Summer Issue of HARDTIME VIRGINIA

HARDTIME VIRGINIA Summer 2025 Vol 10 No 2

an occasional newsletter for incarcerated persons

Good Man Denied Parole

    “Let me tell you about my friend David Sowers, a 68-year-old man who exudes calm. He is well educated and well connected. He speaks of fairness, equality and acts in a manner that is becoming of those ideals. He exhibits a level of patience that I envy, a compassion I share. He is a good man. Knowing this, you might be surprised that he has now served 44 years in the Virginia DOC. He was arrested in 1981. There are no crimes I am able to name that justify more than four decades in prison. Every other civilized country in the world agrees with that sentiment.  Many of the 50 states have come to that same conclusion. On June 2, 2025 David was denied parole for the 30th time. I am not only saddened for my friend David, who is the exact example of who should be granted parole, but I am totally offended by so blind a decision. David simply takes it in stride.

    “As the Virginia Parole Board knows, they violated David’s due process, as per Virginia Code section 53-1-136. There was no public hearing and he never met with any member of the board itself. I am going to write numerous articles and essays about the VA parole board, and my friend David will write a well thought out essay about justice and probably several haikus which he really enjoys and is quite good at. I am going to exhibit fighter levels of ire and openly accuse the parole board of a number of provable legal and human rights violations. David will continue to be, in every way, a perfect candidate for parole as he prepares for his next review, patiently doing everything expected of him regardless of the fact that the board cannot see anything beyond a single event in 1981, 44 years ago.

    “I have no idea what David’s crime was. I don’t ask. It was 44 years ago. He was in his early 20’s and I was six years old, and I am certain I did some stupid things, too. Knowing what he did would not change my opinion of who he is, a good man who helps me navigate the nightmare that is Virginia’s prisons. and who has become a very human being spite of more than four decades of inhumane captivity. He finished paying his debt 20 years ago, and every civilized country would agree. Continuing to hold this man in prison only proves that Virginia is an inhumane failed state.”

 - David Annarelli, Lawrenceville Correctional Center

Good Work But Poorly Paid

    “I am now on the paint crew. We mostly work in the evenings or weekends but sometimes during the day Monday through Thursday. I like it because the time seems to pass more quickly, It is also a 45¢ an hour job for 30 hours a week, and we are encouraged to work extra hours. It helps me make ends meet and my TV Guide is up for renewal at $49.99 a year or two years for $89.00.  My boss told me that DOC’s budget was cut, so now I cannot be issued new boots. Mine are medical boots and I am denied new ones.With my heel separating on my right boot this makes no sense to me. Food portions are also getting smaller.”

• - John Livesay, Baskerville CorrectionalCenter

Note: No one was granted parole in June, and prison ‘wages’ in Virginia haven’t been raised in decades. 

Families Bear The Burden Of Excessive Charges And Fees

We are led to believe that public funds cover all the costs of incarceration and the operation of our jails and prisons. However, many of these costs are passed on to inmates and their families through excessive fees and through inflated private contracts with private vendors for food, communications, hygiene products, clothing, etc. This creates a hardship on families trying to assist loved ones with basic material and other needs while incarcerated.

     Examples of other proliferating fees, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, are “charges for police transport, case filing, felony surcharges, electronic monitoring, drug testing, and sex offender registration.”

     Among the more egregious of these are jail keep fees, the daily rent charged inmates across the country while incarcerated. In Virginia, these run from $1 per day at our local jail to $3 at Middle River Regional Jail, the maximum allowed in the Commonwealth. Such fees disproportionately harm low-income families as the median annual income of a person incarcerated hovers around $19,000. Thus, the multiple jail fees charged could be seen as a violation of the Eighth Amendment’s constitutional protection against excessive fines.

     In a 9-0 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Justice Clarence Thomas noted that excessive fines were used after the Civil War to re-enslave freed men. In 2019, the New York Times published an article titled “Slavery gave America a fear of black people and a taste for violent punishment- Both still define our criminal-justice system,” in which the author notes that we cannot understand the excessive punishment that permeates the U.S. mass incarceration system without understanding its roots in the legacy of slavery. The article further states, “Laws governing slavery were replaced with Black Codes governing free black people, making the criminal-justice system central to new strategies of racial control.”

     It was in the early 1990s that a Chicago law clerk wrote an op-ed in the Chicago Tribune suggesting that inmates with financial assets should earn their room and board through prison labor and pay rent to cover the increased costs of operating jail and prison facilities due to overcrowding.

     One of the results of this fee system is that when someone is released from jail or prison, they are often deeply in debt and have very few financial resources. This only perpetuates the cycle of incarceration by burdening former inmates and their families and by creating hurdles that prevent them from successfully reintegrating into society.

     Brittany Friedman, a sociologist at the University of Southern California, has done extensive research that shows that jail debt increases the cost of incarceration and that the devastating effects of jail debt can be far-reaching. Dr. Friedman states, “If pay-to-stay is really meant to offset the costs of incarcerating people, then why are we sticking them with a bill that then further tethers them to the system?”

    Keep fees may also contribute to inmates on meager jail fares going hungry while incarcerated since any attempt by friends or family to add money to their commissary account to supplement their diet is partially seized by the jail to offset the keep fee debt. This exacerbates hunger and mental distress and is clearly wrong.

     - Kevin Drexel is the founder of Stand 4 Count, working to support the needs of individuals, families, and marginalized groups impacted by incarceration, and is a part of the local Valley Justice Coalition, a local citizen voice for criminal justice reform since 2014.

*****************************************

Harvey Yoder, editor, Valley Justice Coalition, P.O. Box 434, Harrisonburg, VA 22803

The Amish Both Reflect and Reject 'Worldliness'

I've just reviewed this helpful book by a clinical
psychologist who has worked with members of
 an Amish communityfor over 30 years.

The Amish, like the rest of us, have seen unimaginable cultural and technological changes in the world in the past century. The means of communication and modes of transportation available when my parents were born (in 1904 and 1905) were more like that of Abraham and Sarah in the Bible than that of our own children and grandchildren.

I love the way “plain” communities like the Amish and Old Order Mennonites represent a kind of monastic alternative to our fast-paced and individualistic society. They remind us that not everything new is better, and that some innovations often come at the cost of untold negative consequences.

But are so-called plain people totally unlike their worldly neighbors? As someone who grew up Amish and has many Amish and Old Order Mennonite friends, I see both similarities and differences. 

In other words, to paraphrase Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the line separating worldliness from a truly Christ-based non-conformity “passes through the heart of each of us,” and through the heart of each of our congregations. In other words, not all of the challenges either we or the Amish are dealing with are the result of external influences alone.

For example, in the everyday world of economics, plain people are subject to the same temptations to “lay up treasure on earth,” “fare sumptuously every day” and to engage in the unmitigated pursuit of convenience, comfort and wealth as their neighbors. While I have no studies to cite, it is likely that the capital worth and consumer wealth of plain people in the U.S. well exceeds that of most Americans, and places them within the top 1-2% of the wealthiest households in the world. So apart from external markers such as personal appearance, modes of transportation, worship practices, etc., how “plain” (as in radically “non-conformed”) are these people of Anabaptist descent?

In the area of sexual and gender identity, I find it disturbing but understandable that most plain people have conformed to long held and deeply rooted patriarchal beliefs and practices in the larger culture, and have failed to fully recognize and affirm the Spirit-given gifts of half their members. And like all human communities, they are no less likely to have children with the same kinds of sexual variations that occur in all populations, including a similar percentage of offspring born with sex attraction.

And it should come as no surprise that within any human community, plain or otherwise, there will be some members who on some issues will strongly advocate for preserving an existing “old order” while on other issues they may advocate for change. Some will lean toward becoming MAGA supporters, for example, as some Amish have done, and others will hold opposite views, as is the case with the rest of Americans.

We can all learn from the way Amish communities exercise great caution in dealing with change, and reflect on how all of us can be as salt and light to the larger society without losing our identity as members of the worldwide and heaven-governed reign of of a loving and just Creator.

For Quality Relationships--Practice The 4:1 Rule

Alma Jean and I celebrating our 50th anniversary, now over ten
years ago. 

A text  I used for my parenting classes some years ago recommended a simple rule of thumb: For every negative interaction or statement with a child we should make sure we are offering four positive ones.

Too often we parents, mostly by habit, are guilty of creating the opposite ratio, with a majority of words like, "Stop that!" "No!" "You know better than that!" "You should be ashamed!" or with put down questions the child knows there are no acceptable answers to, like "Why do you always have to...?" or "Why can't you ever...?"

Since children are pretty much like the rest of us, only shorter and less experienced, I see the 4:1 rule being equally important in all of our relationships.

Positive expressions and actions have the effect of adding valued deposits to our relationship savings accounts, whereas negative ones are like withdrawals. With a disproportionate number of the latter our relationships accounts become overdrawn and we begin operating in the red. 

Examples of positive expressions are anything informative, interesting, fun, gratifying, praiseworthy, encouraging and/or affirming.

Some acceptable negative ones are expressing our honest feelings about our pain, discouragement, stress, worry or otherwise undesirable experiences.

Unacceptable negative expressions include blaming, shaming, attacking, judging, berating or accusing.

Some negative expressions are necessary and OK if offered in the form of information rather than accusation, and always in the interest of making things better, and never for the sake of causing hurt or harm.

The 4:1 rule, like the Golden Rule, means making sure the majority of our relationship interactions are as we would like them, in some really positive territory.

Daily News-Record "Justice Matters" Column

By KEVIN DREXEL Jun 28, 2025  

'Keep fees' from inmates shift costs to impoverished communities

One practice in Virginia jails that perpetuates the cycle of incarceration is the practice of “Keep Fees” or charging inmates daily rent.

We are led to believe that public funds cover all the costs of incarceration and the operation of our jails. However, jails shift many of these costs onto inmates and their families through excessive fees charged to inmates and through inflated private contracts with private vendors. Vendors commonly offer kickbacks (“bribery”) for signing them up.

A significant percentage of costs for rent, food, communications, hygiene products, and clothing are ultimately passed on to families trying to assist loved ones with basic material and other needs while incarcerated.

Hadar Aviram, a professor at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, comments, “Public prisons are public only by name. These days, you pay for everything in prison.”

According to the Brennan Center, the result is “an estimated 10 million people who owe more than $50 billion resulting from their involvement in the criminal justice system.”

As a 2021 Vera Institute report clarifies, “Fees are not the same as fines. Fines are intended to serve as punishment, whereas fees and surcharges are explicitly designed to raise revenue for the government.

But both fines and fees bring governments revenue as if they were taxes, and this method of funding government inflicts considerable harm on already impoverished communities.”

Examples of proliferating fees, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, are “charges for police transport, case filing, felony surcharges, electronic monitoring, drug testing, and sex offender registration.”

Among the more egregious of these are keep fees, the daily rent jails across the country charge inmates while incarcerated. In Virginia, these run from $1 per day at our local jail to $3 at Middle River Regional Jail, the maximum allowed in the Commonwealth. Such fees disproportionately harm low-income families as the median annual income of a person incarcerated hovers around $19,000. Thus, the multiple jail fees charged could be seen as a violation of the Eighth Amendment’s constitutional protection against excessive fines.

In a 9-0 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Justice Clarence Thomas noted that excessive fines were used after the Civil War to re-enslave freed men. In 2019, the New York Times published an article titled “Slavery gave America a fear of black people and a taste for violent punishment- Both still define our criminal-justice system,” in which the author notes that we cannot understand the excessive punishment that permeates the U.S. mass incarceration system without understanding its roots in the legacy of slavery. The article further states, “Laws governing slavery were replaced with Black Codes governing free black people, making the criminal-justice system central to new strategies of racial control.”

It was in the early 1990s that a Chicago law clerk wrote an op-ed in the Chicago Tribune suggesting that inmates with financial assets should earn their room and board through prison labor and pay rent to cover the increased costs of operating jail and prison facilities due to overcrowding.

One of the results of this fee system is that when someone is released from jail or prison, they are often deeply in debt and have very few financial resources. This only perpetuates the cycle of incarceration by burdening former inmates and their families and by creating hurdles that prevent them from successfully reintegrating into society.

Brittany Friedman, a sociologist at the University of Southern California, has done extensive research that shows that jail debt increases the cost of incarceration and that the devastating effects of jail debt can be far-reaching. Dr. Friedman states, “If pay-to-stay is really meant to offset the costs of incarcerating people, then why are we sticking them with a bill that then further tethers them to the system?”

Keep fees may also contribute to inmates on meager jail fares going hungry while incarcerated since any attempt by friends or family to add money to their commissary account to supplement their diet is partially seized by the jail to offset the keep fee debt. This exacerbates hunger and mental distress and is clearly wrong.

Fortunately, some state and national groups are working to address some of the injustices of excessive fees in jails and prisons, but regrettably, this has not been true of jails in the Valley.

Kevin Drexel is the founder of Stand 4 Count, working to support the needs of individuals, families, and marginalized groups impacted by incarceration, and is a part of the local Valley Justice Coalition, a local citizen voice for criminal justice reform in our community and in the Commonwealth since 2014.

Kevin Drexel is the founder of Stand 4 Count, working to support the needs of individuals, families, and marginalized groups impacted by incarceration, and is a part of the local Valley Justice Coalition, a local citizen voice for criminal justice reform in our community and in the Commonwealth