SALT is in solidarity with the Interfaith Action for Human Rights (IAHR) and joins IAHR in calling for independent oversight of the Virginia prison system. Please read the information below documenting the call for independent oversight.

Voices from Inside Virginia Prisons Show Need for Robust Independent Oversight of State Prisons

Drawing from correspondence with more than 600 individuals incarcerated in Virginia prisons, Interfaith Action for Human Rights (IAHR) has released a report (the “Red Report”) calling for significant staffing and authority for independent oversight of the operations of the Virginia prison system.  The report summarizes 156 stories divided into 16 different categories of abuse ranging from alleged assaults by prison staff to inadequate health care to ineffective and unreliable redress mechanisms. 

“You can’t walk away after reading this report,” Rabbi Charles Feinberg, Interim Director of IAHR said, “without concluding that the Virginia Department of Corrections desperately needs robust, independent oversight.  June budget legislation took a valuable step in establishing the Office of the Department of Corrections Ombudsman in the Office of the State Inspector General.  That office now needs permanent status, with significant funding and meaningful authority, which we urge the General Assembly and Governor Youngkin to enact this year.”

The report, based on the authors’ years of correspondence with hundreds of people held in Virginia prisons and efforts to resolve their complaints, reveals that many of them:

-- endure medical conditions requiring costs to the state and resulting in suffering that could be avoided with prompt and effective medical attention; 

-- feel unsafe in Virginia prisons because of the presence of gangs, drugs, and weapons; and/or

-- are held in unsafe or unsanitary conditions, housed in units subject to extreme temperatures and/or lacking access to a nutritionally adequate diet; and that

-- everyone housed in a Virginia prison is at the mercy of prison officials who have the power by accusation to reduce their access to programming, increase their security level, remove them from the general prison population, and reduce their ability to earn credits that can take time off their sentence.” 

Click here to read the rest of the Executive Summary. 

Click here to read the full report.

For More Information Contact Gay Gardner 703-627-6482 and Linda Gustitus 202-557-8867.