Holding The Virginia Prison Official Accountable By William Thorpe

Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin just signed into law, a prison Oversight Ombudsman. He signed it into law after vetoing other prison reform bills. I've been making this point over and over, that the lawlessness and impunity of the Virginia prison official isn't for want of laws or lack of. This newly minted Ombudsman law will not stop or deter the corrupt prison official from denying prisoners in solitary confinement outside exercise then lying about it or depriving prisoners of meals or giving prisoners meals in violation of The Virginia Department of Corrections Food Service Manual and The Master Menu, then lying about it or refusing a prisoner in solitary confinement a shower and then lying about it and on and on and on it goes. I'm not being sarcastic, but that's the reality. Now what has to be done to establish an unambiguous and unequivocal mechanism of introducing accountability to the prison official is the creation of a verifiable grievance process. What I mean by verifiable is simply this, the grievance filing process provided prisoners by the Virginia Department of Corrections depends on the honesty and integrity of the prison official. Instead of you the reader taking my word on the honesty and integrity of the prison official relative to processing prisoner filed grievances, I'll let a United States Federal Judge tell you, in the case (which isn't an outlier) BLOUNT v. FLEMING 2006 U.S DIST. LEXIS 44413, Red Onion State Prison Officials claimed that, Blount (who is a prisoner) hadn't exhausted administrative remedies, which is legalese for the prisoner hadn't complied with the law requiring the filing of grievances before one can go to court. So the Judge ruled that, "Blount produced additional evidence at trial to further diminish the credibility of Taylor. "(Fonnie Taylor at the time was grievance coordinator for Red Onion State Prison) Now what the Judge diplomatically said was, Taylor lied. Now the reason a prisoners ability to access the grievance process is so fundamental and essential is without satisfying the process, the prisoner cannot take the prison official to court or hold the prison official accountable. Both Federal and Virginia laws demand the grievance process is fulfilled before there can be any type of court action and the prison official of The Virginia Department of Corrections is well aware of this as such they go to extreme lengths to deny and deprive a prisoner the ability to file grievances or complaints. Another thing grievances do is they serve as records of the prisons maladministration, which cannot be simply swept under the rug. Now look I get the nuances of advocacy, but man we gotta be practical. Just because someone has been imprisoned doesn't necessarily mean they have actually experienced the unmasked face of Virginia's organized violence. There are those who could've done 20 to 30+ years in prison and never spent a day in none of Virginia's solitary confinement concentration camps as such their perspective of the Virginia prison system is comparatively night and day with for example mine, me who has been entombed in solitary confinement for approximately 39 years of this ongoing 44+ years of Virginia imprisonment, despite the fact Virginia has exiled me to the Texas prison system, it is still keeping me in solitary confinement.

By William Thorpe

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

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VIRGINIA GOVERNOR GLENN YOUNGKIN VETOED AND VETOED 2024 LEGISLATIVE SESSION PRISON REFORMS THEN HE SIGNED INTO LAW A PRISON "OVERSIGHT" OMBUDSMAN, MAKES ME WONDER, IT MUST BE TOOTHLESS By William Thorpe

The State of Virginia has a peculiar way with laws, thats purely insidious. So in 1848, when Virginia was an out and out savagely unapologetic, slave holding State, the all White male legislature passed an anti abortion law, which read "Any free person who shall administer to any pregnant woman, any medicine, drug or substance whatever, or use or employ any instrument or other means....."(blah,blah blah)...what I want you the reader to pay attention to is the text of the law, it reads, "Any free person...."now in 1848 Virginia legally recognized two types of Virginians, Free and unfree, the unfree were enslaved Black people and White indentured servants. So when those White male legislators, qualified their purported anti-abortion position with, "Any Free person....."they were deliberately and insidiously giving their Women a way out and also saving themselves means to abort the evidence from their rape of enslaved Black Women, because a enslaved or indentured person with expertise and know how, could now within the letter of the law induce and perform abortion, because the "Any Free person....."qualifier didn't apply. Oh by the way, Virginia was the only State to assert such abortion qualifier, even Territorial Arizona, with its 1865 abortion law (which on its resurrection by its 2024 Supreme Court, has violently reminded people how casually and cavalierly backwards laws can rule again, when the politics is a regression to 1865) didn't have such a qualifier. Now fast forward to Virginia politics in 2024, where there isn't any denial, the Virginia tax payer are fatigued but not deluded over stories after story in main stream media exposing the unfathomable and unimaginable behavior of the Virginia prison official under The Virginia Department of Corrections all under guise of Virginia's Justice Infrastructure. In response to the systemic law breaking and impunity of the Virginia prison official is the natural push towards holding the offending prison official accountable, because say what you will about the status quo's impulse and imperative to maintain its supremacy and rule by keeping the workings and machinery of governance and government as shibboleth and conniving, The People despite it all, know and can smell it, even if they can't articulate it and at times even support and defend its corruption. Mothers, Wives, Families, friends of the Virginia prisoner along with in principle Victims of crime, have consistently pushed for accountability of the Virginia prison official under equality of law. Which brings us to Governor Glenn Youngkin in 2024, recently signing HB 555, prison oversight ombudsman into law. What the advocacy for the oversight ombudsman ignored and jettisoned, thereby allowing Governor Glenn Youngkin the frame of signing a pseudo accountability law is, what the Virginia prisoner needs the most is a verifiable complaint and grievance filing process, because the point and tip of the prison officials impunity is the absolute control over, the grievance filing process, which is legally required for the American prisoner to access both State and Federal Courts. The ombudsman law signed by Glenn Youngkin, will not inhibit the prison official from playing games with and lying about a prisoner accessing the grievance process and if anyone is serious about holding the prison official accountable, demand a verifiable grievance process.

By William Thorpe

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

PETA Was Loud, Vociferous And Aggressive When Michael Vick Was Accused Of Abusing Dogs. Well The Virginia Department Of Corrections Is Accused Of Worse By William Thorpe

Credit William Thorpe

In response to the recent news, that a Virginia prisoner had stabbed a prison dog, PETA said and I paraphrase, something to the effect that Virginia prison officials should protect their dogs. No one will argue against caring for and protecting, not only dogs but the responsibility of owning pets and animals in general. PETA, does good work but that doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't at times become transiently idealistic and this is one of those times where it has. This alleged dog stabbing incident isn't one of those "if Mohammed can't go to the mountain, then the mountain will come to Mohammed" aphorisms, where someone is just hell bent on harming a dog. For too long our leaders have played that three card Monte game of, who is responsible, who is accountable, what does transparency within the formulation and application of governance and governing mean and the reality is its all enabled and permitted by complicity and as it relates to the issue of a Virginia prisoner harming a prison dog, while in prison, PETA is complicit. For whatever reasons certain Virginia prison officials have decided that it made perfect sense to introduce rabid attack dogs inside the self contained and highly structured-controlled environment of the Virginia prison. Secondly according to Virginia prison operating procedure and policies those dogs would be unleashed on prisoners confined in closet sized cells, outside exercise cages and the floor of prison housing for any number of reasons and even when the deployment of the dog violated the prison and Departments operating procedure, the office of The Attorney General of Virginia would find a way to justify and defend the use despite the violation. Now PETA is well aware that The Virginia Department of Corrections uses dogs inside the confines of its prisons, against prisoners, not only as perimeter patrols of the prisons, but inside the prison, as I've already indicated even inside cells, on prisoners held in the cells. As such PETA with its singular focus on the abuse of dogs should've anticipated that deploying dogs on prisoners held in cells was a recipe for disaster along with the added fact that a majority of the prisoners those prison dogs would confront are Black people, considering Virginia's racist history of using attack dogs on and against. The point is PETA is yet to challenge the Virginia prison officials logic on use of dogs inside prisons. Just because an unelected person, engaged in one of the human conditions most speculative endeavor, that of running a prison summarily decides to dictate governmental action, that of using attack dogs on prisoners whose flesh are ripped by the drooling and snarling fangs of those dogs, shouldn't be of limits to interrogations by PETA. Michael Vick experienced to the fullest PETA's ability to exact accountability, well The Virginia Department of Corrections is worse.

By William Thorpe

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

THE POLITICS OF ACCOUNTABILITY AND OVERSIGHT OF THE VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS HAS EVERYTHING TO LEARN FROM THE SCHOLARSHIP OF NIKOLE HANNAH JONES: HONESTY By William Thorpe

Awright, Nikole Hannah Jones isn't the first to remind us that, the colloquial, in the beginning was the word is all about, Honesty, which is what her 1619 PROJECT scholarship, unapologetically was. Despite and in spite of reaction and its revisionism, Nikole Hannah Jones simply reasserted what any elementary student of dialectics honestly understands, save for former President and adjudged rapist, Donald Trump, that American Freedom is built on the chattel enslavement and oppression of Black people and The 1619 Project simply gave us its Honesty. The Virginia Department Of Corrections more than any other American institution is legatee to those fundamental antecedents illuminated by the scholarship of The 1619 Project, consequently any and all reform efforts of its governance has to, needless I add, be honest. However and I will show that such isn't the case and the politics of accountability and oversight of Virginia's justice infrastructure and its prison system, is corrupt. During this 2024 Virginia legislative session all sorts of justice and prison reform bills were tirelessly pursued, which most were vetoed by Governor Glenn Youngkin. One of the bills and its veto-demise, dealt with The Virginia Department Of Corrections use of solitary confinement, thereby exposing the corruption of the legislative system. Government, regardless of its Machiavellian impulses has to contend with honesty as the adage, the devil is in the details, requires. In otherwords, Government can lie to us, the people (because there are a lot the people or the public doesn't have a need to know) but it cannot and shouldn't lie to itself. Yet that is exactly what the executive branch of Virginia's Government, per The Office Of The Attorney General Of The Commonwealth Of Virginia done over the potential solitary confinement in Virginia prisons reform law that was vetoed. Virginia's Attorney General inexplicably presented dishonest arguments against reforming, the use of solitary confinement by The Virginia Department of Corrections, by contending that Virginia's use of solitary confinement is currently being challenged in federal courts as such the legislature, shouldn't legislate its reform. Now here is why the argument not only was wrong, but it was corrupt. The Attorney General knew and was well aware that Courts had encountered over and over the issue of solitary confinement in Virginia's prison system and had relatively ruled, that it was unconstitutional and a violation of law. See Smith v. Collins 964 F.3d 260 (2020),Lee v.Va .Dept.of Corr. 2020 U.S Dist. Lexis 231921, Porter v. Clarke 923 F.3d 348 (2019), Rivera v. Mathena 795 Fed.Appx.169 (2019), Reyes v. Clarke 2019 U.S Dist. Lexis 150854.These cases, all dealing with solitary confinement are just a drop in the flood of 4th Circuit rulings, of which Virginia is under jurisdiction and The Attorney General not only was well aware, but way back in the late 1800's,The Supreme Court of The United States had already determined that solitary confinement was (and I paraphrase) detrimental to the prisoner driving him insane. A government is obligated to secure what is conducive to the life of its people including prisoners, particularly prisoners, but what we see is Attorney General of The Commonwealth of Virginia Jason Miyares, betraying it, under the specious logic of ongoing adjudication of an obvious evil.

By William Thorpe

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

LAW AND ORDER IN VIRGINIA HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH JUSTICE By William Thorpe

Once again reactionary Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares has the ear of Governor Glenn Youngkin in true puppet master fashion as he pursues his guile ambition of succeeding Youngkin, in that tiredly exploited law and order gambit. What the classic adage about "imitation" evidenced by Jason Miyares, law and order gambit conveniently omits and doesn't say is, it induces feeble mindlessness, because that's what virulently ails Attorney General Miyares by his consuming and singular focus of travestying, that most basic and minimal idea of 'Justice' in Virginia, that of rehabilitation. Only a megalomaniac, Nah a crass idealist would presume justice absolutism, as positive governance, because that is exactly what Attorney General Miyares has doggedly exhibited with his manic opposition to one of the most minimalist and low hanging fruit affirmations of justice, Earned Sentence Credits for the Virginia prisoner as pursued by certain practical Virginia Democrats who understand that if incentives are a primary motive force for Virginia's political-economy and its capitalism, as constructor and architect of the Virginia personhood and the Virginia voter, who voted for it, then applying that same incentive dynamic rehabilitatively as function of Virginia's justice system is positive governance. Okay,this is what Attorney General Jason Miyares, is demonstrating that he's incapable of grasping, which is the human condition is speculative, as defined by "freewill".Therefore under the governance logic all "reforms" are speculatively positive as such opposition is in principle reactionary and philistine. Virginians voted for much necessary and serious reforms of The Justice and Prison system which in 2020, Democrats to a degree delivered by revising aspects of prison sentence mitigative credits, specifically, The Earned Sentence Credits, which as a tool would incentivize prisoner rehabilitation by release from prison. In 2021, Republicans gained control of part of Virginia government and their initial acts were to scapegoat prisoners, rehabilitation and the incentivized reforms of the system by scaling back the reforms. Which The Virginia Supreme Court upbraided Attorney General Jason Miyares over the offices presented theories attacking The Earned Sentence Credit rehabilitation incentive. Now here we go, that with this 2024 legislative session, we again find Attorney General Miyares, intoxicated by his ambition and under its idealistic influence petulantly scheming to undermine prisoner rehabilitation by opposing the earned sentence credits incentive. Jason Miyares has exploited the worst of human behavior from the few to advance the short sightedness of his ambition and we don't indict him for it, because such is human nature, history is replete with it, our work however is to expose its antithetical staleness.

By William Thorpe

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