The Righteous Work of the Mennonite Church U.S.A.

We at vapac welcome Mennonite Church USA Criminal Justice Resolution passed at its May 2022 National Assembly

Declaring: Many aspects of the current United States Criminal legal system cause pain and suffering for many, especially poor people and people of color.

We at vapac also recognize that the Mennonite presence in the United states since the 18 century has consistently been conscientious without bending to opportunity. We are opstimistic.

by vapac

Harold Clarke, Director of Virginia Department of Corrections and the 54% By William Thorpe

 

Let's consider this on May 17, 2022 Harold Clarke, Director of Virginia Department of Corrections told the Virginia Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee that 54% of prisoners scheduled for release due to the Earned Sentence Credit law have a medium to high risk of violent recidivism.

• Fact Director of Virginia prisons claims 54% of to-be-released prisoners will violently re-offend.

Now Virginia Prisons Accountability Committee [vapac] is structured as an organizing medium to hold the Virginia Prison official accountable and that no one is above the law and there cannot be accountability without, first an understanding of the system of Government in Virginia.

So for example when Harold Clarke as Director of Virginia's prisons testifies before politicians whom we elected, that 54% of our family, loved ones and friends will violently re-offend when released. There is only one conclusion to be drawn. That in Harold Clarke's formulations, prisoners who are our loved ones, despite what a law says that they have earned their release must be denied the release. Because in his omniscient and wanna-be Ceasar judgment they are unfit for society and is also a revelation of his animus towards prisoners and as VAPAC we hold him accountable. Further, his 54% violent recidivist claim is not only self-serving speculation but an indictment of his performance as director of Virginia prisons and the fact that such an assertion by executive function of Virginia's government, which the Department of Corrections is can be expressed publicly without pause and anticipation of opprobrium from our media, exposes what we must understand about the nature and system of government in Virginia.

Regardless of our individual politics and worldview, we cannot ignore the implicit narrative of Harold Clarkes 54%. Its historicity has long since worn its welcome and we must hold our politicians accountable for allowing it to exist. Prisoners exist only as facts of law and not the supposition of a prison official who seems oblivious to the fact that their professional existence is also a fact of law.  We have to understand the nature of the system and government in Virginia and reform it.

I'm William Thorpe and VADOC under the directorate of Harold Clarke exiled me to the Texas prison system because of how I think. I've been in Solitary Confinement since 1996 and am still in Solitary Confinement in Texas

The 40 Strong and Ignite Justice Rally 2022

Our Loved Ones and Us

 

Some of our members ask what do we do about issues and problems facing our loved ones in the system.

We start with, we encourage members to ask loved ones in the system what specific responses they want us to amplify and make public.

Secondly and most important is we have to vote in people who will reform VADOC because prison and criminal justice reform are first and foremost politics      we cannot expect people who have a two-faced, selective attitude toward justice to do the right thing in its reform.

In conclusion, we ask our community of members to always speak up, speak up for loved ones in the system. We also respect the concerns of victims of crime, because we are all in the same fight and victims of crime are also manipulated and exploited in the most perfidious of ways by politicians who only see them as gambit to political power. Violations of the prisoner is equally a crime as a victims experience, so we stand together in demanding accountability of the system

By vapac

Bradley S. Clarke's April 18th, 2022; A Prison Within A Prison Post on Medium.Com Is A Trite Apology For the Extra-Judicial Act Of Solitary-Confinement and It's Long Term Effects On the Human Being By William Thorpe

Credit William Thorpe

 

My Name is William Thorpe. I'm a Virginia prisoner exiled to the Texas prison system and I am in solitary confinement. Starting in Virginia on August 9th, 1996 after a hostage-taking at Nottoway Correctional Center and I'm still in solitary-confinement at the Wainwright Unit of the Texas prison system.

I respond to Bradley S. Clarke within the context of Virginia's use of the extra-judicial act of solitary-confinement, because he specified Virginia in his April 17th work and more importantly I speak authoritatively on Virginias solitary-confinement practices because I have experienced all of its conditions and circumstances.

I begin with a correction: Mr. Clark tells us that "the special management unit of the Eyman State Prison Complex in Florence, Arizona was the first Supermax facility constructed in the United States [in 1986]"' This is wrong, Virginia's Mecklenburg Correctional Center, which opened in March 1977, was the nations first, under the logic of "to provide maximum security segregation and treatment for the most difficult inmates." 

I'm not about to put together a 50+ paragraph response to Mr. Clarke's work which I consider ignores the crux of the issue of solitary-confinement, which is its extra-judicial nature, it's lawlessness.

What Is Solitary-Confinement

Solitary-confinement is a default, lawless fact of the idealistic and speculative expression of the ad hoc nature of the justice system, which in more ways than one exist extra-judicially.

The imprisoned and non-imprisoned Virginian exist solely as creations of the rule of law and its speculative continuum. But the existence is a past tense of law. What I mean by this is: Imprisonment is an after the fact of a conviction. The conviction, its travesties,vagaries, is an after the fact of the alleged criminal code violation, which consist a process according to the social contract or the rule of law is due. If all aspects of Virginia society exist under the omnipotent umbrella of rule of law, then any imposition and assertion by the state, the collective will of the people as organized violence, which prison and its extra-judicial practice of solitary-confinement is a crucible has to occur within a process, the rule of law. But what we encounter is its violation on all accounts as a petty cudgel of control, a transformation into crass suppositions whose farcial legitimacy is its relationship and proximity to money and its redistributive value within the locale of the prison.

So we see that the practice of solitary-confinement is a cash cow, a money tree, a feed lot for the political-economy of the prison system. To wit, which we are presented with the perverse logic of the Virginia Department of Corrections claiming it will cost $23 million to reform its solitary-confinement practice addiction. Consequently, prison officials are unwilling to relinquish their clutch and grubbing grasp of the free flow of the taxpayer money into their solitary-confinement regime.

I challenge Mr. Clarke to do a rework. beginning with explaining to us, the ignorant people why the Virginia Department of Corrections reformulated the solitary-confinement practice at its supermax prisons, Red Onion and Wallens Ridge State Prisons in 2011 after both prisons which opened in 1998 and 1999 respectively had been operating a solitary-confinement regime of the same prisoners it reclassified under a distortive and opaque verbiage - yet solitary confined. He cited Red Onions step down program without critical analysis of its legitimacy, save as I've stated a mechanism for cash flow, a feed for the prison systems political-economy.

Bradley S. Clarke Is An Apologist for the Extra-Judicial Act of Solitary-Confinement

In his apologetic zeal Mr. Clarke introduces us to a couple of anonymous prison guards who are so completely and thoughroly immersed in the impunity of extra-judicial behavior that the irony of their existence as prison guards because of the rule of law escapes them as evidenced by the cavalier nature of their ascribed quotes, starting with: 

"People don't get a view of it. They don't understand why we lean towards [using solitary confinement] instead of against it"

Mr. Clarke continues:

Neither Jimmy nor Matt credits the argument that solitary confinement constitutes torture." The guys aren't going down in a hole they're not being tortured", Matt said "they're still getting every meal that they're supposed to get, they're still getting it delivered to their cell. It's not like they're being withheld anything that they're supposed to have." Jimmy argues that the entertainment industry makes solitary confinement out to be worse than it is      exasperated Jimmy said "I would love for somebody to sit back and provide the correctional community with another option that is anywhere near as effective."

The indefatigable Kimberly Jenkins-Snodgrass

Mr. Clarke closed his work with commentary from Kim J. one of a number of the Virginia minds and hearts working tirelessly to hold the Virginia Department of Corrections Accountable to its mission statement. I close with it isn't apparent from Mr. Clarkes work the basis of his interest, but if as a citizen his scrutiny into prison as a system and expression of the organized violence of the state is to render it transparent thus accountable, then I, along with the listed groups welcome his involvement, support, and alliance.

ACLU of Virginia

ACLU People Power Fairfax

Bridging The Gap In Virginia

Charlottesville Chapter National Organization for Women

Coalition for Justice

The Humanization Project

Inmate Support Virginia 

Interfaith Action for Human Rights (IAHR)

Just Future Project

NAACP Loudoun 

National Association of Social Workers, Virginia Chapter

Resource Information Help for the Disadvantaged and Disenfranchised (RIHD)

SALT-Social Action Linking Together

Social Workers and Allies Against Solitary Confinement

Unitarian Universalist Legislative Ministry of Virginia

Virginia Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality

Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy

Virginia Justice Democrats 

Virginia Justice for Life

Virginia Prisoner Of Conscience

Virginia Prison Justice Network

Virginia Prisons Accountability Committee 

WJCC Coalition for Community Justice

*NOTE To be added to the growing list email us at vapacommittee@gmail.com

By William Thorpe