Put an End to Communication Deprivation By Kimberly Zittlow

Good afternoon,

Can someone within the VADOC PLEASE explain to me the value of taking the inmates' phones away from them for months, sometimes even years at a time? 

How in the world is destroying important relationships that provide positive support and reinforcement with loved ones helping anything or anybody?

All that you are doing is creating angry and emotionally deprived inmates and upset loved ones. Many will walk away and forget about the inmate after such prolonged absences of communication. Leaving the inmate with no viable affection, love or support with anybody meaningful outside of the prison walls.

This punishment tactic promotes a sense of abandonment and isolation that invariably translates to extremely violent outbursts. And for what? What exactly is the VADOC gaining from this practice?

A growing number of other states have put a stop to this barbaric practice for more forward thinking and obvious reasons. The only thing this action speaks of is cruelty and vindictiveness on the part of the Virginia Dept of Corrections towards both the inmates and their loved ones alike.

Based on what I know of this practice, the VADOC as a whole should really reconsider this barbaric practice and put an end to using communication deprivation as a torture and punishment tactic. It isn't working, nor has it ever worked to create anything positive for the inmate or the facility as a whole.

Just my 2 cents, spoken out of sheer frustration.

--

Sincerely,

Kimberly Zittlow 

YES, Sec.1985 (3) OF 42 USC OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1871, AKA THE KU KLUX KLAN ACT SHOULD BE USED TO HOLD THE VIRGINIA PRISON OFFICIAL ACCOUNTABLE..... by William Thorpe

The majority of imprisoned Virginians will return to society and the treatment experienced under the imprisonment conditions created by the Virginia prison official will henceforth determine and dictate the subsequent realized all around development of their humanness. I'm not speaking of the typical gibberish pablum super long handled ladle fed us by the idealistically delusional and insidiously inclined, support functionary of the status quo narrative laboring to assembly line like provide occupants for Virginia's prison cages. But what I want to focus on is the contradiction of Virginia's imprisonment premise. What I'll use to get the point across are the pillars of the Nations' and The Commonwealth of Virginias' Social Contract. Because the manner in which the prison official violates every aspect of it's very basis that even allows proximity with the prisoner is the fundamental problem or antagonism. In other words the people of and the Virginia tax payer cannot surrogately, through the prison official behave just as deviantly as the "convicted" and imprisoned while expecting "what"? Of the imprisoned, because as I will show with a listing of law suits by Virginia prisoners. The Virginia prison officials 'behavior during the performance of their duties is vilely antebellum old and savage that it is haplessly in violation of laws borne of the Nations most destructive and bloodletting war, The Civil War. Now, section 1985 of UNITED STATES LAW 42 USC is Titled, CONSPIRACY TO INTERFERE WITH CIVIL RIGHTS. Paragraph (3) of section 1985 states, DEPRIVING PERSONS OF RIGHTS OR PRIVILEGES. IF TWO OR MORE PERSONS IN ANY STATE OR TERRITORY CONSPIRE...and what the below listed cases will show is it's gratuitous violation by the Virginia prison official and I ask the reader to study the cases.

Vaughn v. Watts Dist. Lexis 51898. Tokley v.Ratliff 2007 U.S Dist. Lexis 24896. Davis v.Lester 156 F.Supp.2d 588. Barbee v. Anderson 2020 U.S Dist. Lexis 43133 Hessing v. Brunelle 2016 U.S Dist. Lexis 63026 Bennett v. Stirling 842 F.3d 319 Parker v. Proffit 1995 U.S Dist .Lexis 15941 Peyton v. Carico 2011 U.S Dist. Lexis 54243 Talbert v. Smith 2007 U.S Dist. Lexis 17108 Howard v. Stidham 2019 U.S Dist. Lexis 30704 Riddick v. Moore 2023 U.S Dist. Lexis 52822 Riddick v. Moore 2023 US Dist. Lexis 55162 Delk v. Moran 2018 U.S Dist. Lexis 50534 McCurdy v. Va.Dept.of Corr.2017 U.S Dist. Lexis 142788 Smith v. Ely 2015 U.S Dist .Lexis 175360 Farrakhan v. Johnson 2009 U.S Dist. Lexis 40342 Woodhouse v. Duncan 2018 U.S Dist. Lexis 53332 Woodhouse v. 2017U.S Dist. Lexis 211528 McCoy v. Young 2012 U.S Dist. Lexis 71547 The above are examples of the Virginia prison official's racist animus, using "nigger" while assaulting, threatening prisoners, which is element for a violation of 1985 (3) of 42 USC.

By William Thorpe

I'm William Thorpe Virginia exiled me to the Texas prison system. I'm solitary confined at the Wainwright Unit

"LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS "......WITHOUT JUSTIFIABLE EXECUTABLES IS CORRUPTION AND IT IS CORRUPT..... by William Thorpe

Recently Governor Glenn Youngkin vetoed a solitary confinement reform bill, that at least would've instructed Chadwick Dotson, Director of The Virginia Department of Correction, that the Machiavellian, "end justifies the means" isn't welcome in modern Virginia governance, which The Department's operations is aspect. Corruption has a couple of expressions (1) Diabolic (2) Fatuous, and regardless of expression, the result/consequence is barbarism. As inexplicably late or early as 1890, in In Re Medley,134 US 160 The Supreme Court of The United States found that, solitary confinement drove prisoners "after even a short confinement, into a semi-fatuous condition from which it was next to impossible to arouse them, and others became violently insane others,still, committed suicide while those who stood the ordeal better were not generally reformed, and in most cases, did not recover sufficient mental activity to be of any subsequent service to the community". THEN in 1988 The 7th Circuit, U.S Court of Appeals found in Davenport v. Derobertis 844 F.2d 1310 "That isolating a human being from other human beings year after year or even month after month can cause substantial psychological damage, even if the isolation isn't total". THEN in 1995 The U.S District Court for The Northern District of California in Madrid v. Gomez 889 F.Supp.1146, found that "Subjecting individuals to conditions [solitary confinement] that are "very likely "to render them psychotic or otherwise exacerbate a serious mental illness cannot be squared with evolving standards of humanity and decency.....A risk this grave---this shocking and indecent---simply has no place in civilized society". THEN in 2005 in Amicus filed by a group of Psychologist and Psychiatrist in a case before The Supreme Court of The United States, Wilkinson v. Austin #04-495 also 545 U.S 209 stated "No study of the effects of solitary or supermax-like confinement that lasted longer than 60 days failed to find evidence of negative psychological effects". THEN in 2015 in Incumaa v. Stirling 791F.3d 517, The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled" [Prisoner] had liberty interest in avoiding solitary confinement in security detention. The 4th Circuit, which Governor Youngkin is well aware, speaks the Supremacy of U.S law for The Commonwealth. THEN in 2019 in Porter v. Clarke 923 F.3d 348, The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals held," Solitary confinement posed an objective risk of serious psychological and emotional harm to inmate". THEN in 2022 in Thorpe v. Clarke 37 F.4th 926, The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled "Severe isolation alone can deprive prisoners of the minimal civilized measures of life necessities, violating The 8th Amendment", [ibid] Wall v. Clarke 2023 U.S Dist. Lexis 58937, [ibid] Carter v. Ely 2024 U.S Dist. Lexis 38334.To put it bluntly, Governor Youngkin's veto of the solitary confinement bill doesn't comport with the hard gleaned realizations exemplified by, the over a hundred years of criticism of the practice as illustrated by the above listed authorities. A primary function of The Executive, which Youngkin as Governor is, is illustrative and illuminating governance and such isn't achieved by enabling and defending the barbaric practice of solitary confinement in the prisons that literally inculcates insanity, suicides and imbecility to paraphrase The Supreme Court of The United States. Bad governance is an expression of corruption

Whether Governor Glenn Youngkins' veto of the solitary confinement reform bill was diabolic or fatuous is an idealistic exercise in intellectual indulgence that distracts from the one and only relevant fact, it was deleterious on Virginias' social contract, by adding on and compounding the inherent corruption, which the aspirational logic of Government claims amelioration. I list here reference examples of law suits filed by Virginia prisoners held in solitary confinement at Red Onion State Prison attempting to petition Government and seek redress of the extra-judicial nature of the detention, which the vetoed bill was intended to reform and correctly prohibit. These law suit examples are just a bit showing of the dirty laundry, rotten underbelly, fetid corruption Governor Glenn Youngkin's veto feebly attempts to conceal. CARTER V. ELY 2024 U.S DIST.LEXIS 38334 HOEHN V. GIBSON 2024 U.S DIST.LEXIS 41087 REID V. CORIZON HEALTH SERV.2024 U.S DIST.LEXIS 38333 CARTER V. STITH 2024 U.S DIST.LEXIS 22032 ARRINGTON V. MULLINS 2023 U.S DIST.LEXIS 183703 WILLIAMS V. GILBERT 2023 U.S DIST.LEXIS 126015 GODFREY V. DAVIS 2023 U.S DIST.LEXIS 108421 CARTER V. ELY 2023 U.S DIST.LEXIS 79927 WARD V. KISER 2023 U.S DIST.LEXIS 41663 JONES V. WHITE 2023 U.S DIST.LEXIS 186345 GRAY V. ENGLISH 2023 U.S DIST.LEXIS 27282 CARTER V. COLLINS 2023 U.S DIST.LEXIS 99160 CARTER V. KISER 2023 U.S DIST.LEXIS 6655 WALKER V. KISER 2022 U.S DIST.LEXIS 56878 DURAN V. HOOVER 2022 U.S DIST.LEXIS 196931 WALL V. CLARKE 2021 U.S DIST.LEXIS 224916 ALEXANDER V. COLLINS 2021 U.S DIST.LEXIS 75805 GEORGE V. PUCKETT 2021 U.S DIST. LEXIS 30899 EDWARDS V. KANODE 2020 U.S DIST.LEXIS 41300 LEE V. VA. DEPT. OF CORR. 2020 U.S DIST.LEXIS 231921 BARBEE V. ANDERSON 2020 U.S DIST.LEXIS 43133 JORDAN V.MCDUFFIE 2020 U.S DIST.LEXIS 46318 JOHNS V. LOVELL 2020 U.S DIST.LEXIS 15922 FARABEE V. LEE 2019 U.S DIST.LEXIS 170179 REYES V. CLARKE 2019 U.S DIST.LEXIS 150854 RICHARDSON V .R O S P 2017 U.S DIST.LEXIS 119133 MAKDESSI V. CLARKE 2015 U.S DIST.LEXIS 152925 AWE V. R O S P 2014 U.S DIST.LEXIS 35448 ODIGHIZUWA V. STROUTH 2007 U.S DIST.LEXIS 28397 RIVERA V. MATHENA 795 FED.APPX.169 DEPAOLA V. VA.DEPT. OF CORR.703 FED.APPX. 205 STICKLAND V. HALSEY 638 FED.APPX.179 The above listed cases are just a drop in the bucket of efforts from prisoners who in no form or fashion are lawyers and needless I add, judges who the cases are presented to joyfully and gleefully take delight in dismissing them. Not because Virginia prison officials didn't for example assault the prisoner by slamming the prisoner's head onto the floor, or refuse to provide food, showers, outside exercise and all the this and that, which the prison official receives a pay check to perform as legal duty under contract to the Virginia citizenry which the fraudulent refusal then subsequently necessitates (and the failure to perform their legal obligation opens up that other can of worms, which is fraud, Yeah defrauding the Virginia tax payer, which is also theft) the filing of the law suit. What enables and maintains the above the law presumptions and behavior of the Virginia prison official are apologetic actions by leaders in Virginia's Government, Institutions, businesses, like the recent veto of reforming the unambiguous and unequivocal barbarism of solitary confinement by Governor Glenn Youngkin. I asked, by way of title to this work what exactly are the means and mechanisms anticipated by the myth enumerated in the National and Commonwealth's Constitution. Because Governor Youngkin has to explain to the people of Virginia on what basis is he endorsing the abrogation of the democracy of law.

When the Supreme Court of The United States made its critique of solitary confinement in the 1890 case, In Re Medley. Its efforts only spoke to effects of the practice of solitary confinement on its victims, the prisoners. The reality, however is corruption corrupts completely and solitary confinement is corruption. It is a corrupt set of relations impacting both points of the relation or interaction, meaning the prison official, subjective, regardless of the avail of the Nuremberg defense rationale, is also corrupted completely even as the imposition on the prisoner-object is the corrupt solitary confinement condition. Consequently the corruption expands to include and envelope all and whomever defends and apologizes for its practice and existence thereby also exposing that the operative of the solitary confinement practice is Government and Law undermining ITSELF under the guise of exercising the primacy of its police powers. Which brings us to the spectacle of Governor Glenn Youngkins' recent veto of reform of its use by The Virginia Department of Corrections. As the former Soviet dissident, Alexander Solzhenitsyn formulated and I paraphrase, lies and state organized violence go hand in hand, which true to form, we now see reflected in Glenn Youngkins' veto. The condition of solitary confinement is quintessential, State violence and if as the Supreme Court of The United States realized in 1890 that it drove prisoners insane, then it also means that its architects and practioners are just as and demonstrably insane, because they are the ones, which in this instance, the Virginia prison official, are subjecting, imposing and forcing a human being, the Virginia prisoner into a condition, a set of relations that causes insanity which is not, the least of all of the other effects that are not anticipated by and are at odds with Virginia law, yet that's what a Governor of Virginia by exercising the executive privilege of veto has supported and endorsed. The question, nonetheless, isn't whether The Commonwealth can subject prisoners to solitary confinement under due process of law, but whether its with the extreme recognition that solitary confinement is an extraordinary and barbaric state action and must be treated as such, with demanding and compelling focus on limits of use. Virginia's Justice Infrastructure of which the prison system is function is a fact of The Commonwealth's political-economy. To which it's fundamental purpose and primary focus is establishing and maintaining mechanisms for functioning control. This need for functioning control is what comes up against and is at odds with the application of the Social Contracts "equality under law", which like an unseen star in a binary star system revealing its existence by the behavior of its seen sister star, we experience as Government disregarding law as embodied by the prison official's barbaric use of solitary confinement and its thorough violation of law and the intrinsic integrity of governance and Government. The proof of this is, again, the exercise of veto powers by politicians, that betrays the progressive interest of society its people and the instinct of governance. There is distinction between corruption and criminal violation. While the Virginia prisoner is imprisoned as a result of criminal violation, the Virginia politician on the other hand in betraying governance is covered in corruption.

By William Thorpe

I'm William Thorpe Virginia exiled me to the Texas prison system. I'm solitary confined at the Wainwright Unit

Advocacy For Reform Of The Virginia Prison System Shouldn't Become Idealistic By William Thorpe

The Virginia Department Of Corrections has an encyclopedia of Operating Procedures, Policies, Standards, Memoranda and Practices. The Commonwealth Of Virginia has a Constitution, then a universe of laws, statutes, Executive Orders, advisories, Opinions of The Attorney General and Practices. Then there is the Constitution of The United States, its executing laws and Practices. Now the Virginia Prisoner as all others animating the American existence of life and death are a construct of and subject to all of the above laws, traditions and practices. None of what I'm saying is insight, its just that you the reader are not caught up in the attention of its daily granular detail. I start with this, because I speak to this ahistoric tendency exhibited by advocacy, which is a tension, but can also be characterized as contradiction. Advocacy for reform of the Virginia prison system relatively falls into a couple of categories, which are (1) Idealistic and (2) practical. This isn't criticism in itself but an understanding of purpose. It's with this issue of purpose, meaning the focus of the reform that the question of tension and contradiction are factors. Because the approach taken by a number of those advocating for reform of the Virginia prison system underscores whether their understanding for any number of reasons is tethered to their anticipation. No objective and serious-minded person will argue against or disagree that the Virginia prison official is extra-judicial and behaves outside the scope of Law, so reformation of the system and holding the prison official accountable hinges on the practicality of its means and mechanisms. Idealistically the solution to the question of holding the Virginia prison official accountable has been presented as, creating independent oversight of The Virginia Department Of Corrections. But the reason this is Idealistic, and a gambit played, is laws already exist to investigate and hold the prison official accountable. What will set any oversight mechanism apart from the ideal, is to what degree is its remedial reach practical. Because the extra-judicial and above the law behavior of the prison official, which the creation of a purported independent ombudsman is expected to inhibit and even prohibit, is inherent to what it means to be a Virginia prison official. In other words breaking the law is organic to and an inescapable fact of being a prison official. Yet the creation of a Virginia Department of Corrections specific independent ombudsman presents nothing unique to the preexisting Virginia Code 2.2-309, detailing the duties of the State Inspector General anymore then the already existing laws. With practical measures to hold the Virginia prison official accountable, we firstly begin with a prison grievance process, that a prison's grievance department cannot dishonestly claim that the prisoner didn't comply with the requirements. The grievance process is a Virginia and United States law requirement. What is more fundamental is the political reformative action of excising the scapegoating narrative impulse of Virginia's Justice Infrastructure towards the prisoner. This scapegoating narrative has allowed its exploitation for political gain by those who are utterly disinclined from ameliorating deviance and criminality. Virginia's political landscape is historically stamped with, gambits purposefully designed to coopt practical prison reform .Thats what we have to change.

By William Thorpe

I'm William Thorpe Virginia exiled me to the Texas prison system. I'm solitary confined at the Wainwright Unit

Father Forgive Them

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Cell Double L is the final cell in Oklahoma State Penitentiary. It is the cell you occupy before your execution. We speak to three men and their loved ones as they move through death watch row. This episode includes references to penal executions and strong language. Please take care while listening. Huge enormous thanks to Bigler Stouffer, Wade Lay, and Donald Grant for sharing your stories. Also major thanks to the loved ones, on the outside, for allowing us inside their lives. Produced by Ellie Lightfoot and Gaby Caplan Gaby Caplan and Ellie Lightfoot reported this story while participating in the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism's National Fellowship and the Kristy Hammam Fund for Health Journalism. Season 15 - Episode 11

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