the former enslaved back into slavery. Consequently, conscientious minds and hearts understanding and recognizing the insidiousness of this backdoor imposition of slavery, labored to reform this novel social and political fact.

Now Senator Danny Diggs is functionally literate and capable of expressing, conveying his world view, to garner a majority of the York County vote, meaning he has enough command to know that his characterization of Virginia's parole process pre its 1995 abolishment is as patently misleading as the spurious rationale given by its abolisher, the racist and disgraced ex-Governor of Virginia George Allen and trumpeted by the propaganda bull horn of The Republican Party of Virginia, The Richmond-Times and Dispatch News Paper. For one Virginia's Justice Infrastructure, despite the why shouldn't Parole be given raison d'tre as never and I emphasize, fulfilled its mitigating function and Senator Danny Diggs is well aware of this and if somehow he's been victimized by his Party's work dumbing down the Virginia mind with its revisionist and reductive educational gambits, then he doesn't have to look far.

I asked in the title to this work, is imprisonment working? If the typically stated reasons for its pursuits are actually that, because every thing about it, in Virginia and Nationally howls nah ! And that something else is the driver of the practice. Bear with me reader as I use my knowledge of imprisonment to flesh out the parameters which Senator Danny Diggs and any other Senator should orient questions on criminality and deviancy, from assuming their pronouncements in the General Assembly actually fall within the "what is to be done" ambit. I have been imprisoned under Virginia's jurisdiction since February 1980.In 1982 Virginia prison officials came to the solitary confinement building of the now demolished Virginia State Penitentiary, C-BUILDING, where I was detained, soliciting volunteers to go to a new prison that was being opened, then it was called Brunswick Correctional Center,(I think its been leased out to one of those private prison profiteers and its now called Lawrenceville). The point I make since my imprisonment in 1980, there hasn't been any new or novel emergence of the Human being, it's still the same old Homosapiens, the same ole millennia old brain, without digressing. Since I've been in the custody of The Virginia Department of Corrections, Brunswick, Buckingham, Augusta, Nottoway, Luneburg, Coffeewood, Greensville, Indiancreek, Keen Mountain, Red Onion, Wallensridge, Sussex I and II, Pocahontas, River North, Fluvanna, Dillwyn, and a number of camps have all been built. So Senator Danny Diggs what exactly is going on in Virginia Society and terms of its Social Contract that is necessitating the scale economy of prison construction ?Because as a legislator in the Commonwealth of Virginia , you are accountable to The People and please .spare us that theologic "absence of school prayer "explanatory sophistry conventionally deployed by conservative viz Republican machinations as that proverbial ring in the nose of the metaphorical, stand in for The People, Bull, used to induce docility and control. Because we ain't buying it. The problem with Virginia's parole process, historically, isn't that it was given to the Virginia prisoner as Republican foot soldiers and their disgraced leader George Allen gave us the lie during the 1995 process of its abolishment, which Senator Danny Diggs unseemingly, continues its propagation, but it wasn't given to the Virginia prisoner. What addled brain would think that Virginia, a State that was in the vanguard of renaming the practice of slavery with "imprisonment" would use the process of parole as its reform minded proponents intended?. Parole in Virginia was and has always been a box to be checked by Virginia's status quo as Bonafide's of the Commonwealth's civilization.

By Wiiliam 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

WE HOLD YOU GOVERNOR GLENN YOUNGKIN RESPONSIBLE FOR AUBREY McKAY's DEATH AT KONCENTRATION KAMP WALLENS RIDGE STATE PRISON By William Thorpe

This is another chapter in The Commonwealth of Virginia's culture of death.

Let me say this first: Governor Glenn Youngkin read RADIO IQ SANDY HAUSMAN's 6/10/25 ARTICLE, STATE PROBES DEATH OF AN INMATE AT WALLENS RIDGE, because from prisoners self-immolating to Virginians under the custody of Virginia prison officials coming up dead with EMMETT TILL, like injuries, Virginia prisons under your watch should have the yellow tape of a crime scene highlighting the fact that your administration has enabled prison official impunity to the nth and obscene levels. Then came the incident and death of Aubrey McKay under the custody of Koncentration Kamp Wallens Ridge Officials, which Virginia's Journalist Sandy Hausman in her 6/10/25 Radio IQ exposé, yup the same one, that I started this work, asking that you as Chief Executive of The Old Dominion, give the necessary attention to. The death of Aubrey McKay is another shameless chapter in this practice of The House of Burgesses unwillingness to shake off the depravity of its "3/5ths" canker and blight and under your watch Governor Glenn Youngkin, you have allowed its fundamental impunity to continue its business as usual savagery. Yes we get it that expediency of exploiting the scapegoating of the Virginia prisoner for speculative political power and its presumptive distortions all at the expense of the aspirations of the People of Virginia.

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

VIRGINIA LABOR GROUPS AND ORGANIZATIONS ARE SILENT AND ABSENT FROM THE WORK OF REFORMING VIRGINIA'S JUSTICE INFRASTRUCTURE AND PRISON SYSTEM By William Thorpe

By William Thorpe

Our ancients postulated that the examination of the simple and common act of buying and selling will explain a Nations history. A continuation of that analysis also reveals and further defines that a Nations stability and cohesion is also found and determined on the ACCOUNTABILITY of it's Political-Economy, or SOCIAL CONTRACT, meaning the terms of Labor or its mechanisms and means of Production. So when antagonisms begin to appear out of pedestrian contradictions, that are the terms of any normal and healthy Social Contract and its political-economy, it means one thing and one thing only, there isn't that requisite and honest accounting of the nature of Labor and the mechanisms of production. In other words Labor isn't fulfilling its obligations honestly, which also means, it has permitted perversions in its natural narrative. What I've just described is the state of our National political-economy. What I'm focused on is Virginia and the dereliction of its labor groups and organizations, their absence and silence in the work of prison reform in Virginia. Despite the fact my earlier thoughts on political-economy had a National characterization, it holds true for The Commonwealth of Virginia. If political-economy is the foundation that everything, the Social Contract, Society our human condition is built on and Labor is its art and dexterity and if its terms are antagonistic, meaning corrupted then the prognosis that Labor is diseased is unambiguously comprehensive. I begin with the event commonly known as BACON'S REBELLION as illumination. In 1676 Nathaniel Bacon,a Virginian chafed at the antagonistic terms of the political-economy that defined him, one thing led to another and he's immortalized in history with the event bearing his name.[ For study on BACON'S REBELLION, Ibram X. Kendi, gives his grasp in his book STAMPED FROM THE BEGINNING on pp.53-54 Nancy Isenberg gives us hers in her work WHITE TRASH on pp.37-39 the reactionary author Alan Brinkley gives us his conclusions in his writings in THE UNFINISHED NATION: volume one on pp.33-34,56] Now what Nathaniel Bacon affirms are the Labor, accountability by revealing once again that the coercive powers or the Police powers of The State and its Organized-Violence exist to subordinate Labor, because even if Labor hesitates and is reluctant to acknowledge that simple fact, those profiting from and off Labor do.

.Regardless of the perversions that have been allowed, permitted and tolerated by Labor of it's natural narrative(s) to, like sediment throw off its equilibrium and irrespective of complicity, the fact remains that, without LABOR, there isn't Society, there isn't a Human Condition, in other words, if the human condition is a continuum of that......Jeffersonian, "all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable,..."then the culprit is LABOR and that perversion, as I've pointed out, of its natural narrative. Europe, lost it's woods, forest and Jungles, in making the necessary paper to hammer away on this point, that LABOR, well tongue in cheek, so I won't have to "belabor" the point. Nonetheless what I must do is remind Virginia's LABOR groups and organizations that just because we are not speaking on their absence and silence on the fundamental question of reforming Virginia's Justice Infrastructure and the Prison system, is not a pass nor do we absolve them of their unwillingness to embody their natural narrative.

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

VIRGINIA REPUBLICAN OBSTRUCTIONISM AND OPPOSITION TO VIRGINIA PRISON REFORM IS NOTHING BUT THE QUICK SAND OF MINDLESSNESS By William Thorpe

I BEGIN: Every single argument Virginia Republicans wield cudgel like against Virginia society, they hypocritically endorse and affirm its existence as Operating Policy and Procedures in Virginia Prisons and, further as pseudo-Intellectual Administrative Philosophy concocted on anachronistic suppositions, that were idealistically still born in the quick sand of mindlessness. One of the more brazen and egregious examples of this is the outrage against the Covid-19, Lockdowns on the argument that the solitary confinement of people during the Covid Pandemic, harmed people on all levels, because solitary confinement of the human being goes against our very Biology. Then the vociferous protest of the Virginia Republican against the Covid Lockdown turned into the most raucous endorsement, defense and support of its use by the Virginia prison official in Virginia prisons. Then the more insidious of the Virginia Republican's behavior is the establishment of a cottage industry, underscoring and highlighting the failings and short comings of Virginia's Public Education, then turning right around and clamoring for vindictive and monstrously mindless prison sentences for economic crimes done by and perpetrated by the challenged and dysfunctional judgement of minds and hearts, subjected to and if we are to accept the Republican anti-Public Education polemic, created by public schools. If there ever was a par none mitigative force it is the anti-public schools polemic, by Republicans and their white-Evangelical foot soldier, but that's not the reality. Instead again we see the opportunity and exploitation of hypocrisy. In other words the Education provided in Virginia Public Schools is so, according to Republicans, corrupt and corrosive, yet as soon as a Virginia mind and heart displays its ills, by for example dealing drugs, that young ill formed mind is all of a sudden responsible. Then again the Virginia prisoner is imprisoned for a set period according to the due process of law. In other words there is the presumption that the Virginia prisoner will be released into "Free" Society. So what do we see the Virginia Republican, endorsing, supporting and defending? What we see is shameless support for the savagery, barbarity and dehumanization of the Virginia Prisoner, by the Virginia Prison Official done extra-judicially of course. Because no one none of these fingers crossed behind their backs winking and nodding, giving approval to the antebellumnesque depraved professional behavior of the Virginia prison official will dare stand up in the space of Virginia's General Assembly and declare such will be the treatment of the Prisoner in The Commonwealth of Virginia as a matter of fact, we see the opposite. What we see is the pro forma, perfunctory kabuki theatre, which quite frankly is fraud and deceit perpetrated on the Virginia voter, under the guise of "oversight" by our Virginia politicians, specifically the Republican Legislator. Because when the executive Virginia prison official, presents themselves in the space of Virginia's General Assembly, to be held to account for any myriad number of objectionable professional behavior and practices, which for example, the state of Virginia Prisoners self-immolating, yup setting themselves on fire, should be the first grilling. Instead what we are subjected to is obsequious deference to the Virginia Prison Official, with one of those toothless, "on the one hand or on the other", soliloquies framed specifically for the obligatory clip on the local News for consumption by the Republican's rural constituents, representing Bonafide's on that perpetually exploited farcical "law and order", which by the way is the Virginia Republican politicians' sure fire route to winning elections. None of what I'm saying is insight, any critically thinking Virginian, is thoroughly and comprehensively aware of this unbefitting the aspirations of Virginia's circumstance of our human condition. The thing is how do we change it. Its simple if no one is omniscient, notwithstanding the late Arizona Senator John McCain's assertions, and I paraphrase, that we make our own history which I suppose requires omniscience, then its time this war on the Virginia prisoner is confronted with, that simple honesty of, the well fed amongst us cannot keep on supporting this intellectual-liberal fraud of mocking not merely the Social Contract and its constant Sisyphean squaring of the circle, but the fact that just as we challenge the clay feet sophistry of our ancients as petty charlatanism, along with recognizing that irony of Donald Trump's declaratory speech, announcing his quest for the U.S. Presidency, with the propaganda of Mexico not sending its best to the U.S, but and I paraphrase, deviants, which as I've noted its irony, because his critique accurately described the sort of initial European who set sail on those rat infested and leaky galleons, projecting European Monarch power seizing the patrimony of those they encountered. If we want a honest accounting of our human capital which actually means ourselves then, the Virginia prison official, has to come to terms with, one for example, as the current Director of The Virginia Department of Corrections, former Wise County, Circuit Judge, Chadwick Dotson, that savagery and barbarism are always that whether done by a convicted Virginian occupying a Virginia prison cell or done by the Virginia prison official professionally, it is still sadism and notwithstanding the sophistry of personal and individual responsibility, The Commonwealth in its presumptions of Sovereignty commissions of savagery "is just that savagery".

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

THE JOHNNY COME LATELYISM TENDENCY OF PRISON REFORM IN VIRGINIA IS A RETROGRADE INDULGENCE By William Thorpe

"Johnny Come Lately" is colloquial for that tendency to assume that, nothing existed or nothing has ever been done, till the all knowing, all seeing, Johnny does it. A classic example of a Johnny Come Lately is the current President of The United States, Donald Trump, which I've termed, Johnny Come Latelyism and another form we see Johnny Come Latelyism is in the Sisyphean, "reinvention of the wheel" and irrespective of context, it is always a retrograde indulgence and we are seeing it rear its idealistic head in this push to reform Virginia's Justice Infrastructure, its Virginia Department of Corrections and Prison System. I begin: The Virginia Prison System is as everything else a part and expression of Virginia Society. It isn't insulated or excluded, despite the work and effort by the prison official and the Politician ally to suggest such. So if Prison is a part and expression of Society then "CHANGES", in Society under whatever term one is satisfied with, be it REFORM or REVOLUTION, impacts Prison. At this juncture I need to say this, everything in Society is POLITICS, because for obvious reasons we have been confused to think and act as if certain social facts are not within its ambit, hell even to those who feel the term," REFORM " is a sell out, because its within the parameters of the Two-Party System or politics and stand on the purity of "REVOLUTION", are either blissfully clueless or insidiously and willfully ignorant, because, CHANGE period, regardless of vernacular and characterization is POLITICS, hell have we forgotten von CLAUSEWITZ's encapsulation that something as crass as " WAR" still "IS POLITICS BY ANOTHER MEANS". So what are we talking about when we act like the conditions and circumstances necessitating our polemic of reform of The Virginia Department of Corrections isn't primarily and crassly POLITICS?. Which the consequences and results of this emerging antipathy towards grasping that politics is the driver of the mess that is the entire construct of Virginia's Justice Infrastructure is this Johnny Come Latelyism tendency as a retrograde indulgence and the only beneficiaries of Johnny Come Latelyism are the subjects of reform polemics. What is striking is Virginia is relatively in the vanguard of reform polemics Nationally and thats no small feat.

Yes, Virginia is in the vanguard of reform polemics Nationally. But thats not the point. I continue: Too many good people, since my imprisonment in 1980 Black and White Guys, stood up and are still standing up against this Virginia injustice machine, that takes off its mask and reveals drooling fangs every time it imposes an extra-judicial, an unlawful dictate through its Virginia prison official on the Virginia prisoner. Too many came into the Virginia prison system with relatively short sentences and in response and reaction to the savage and barbarous treatment of the Virginia prison official and their sadistic urges and impulses accumulate(d) vindictive and inordinate increases on the original sentence and people you know what, each and every act by those Virginia prisoners then and the Virginia prisoner now has its cause, its determinant, its basis in the extra-judicial and above the law behavior of the Virginia prison official and its excuse by the supposed "oversight" Virginia Politician, specifically, the Virginia Republican. I challenge anyone and I mean anyone to disprove, this, I respond with access the chronicles of claims and allegations against the Virginia prison official, by the Virginia prisoner, their Families and Estates held in the innumerable law libraries and study and encounter the allegations that are clearly unbefitting those embodying office of The Sovereign Commonwealth of Virginia, yet the prevailing narrative deployed in that identical Military at War, Psychological Operations manner, enabled by Virginia mainstream media, specifically The Richmond-Times and Dispatch, maligns and accuses the Virginia prisoner.

Another form of maligning the Virginia prisoner, is Johnny Come Latelyism and this indulgence is another instance of that adage, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions", because those guilty of Johnny Come Latelyism are besides their mindlessness, good intended. What I mean by 'mindlessness', is simply this, they haven't factored in with its requisite seriousness, or given the appropriate thought to the fact that the Virginia Prisoner is first and foremost in the activist trenches and on the advocacy front lines, because all immediate reactions and responses by the Virginia prisoner to the lawless behavior and practices of the Virginia prison official constitute ACTIVISM and ADVOCACY, despite that always present violence from the prison official. I recall a 1998 incident at Koncentration Kamp Red Onion State Prison, where the "gun man", or officer with the gun shot a prisoner in the shower, in A-Building, with rubber bullets on the pretext that the prisoner was refusing to leave the shower. Now the shower is about the size of one of those porta pottys, with a steel gate and if a prisoner was actually refusing to be handcuffed and shackled to leave not just a shower stall, but anywhere at Red Onion they have their procedures, which summary rubber bulleting a prisoner sure as hell isn't it. I cite this anecdote, to underscore the fact that its dismaying when there is a level of sentiment bubbling and gurgling among some of those who advocate for us prisoners out there in the free world that the Virginia prison landscape was a zombie waste land of mutes without agency, simply at the bigoted whim and its sadistic fantasy. Yes the Virginia prison official embodies the bigoted whim, with sadistic fantasies that are dementedly acted and carried out, but Virginia prisoners haven't simply been, as one Mother of a Virginia prisoner recently put it, her son is not a "punching bag".

 As I've been making the point, the issue of Prison Reform and holding the prison official Accountable is primarily, Political. Because prison and imprisonment in Virginia as Nationally serves a core Social Contract function that has nothing to do with the "justice" myth and narrative which the Governing status quo, would rather leave undefined so subjects or the people of Virginia can fill in that proverbial blank, using their ignorance's and biases as that controlling "self-check", mechanism, that is fundamental and a priori to the political-economy and it's Social Contract. Historically, the Virginia prisoner has behaved as all natural entities when subjected to impunity. Over the course of The Commonwealth of Virginia applying its subordinating function in pursuit of its core interest, which it tried its maintenance with the tactic of secession and the eventual Civil War. Minds and Hearts have risen and clearly stated," not in our name", which the Virginia prisoner as subject has in constructive, destructive, positive and negative expressions also echoed. I say this to give value, to those Virginia prisoners, who cracked open the door on reform in Virginia in the case LANDMAN v. ROYSTER 333 F.Supp. 621, which was so comprehensive that Virginia's status quo couldn't even pull the stunt of appeal. Nonetheless The Supreme Court of The United States, couldn't leave The Old Dominion flailing, so it came to as we expect, status quo's defense, with a disclaimer in a subsequent ruling in COX v. COOK 420 U.S. 734, as cited in RUSSELL v. DIVISION OF CORRECTIONS 530 F.2d 969, stating that the determinations in the LANDMAN case are limited to the EASTERN DISTRICT of Virginia.

The meaning and consequence was unambiguous, Virginia prisoners in the Eastern District had the benefit and privilege of the reformative ruling of the LANDMAN v. ROYSTER case, while those in the Western District didn't, yup thats the idealistic and conditional nature of our Nations jurisprudence and we still see it today, in the same Courts ruling delegitimizing affirmative action in the Nations Colleges, Universities with the inevitable spill over into private businesses, yet The same Supreme Court that gave us the anti-affirmative ruling said its okay for the Military to continue using affirmative action. So the Court in one instance delegitimizes the history necessitating affirmative action, while in another instance it validates the same history it relatively and virtually mocked. I've went all into this affirmative action anecdote because its exemplary and illustrative of this social fact of prison, imprisonment, the reform motive and the accountability dialectic and its emergence in Johnny Come Latelyism. Now I continue: I understand the maxim and I paraphrase, if you can't or won't speak for yourself, someone else will and that is the work of my writing. What Johnny Come Latelyism idealistically but insidiously does is, it, thoughtlessly and naively, discounts and dismisses that very springboard it is leaping into its prerogatives of action from. I'm originally from Detroit, I came to Virginia ,Norfolk to be exact in 1980, when I was locked up on armed robbery. I was in Norfolk City Jail in 1980 when it was taken over by a number of guys. I entered the Virginia Department of Corrections at its Powhatan or State Farm Receiving Unit in August 1980.I lasted around 5 days in C-3, before an incident with prison officials during clothing exchange the Saturday of my first weekend, landed me in Solitary Confinement, till I was released back into C-3 after months in solitary because a multiday protest occurred on the main prison's General Population and they needed the cell or cage I was in to detain others. This multiday protest brought out The State Police and I think the National Guard. So here I was 20 years old in Virginia, experiencing Norfolk's SWAT team storm the 7th floor of the Jail, then in prison I m watching heavily armed elements of Virginia's Organized Violence encircling the prison's fences.

This isn't a proto-Autobiographical work. The point however is engraving facts on our terms, that on all fronts of Virginia's status quo's deployment of its organized violence, within its justice infrastructure and prisons, Virginia Prisoners, Black, White, male and female, contrary to the revisionism of Johnny Come Latelyism,"Spoke", Yeah that same speech resistance to impunity, historically has always asserted, along with its consequence. Some martyred, others having physical and mental health failings with this salient point, that with the exception of those sentenced to die, when Virginia used the death penalty, no Virginia prisoner is sent to prison to die due to prison official machinations or lose their mind or contract a debilitating disease--yet, thats par course and the nature of the prison official's "orderly operations". At this juncture I resurrect AHOTO TAYSIR MULAZIM aka HAROLD CARPENTER. Ahoto passed on March 2, 2022 after The Virginia Department of Corrections kept him locked up for over 40 years and promptly upon his release in 2022, his nephew allegedly shot and killed him, the understanding is it was over an argument. Now here is the crux, his nephew might have been the one who shot and killed him, but the reality is the Virginia Department of Corrections and its prison official, killed Ahoto, just as they have killed and continue to kill Virginians they imprison. Ahoto was born on August 13, 1963 in Richmond, Virginia and he was from the same Neighborhood, Churchill, which Virginia Delegate Rae Cousins, eloquently spoke of in her 2024 TED TALK at GREENROCK CORRECTIONAL CENTER.I met Ahoto at C-Building [The Solitary Confinement Max security Unit] of The Virginia State Penitentiary aka The Wall. He had a weird funny name none of us had ever heard, this was in 1982 and we'd joke him over his name and he'd respond with he had a comb if I needed one. I had just started growing dreads, just as his name was alien to us, dreads were also alien to him and the rest of the fellows. Remember this was 1982 and not only were the average fellow, black or white ignorant to Reggae music and Bob Marley, but they were also ignorant to the entire Rastafarian cosmology, Marcus Garvey, Black Nationalism, Emperor Haile Selassie and Pan-Africanism. Yes there was deep knowledge and grasp of The Black Panthers, of course Frantz Fanon, George Jackson, The Nation of Islam, The Moors, The Five Percenters and of course, both Prince Hall and Albert Pike's Scottish Masonry. There was also recognition of the writings of my fellow Detroiter, Donald Goines, then Iceberg Slim, Charlie Avery Harris all precursors to the Urban Legend litreature monetization. I have went a bit into it like this to paint a bit of the formative culture of Ahoto, for one his Father named him based on his grasp of Black Self-Determination and the last thing the Virginia prison official then wanted was to contend with opposition to that impunity dynamic of "do as I say, not as I do". For a bit of context, let's remember that Virginia was Capital of The traitorous Confederacy. The Virginia State Penitentiary not only held Vice-President Aaron Burr but was in existence during the Civil War. Ahoto is illustrative of us, we are imprisoned at early ages, subjected to conditions and circumstances that breed resistance. There are too many names to be resurrected, for example, Malik Akbar Wakil aka Randolph Flueller aka Cup Cake, Rico Frederick Holiday aka Doc Holiday, Roscoe Lawson aka 'Scoe, Donald " Tree" Sutherland. Paul "Gum Gum" Coomer and lastly but not least, Joe Giarratano. All of these guys have passed and all spent inordinate amount of time not just in Virginia prisons but Solitary Confinement. For example Tree aka Don Sutherland and I were in Norfolk City jail together, in 1980.We were in The Wall, together, at Mecklenburg, State Farm's M-Building together, when I finally got released from long term solitary confinement in 1992, from State Farm's M-Building and I was sent to Augusta Correctional Center Tree was already there. These were exceptionally good people, who got maligned by the Virginia prison official because they resisted, meaning they, we had the temerity to require the Virginia prison official comply with their very own procedures and policies. What I'm saying is analogous to a patient in a hospital put in the position of having to require Nurses and Medical professionals do their job. Let me say this about Joe Giarratano, Koncentration Kamp Red Onion State Prison had just opened in 1998 and Virginia brought him back from the Illinois Prison System where in typical Virginia fashion the holdover slave overseers had shipped him to. Joe and Ahoto were on the A-2 and 3 rec yard and I was on the A-4 and 5 rec-yard, we were yelling at each other over the wall and steel girder roof like enclosure, then I heard Joe yelling at the "gun man", prison official holding the gun, who was up in the A-1, 2, 3 gun window," that if you wanna shoot him, you'll have to shoot through me". What was going on was the gun man had issues with Ahoto and he wanted to fabricate a story, in order to shoot Ahoto and he thought, because Joe was White and Ahoto was Black, Joe would look the other way. But he was mistaken, we were all at Mecklenburg, Ahoto and I, we were in solitary confinement, Joe was on death row and on many occasions when the Mecklenburg officials would literally drag him on the floor from C-Pod of Building 1 (which was the death row-pod) we were the ones who would go to his aid by letting the Officials know that, no they couldn't mistreat him like that and this went for all of us. A many times Joe was my neighbor and I would be in solidarity with defending him. So his defense of Ahoto on that Red Onion rec yard was just our solidarity culture. Let me again stress this everyone I've listed in this work is dead. There are just as many alive who have the same solidarity cultural ethos and forthrightness and another motivator of this Johnny Come Latelyism work has been my encountering advocates and activist, who do speak for us, the Virginia prisoner and I'm as much a Virginia prisoner despite my exile to the Texas prison system because I'm still under the jurisdiction of The Commonwealth of Virginia, bad mouthing, speaking dismissively of these remaining guys who have literally bled in the trenches of activism against the Virginia injustice machine in Virginia's prison cages. I've heard guys character assassinated by those in the free world, without the grasp that in our human condition, there are no Saints, save the loyalty of purpose. As I bookend this work, I want to again resurrect the irrepressible Marie Deans, a voice for us, who I spoke of in length, in a work also on Elizabeth Alexander. Once again yes Virginia is in the vanguard of Prison reform polemic Nationally and there isn't higher work than our own critique for ourselves.

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