Guest Post: Great Op Ed Piece In Today's DNR

Mt. Jackson resident and criminal justice activist Laura Crites had the following Open Forum piece published in today's paper. I post it here for those who aren't subscribers:

Virginia Legislators Have An Ice Age Mentality

I’m convinced that our Virginia legislators are stuck right in the middle of the Ice Age in their view of the world. Here’s why.

Gov. Terry McAuliffe recently used an executive order to return voting rights to ex-offenders who have served their sentences and returned to society. Virginia legislators cried “foul!” One insisted “they don’t deserve to vote.” If there is a morality test for voting, who among us would pass?

While these frozen-in-time representatives push back against criminal justice reform in Virginia, the U.S. Congress, in a bipartisan effort working with the Obama administration, is crafting a Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act.

The Georgia legislature is in the midst of criminal justice reform that would, among other things, create charter schools in prisons and shield the record of first offenders.

The Louisiana House of Representatives voted to make it easier for ex-offenders to apply for state jobs.

The National Conference of State Legislatures reports that 38 states and the District of Columbia automatically return the right to vote to most ex-felons after they have completed their sentence. In Maine and Vermont, felons cast their vote while still in prison.

Republicans and Democrats have declared prison reform a priority, and Hillary Clinton has committed to addressing the problem of a grossly unjust justice system, focusing especially on its treatment of women. The U.S. incarcerates nearly one-third of all women prisoners worldwide. Their incarceration results in children being rotated from one foster home to another, the break-up of families and long-term trauma for hundreds of thousands of children.

A local example: Recently, a woman incarcerated for a minor offense at  Middle River Regional Jail explained at intake she needed prescribed medications. She was locked in an isolation unit without the medications. After three days of calling out and groaning in pain, without receiving any medical attention, she was found dead. She left behind three little boys who called her “mother.” For more information on the condition of inmates in Virginia, go to harvyoder.blogspot.com.

So where is Virginia on prison reform? Virginia spends close to $1 billion each year on prisons — $3 billion when we combine prisons, jails and the judiciary. We have the eighth highest rate of incarceration in the United States and rank 11th in money spent on corrections. A recent proposal to reinstate parole, which would allow for releasing prison inmates for good behavior, was rejected. The law would have saved hundreds of thousands of dollars, annually, and allowed these men and women to return to society as productive, taxpaying citizens. (Virginia spends an average of $25,000 annually per inmate.) In addressing the tragedy of substance abuse, we emphasize imprisonment over treatment. In short, Virginia ranks near the bottom in a nationwide bipartisan effort to reform a criminal justice system, which is the world’s worst. The U.S. incarcerates more people per capita than anywhere else.

Are our legislators on their own version of “ice”? Why so intransigent? Their decisions are costing Virginia tax payers tens of millions of dollars. They prioritize warehousing people who have gotten on the wrong side of the law over allocating needed funds for children’s education. They ignore the destruction of lives that occurs during and after incarceration, including the ongoing costs to society.

The legislators charged Gov. McAuliffe with playing politics by re-enfranchising people who would likely vote Democratic. The childhood taunt, “it takes one to know one” comes to mind. As members of the white, middle and upper classes, they have chosen to lock up and disempower minorities. Now their children and grandchildren, who struggle with the scourge of substance abuse, are experiencing the appalling conditions of our state jails and prisons.

It is time for us to join forces as members of a moral and humane society and insist that our Virginia legislators join the rest of the country in promoting criminal justice reform.

Here's a link to some other blogs on jail prison reform http://harvyoder.blogspot.com/search?q=jail+reform

Welcome to the Jail Machine

courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

"Remember those in prison as if you were together with them in bonds, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering." 

                                 - Hebrews 13:3

I have long had deep concerns about conditions at our local jail and in state prisons, a concern shared by our singer-songwriter son Brad, who wrote the following hard-hitting piece in 2006:

Jail Machine

hey, hey, welcome to the jail machine,
there is money to be made in this lock-up game,
everyone’s a winner when the streets are clean,
if the system gets you, you’ve just got yourself to blame

let me tell you, mister, it’s a field of dreams
if we build’em, we can fill’em till they burst their seams..

& life is so much better when the streets are clean,
welcome to the jail machine…

every desperate junkie out there forging checks
gets the same 3 strikes the killer or the rapist gets,
I’m just happy I don’t have to use that stuff,
when my doctor hooked me up my lawyer got me off,

& if the state’s a baby, I’m a candy thief,
buildin’ cheap hotels is easy when the guests can’t leave..

& I’m gettin’ paid to do it like you won’t believe,
welcome to the jail, welcome to the jail machine..

mandatory sentencing creates a need,
we add a touch of human greed,
and now you’ve got a business plan
that college might be cheaper than,
but people get what they deserve,
the over and the under-served,

both rich and poor get exactly what they pay for..

smokin’ there in bed after the money’s spent
lay a lobbyist, a business- and a congressman,
“that was good for me, boys, was it good for you?
let’s build another prison sometime very soon,”

let me tell you, brother, it’s a brilliant scheme
first we build’em, then we fill’em till they burst their seams

and everyone’s a winner when the streets are clean,

(welcome to the jail, welcome to the jail..)

lock up all the sinners who don’t look like me,

(welcome to the jail, welcome to the jail..)

I feel so much braver knowing you’re less free,

welcome to the jail, welcome to the jail,
welcome to the jail machine…

You can click on this link for Brad's music website, and this one for numerous previous posts on criminal justice and prison reform. 

Let's Build A Wall Of Prevention Around Our Warehouse Of Detention

Rockingham/Harrisonburg Jail, home to 3-400 inmates

I had the opportunity to speak to 40-50 people at the Virginia Mennonite Retirement Community today on criminal justice reform, using the handout below. We discussed the need for having congregations, schools, police and sheriff departments and health service providers form the kind of barrier that keeps more people out, and fewer people in, our jails and prisons.

Here's the handout, as promised, with links:

I Was In Prison

The US, while only 5% of the world’s people, holds 25% of its prisoners, more than any other country in the world. Virginia alone houses or supervises over 58,000 offenders, not including federal inmates. DOC's FY2014 operating budget was $1.1 billion. The per capita inmate expense is $27,462, which represents a 29% increase in the past nine years. Medical expenditures consume 13.6% of DOC's budget. 
Our local jail numbers have increased 500% since 1995, while our population has grown only 25%. 
http://harvyoder.blogspot.com/2014/02/cct-issues-historic-statement-against.html

A. Some Factors affecting jail and prison overcrowding:

1. Too many people are in jail awaiting trial. Should people be behind bars who have not yet been found guilty in a court of law—unless they are a danger to others or are a flight risk? http://harvyoder.blogspot.com/2015/06/a-modest-proposal-lets-do-all-we-can-to.html

2. Sentences are too long. Minimum mandatory sentencing laws limit judges’ discretion.

3. Prosecutors are often driven by a need to establish guilt in order to resolve a case, sometimes at the risk of a wrongful conviction. http://harvyoder.blogspot.com/2013/10/could-you-help-identify-this-suspect.html

4. Proven alternatives to jail (restorative justice, in home detention, etc.) are often limited by statute, by public opinion and/or by tough-on-crime politicians, prosecutors and judges. http://harvyoder.blogspot.com/2014/12/15-statements-in-moseley-architects.html

5. Court appointed defense attorneys are underpaid, are usually less experienced and are often poorly motivated to represent indigent clients.

6. Parole was abolished in Virginia in 1995 except for those who were already incarcerated at that time, and the Parole Board last year released less than 3% of the over 3500 inmates still eligible under the old law.
Virginia’s Geriatric Release provisions, for inmates who are 60 and over and who have served at least ten years of their sentence, are underutilized. Only 11 were released in 2014. http://harvyoder.blogspot.com/2015/07/governor-appoints-27-to-parole.html

B. Some stressful effects of incarceration on inmates, their families and on all of us:

1. Stress that results from confining people in unnatural, crowded conditions (too many people in too close quarters) and/or in solitary confinement (virtually no human contact) contribute to psychotic symptoms and behaviors. An estimated 40% of inmates already have some kind of mental illness, often accompanied by a drug or alcohol addiction. Spending time in steel cages with other distressed inmates can only make them worse.

2. Our local jail sometimes places suicidally depressed inmates in a restraint chair for “medical reasons”  (24 times during the first six months of 2015) or in the isolated padded cell (8 times during this same time period).

3. Our local jail has inmates in handcuffs and orange or striped jump suits when meeting with their families (in the totally secure visitor area separated by glass and concrete) or when they are moved to and from approved classes or other groups, unlike most jails.

4. High costs of commissary items and phone calls add stress to inmate families, along with a $1 per day fee per inmate ($3 per day for those housed at Middle River Jail), which must be paid before commissary items can be purchased.

5. When breadwinners are incarcerated (and typically lose their jobs), additional costs for social services and welfare benefits escalate, along with the $26,000 per year cost to all of us to keep someone behind bars. Getting a job after having been in prison is doubly difficult.

C. Some much needed reforms:

1. Our Sheriff should implement policies to reduce the financial stresses incarceration creates for inmates’ families, and to make it easier, less costly, and less stressful to maintain meaningful connections. Maintaining such ties is strongly linked to reducing recidivism and creating a more successful re-entry.

2. Legislators need to engage in judicial reform based on proven practices that reduce crime, promote reform and help create healthier and safer communities.

3. Parole needs to be reinstated in ways that offer hope and encourage rehabilitation.

D. Some Action Steps 

Attend public meeting of the local Community Criminal Justice Board set for 4 pm Monday, September 21 (location to be announced).

Write letters or emails of concern to key policy makers, using email links and addresses on Harvspot or as listed below:

Governor’s new Parole Review Commission: see http://harvyoder.blogspot.com/2015/07/governor-appoints-27-to-parole.html (see July 21,2015 post). Commission meetings are open to the public, and their nest hearing is at the Capitol building September 28. Comments or questions to the Commission should be sent to:
dreana.gilliam@vpb.virginia.gov
vernita.boone@vadoc.virginia.gov
Virginia Parole Board http://vpb.virginia.gov/contact/: see http://harvyoder.blogspot.com/2014/09/guest-post-is-our-virginia-parole-board.html (September 1, 2014 post)

Governor McAuliffe https://governor.virginia.gov/constituent-services/communicating-with-the-governors-office:

Members of local Community Criminal Justice Board: http://harvyoder.blogspot.com/2014/12/15-statements-in-moseley-architects.html (December 1, 2015 post)

Harrisonburg City Council, Mayor Chris Jones cjoneshburg@gmail.com

County Board of Supervisors, Chair Michael Breeden omle48@aol.com

Send emails and letters of concern to the following local candidates:

Bryan Hutcheson bhutcheson@rockinghamcountyva.gov  (Sheriff)
April Moore april@shentel.net  (State Senate)
Mark Obenshain mdo@lolawfirm.com  (State Senate)
Tony Wilt http://delegatewilt.com/links (House of Delegates)
Marsha Garst mgarst@rockinghamcountyva.gov  (Commonwealths Attorney)
Michael Breeden mbreeden@rockinghamcountyva.gov  (Board of Supervisors)
Fred Eberly feberly@rockinghamcountyva.gov  (Board of Supervisors)
William Kyger, Jr. bkyger@rockinghamcountyva.gov  (Board of Supervisors

If you vote in the November election but don’t support the positions of an unopposed candidate, leave that part of your ballot unmarked, or write in the name of an alternative.

Become a part of a local Court Watch group. Contact Ruth Stoltzfus-Jost for more information
ruthsjost@gmail.com

Write letters and/or Christmas cards to inmates (I will post an updated list on my blog in December)
http://harvyoder.blogspot.com/2014/12/my-new-and-revised-2014-christmas-card.html (December 7, 2015 post)  (use a P. O. Box number if you’d rather not disclose your home address).

Promote and attend the October 20 visit of Former Attorney General Mark Earley, past CEO of Chuck Colsen’s Prison Fellowship, who will speak at EMU’s Martin Chapel at 7 pm on “Why America is incarcerating so many people, and what we can do about it”.

Become a mentor to inmates returning to the community following imprisonment.

You can keep up with some criminal justice issues on this blog. Type in an issue of interest in the small search box in the upper left hand of the Home page.                                    

How Members Of A Small Citizens Group Have Impacted Our Local Criminal Justice System

(update) VJC has an open meeting on the first Monday noon
of each month, and a working group meeting on the third Monday noon.

Most of the following developments are the result of collaboration among many people and organizations, but the changes below are among those either initiated by and/or substantially supported by members of Valley Justice Coalition, a group of concerned citizens that has been meeting regularly since 2014:

1. Tireless (and successful) efforts to promote alternatives to building a new jail.

2. The long inactive Community Criminal Justice Board becoming a group that meets quarterly, and is now open to public input.

3. The CCJB appointing an Alternatives Committee which included members of the VJC and chaired by Judge John Paul, which has made significant proposals for reform.

4. Initiating ongoing conversation about need for better mental health services in the jail, and eventually resulting in having the Community Services Board provide funding for a half-time, then a full-time, counselor.

5. Drug Court, which according to the DNR, began as “several community leaders raised concerns about the growing inmate population…” (DNR, 12/10/18)

6. A Day Reporting program at Gemeinschaft Home.

7. Increased citizen involvement in the Reentry Council and its Action Committee and subcommittees.

8. A survey done of over 80 members of inmate families to learn more about their concerns about jail policies.

9. 'WITH' hospitality center at RISE church for visiting family members and loved ones waiting to see inmates at jail.

10. Having significant influence both in the formation of Faith in Action and in its choice of criminal justice reform as its 2018 focus. 
11. Significant collaboration with FIA in the wording and implementation of specific objectives in their campaign.

12. Sheriff becoming more aware of, and sensitive to, community concerns about jail policies, resulting in his taking initiative in improving those policies, including the remarkable step of providing educational tablets for inmates.

13. A October 15 community forum led by Board of Supervisor William Kyger and attended by some 300 people, on the issue of considering hiring a community justice planner. This meeting would not have happened without the influence of VJC and FIA.

14. Numerous op ed pieces and letters to the editor by members of VJC on local criminal justice reforms.

15. Having criminal justice reform advocate Nancy Insco and Probation and Parole head Joshua Lutz of the Reentry Council added to the membership of the CCJB.

16. Advocating for accessibility and submitting data requests for incorporation in the new data system being acquired through a cooperative effort by Harrisonburg, Rockingham County and James Madison University. 

17. Commonwealth's Attorney Marsha Garst stating she wants to change “the warehouse mentality to a greenhouse mentality.” (in the the minutes of the meeting of the State Drug Treatment Court Advisory Committee.)
18. With James Madison University's Mahatma Gandhi Center, initiating and planning a December 4 meeting of community leaders with Virginia's Secretary of Public Safety Brian Moran, along with Parole Board Chair Adrianne Bennett, for the purpose of promoting parole reform, followed by a public meeting at JMU.

Addendum 12/1/24

19. Played a significant role in having Delegate Tony Wilt co-sponsor legislation to have our community finally having a state-funded Public Defender office, a dream which became a reality in January of 2025.

Addendum 1/1/25

20. Arranged for a monthly VJC Justice Matters column to be published by the Daily News-Record on the last Friday of each month.

Addendum 7/7/25

21. Launch of a court observation program in collaboration with local citizen volunteers and with students from local universities starting in September 2025.

Anyone interested in local reforms such as the above are welcome to take part in VJC's second and fourth Monday conversation and strategy sessions. https://www.vjcharrisonburg.org/

Some Valley Justice Coalition Accomplishments

VJC hosts a public meeting via Zoom on the first Monday
noon of each month, and an action meeting on the third Monday. 

Most of the following developments are the result of collaboration among many people and organizations, but the changes below are among those either initiated by and/or substantially supported by members of this group of concerned citizens that has been meeting regularly since 2014:

1. Tireless (and successful) efforts to prevent building a new jail in our community.

2. The long inactive Community Criminal Justice Board becoming a group that meets quarterly, and is now open to public input.

3. The CCJB appointing an Alternatives Committee which included members of the VJC and chaired by Judge John Paul, which has made significant proposals for reform.

4. Initiating ongoing conversation about need for better mental health services in the jail, and eventually resulting in having the Community Services Board provide funding for a half-time, then a full-time, counselor.

5. Drug Court, which according to the DNR, began as “several community leaders raised concerns about the growing inmate population…” (DNR, 12/10/18)

6. A Day Reporting program at Gemeinschaft Home.

7. Increased citizen involvement in the Reentry Council and its Action Committee and subcommittees.

8. A survey done of over 80 members of inmate families to learn more about their concerns about jail policies. https://harvyoder.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-survey-says-members-86-inmate.html

9. 'WITH' hospitality center at RISE church for visiting family members and loved ones waiting to see inmates at jail.

10. Having significant influence both in the formation of Faith in Action and in its choice of criminal justice reform as its 2018 focus. 

11. Significant collaboration with Faith in Action in the wording and implementation of specific objectives in their campaign.

12. Sheriff becoming more aware of, and sensitive to, community concerns about jail policies, resulting in his taking initiative in improving those policies, including the remarkable step of providing educational tablets for a pod of inmates on a trial basis.

13. A October 15 community forum led by Board of Supervisor William Kyger and attended by some 300 people, on the issue of considering hiring a community justice planner. This meeting would not have happened without the influence of VJC and FIA.

14. Numerous op ed pieces and letters to the editor by members of VJC on local criminal justice reforms.

15. Having criminal justice reform advocate Nancy Insco added to the official membership of the CCJB.

16. Advocating for accessibility and submitting data requests for incorporation in the new data system being acquired through a cooperative effort by Harrisonburg, Rockingham County and James Madison University. 

17. Commonwealth's Attorney Marsha Garst stating she wants to change from a "warehouse mentality to a greenhouse mentality.” (April 27, 2017, in the the minutes of the meeting of the State Drug Treatment Court Advisory Committee.)

18. With James Madison University's Mahatma Gandhi Center, initiating and planning a December 4, 2018, meeting of community leaders with Virginia's Secretary of Public Safety Brian Moran, along with Parole Board Chair Adrianne Bennett, for the purpose of promoting parole reform, followed by a public meeting at JMU.

https://www.vjcharrisonburg.org/

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 

A Church Right Next Door To Dachau

Dachau Concentration Camp

I recently heard Jason Gerlach, associate pastor of Community Mennonite Church, tell a group of us about the wake-up call he had that led him to become a volunteer jail chaplain.

He was in his church office overlooking the Rockingham-Harrisonburg Regional Jail while reading an essay by Duncan Forrester, "The Church and the Concentration Camp: Some Reflections on Moral Community". *

In that piece, Forrester noted that less than 100 yards from the perimeter fence around Dachau concentration camp, the first of its kind established by the Nazis in 1933, was a small eighteenth-century Christian church. Forrester immediately wondered what might have been going on inside that church as Dachau gradually became an ever more horrific death camp, eventually housing up to 5000 Jews, German priests, gypsies, gays, Jehovah's Witnesses and others seen as undesirable or who refused to support Hitler's regime.

Forrester writes:

     Some things are almost certain. The Bible would have been read, Sunday by Sunday, or day by day. There would, at least from time to time, have been preaching, expounding and application of the message of Scripture. Bread would have been broken in the Lord's Supper, the Eucharist, the Mass, with the people receiving the Body and Blood of the Lord. From time to time children and even adults would have been received into the household of faith in baptism. God's praise would have been sung and prayers offered for the Church and the world. All the ordinary central activities of a congregation of God's people within a hundred yards of of Dachau concentration camp. And through the wire all the comings and goings of congregation and of concentration camp visible to one another, paraded before one another.

What was most impactful in this essay for Jason was that there was no record to be found anywhere of that church, or of any other in the area, ever raising its voice in protest. How could most Christians in Germany, one of the most Christianized nations in Europe, either silently or overtly support Hitler's scheme to gain absolute power and to rid the Reich of non-Ayrans?

I'm in no way suggesting that our jails and prisons are just like German death camps. To say that would be to seriously minimize the horror of the Holocaust.

Yet we do need to recognize elements that are similar. In spite of the lip service given to making incarceration a time of rehabilitation, most of our inmates experience it primarily as a time of humiliation and punishment. In her book, "Burning Down The House, author Nell Bernstein writes, "Prison dehumanizes, not as a side effect, but as a central function. ...every aspect of institutional life conspires to diminish a young person's sense of herself/himself as someone who matters."

The ongoing negative effects of incarceration on individuals, families and communities are both costly and devastating, as recently pointed out in a report issued by the Brennan Center. It finds that longer prison sentences have little deterrent impact, and that in fact each additional sanction year causes an average increase in future recidivism of 4 to 7 percentage points. In addition, they point out:

• Having a criminal record makes it more difficult to find employment. Recent job application experiments find that applicants with criminal records were 50 percent less likely to receive an interview request or job offer, relative to identical applicants with no criminal record, and these disparities were larger for Black applicants. The formerly incarcerated earn 10 to 40 percent less than similar workers without a history of incarceration.

• The probability that a family is in poverty increases by nearly 40 percent while a father is incarcerated.

• Because incarceration secludes individuals from their families and communities, it decreases the likelihood of marriage and increases the likelihood of divorce.

Whenever and in whatever way fellow human beings are demeaned, deprived of their dignity and liberty and cut off from the opportunity to live productive and responsible lives, the church must raise its voice and extend its hand to help restore justice and shalom.

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

* published in "Faithfulness and Fortitude--In Conversation With The Theological Ethics of Stanley Hauerwas", edited by Mark Thiessen Nation and Samuel Wells.

For more posts on jail reform see http://harvyoder.blogspot.com/search?q=jail+reform

Local Citizens: Support Reform At The Next Meeting Of The Community Criminal Justice Board

source

Mr. William Kyger, District 4 member of the Rockingham Board of Supervisors, will be serving as the new chair of the CCJB beginning with its next meeting at 4 pm Monday, August 29, at the Fire and Rescue Room in the southwest corner of the County Administration Building. 

Your respectful presence will show support for the CCJB as it considers such agenda items as the following (this one from from the local Reentry Council): 

The Harrisonburg/Rockingham/Page Reentry Council wishes to collaborate with the CCJB in further evaluating and implementing more of the Moseley Group's recommendations they adopted in December, 2104, to help reduce incarceration:

1. Adult Drug Court 

“…the scientific evidence is overwhelming that adult drug courts reduce crime, reduce substance abuse, improve family relationships, and increase earning potential. …Drug Courts in Virginia saved taxpayers $19,234 per person as compared to traditional case processing, and reduced recidivism rates for the persons completing a program.”

2. Day Reporting Centers

“…to offer enhanced treatment and supervision to probationers or sentenced offenders not on probation; to monitor early released inmates from jail; to monitor arrested persons prior to trial; as a halfway-out step for inmates who have shown progress in community corrections or work-

release centers; and as a halfway-in step for offenders who are in violation of probation. Sometimes referred to as a “one-stop” shop, a Day Reporting Center offers many of programs and services that best practices suggests reduces the likelihood of reoffending; reduces recidivism, and eventually reduce jail bed space requirements, including: individual and group counseling, substance abuse education, anger management, domestic violence prevention, cognitive and life skills training, parenting and family reintegration, community service, education/GED preparation, and reentry services.”  

3. Implement New Programs

“…initiate a long range planning strategy to investigate, develop and implement a continuum of jail-based ...programs and services for persons with mental health and substance abuse issues, and programs and services which target the probation violator population which appears to be utilizing a substantial portion of jail beds.” 

4. Reduce Number of Inmates In Three Categories 

1. un-sentenced detainees awaiting trial (approximately 40% of the inmate population);
2. probation violators (by a number of measures a disproportionally large offender group),
3. offenders with substantial substance/mental health issues that are associated with repeated criminal behavior and contribute to the jail’s “revolving door.” 

5. Increase System Coordination, Goal Setting, Oversight and Planning

“The community has a formal Community Criminal Justice Board (CCJB) with the statutory responsibility to: (1) advise on the development and operation of local pretrial services and community-based probation programs and services for use by the courts in diverting offenders from local correctional facilities; (2) assist community agencies in establishing and modifying programs and services for offenders; (3) evaluate and monitor community programs, services and facilities; and (4) develop and amend criminal justice plans. This group should oversee an ongoing planning effort that focuses the issues associated continuing crowding at all levels.”

6. Have CCJB Form Working Sub-committees

“…reviewing, analyzing and identifying processes and programs within the system that can be enhanced to create a more effective and efficient criminal justice system. These sub-committees should include a broad spectrum of representatives from the criminal justice, public health, higher education communities, as well as concerned citizens.” 

7. Investigate Ways to Reduce Intake

“Programs and administrative practices aimed at reducing intake should be evaluated and implemented. Early and effective pretrial programming should be enhanced with the goal of reducing future intake pressure.”

8. Investigate Pretrial Confinement Policies, Procedures and Administrative Practices

“… determine risk levels of persons incarcerated, bond statuses and reasons for confinement. There are, for example, a large number of detainees who are confined without bond for reasons that are not apparent. In addition, available data suggests that over 90% of ordered secure bonds are for amounts of $5,000 or less – amounts that poor people may not be able or willing to pay. In the face of research that suggests that requirements of small secured bond amounts is not related to public safety or appearances in court, further investigation is recommended.”

9. Increase Pretrial and Probation Staff Levels

“…consider funding new positions rather than waiting for the State funding process…A total of 6.5 pretrial and local probation officers combined to provide services to a community with over 125,000 residents with an annual operating budget of just over $635,000 is not adequate to provide services and programs for the offender population…”

10. Expand Home Electronic and GPS Monitoring For Pre- and Post-trial Supervision

“…provides a viable and effective mechanism for controlling jail crowding.” 

11. Implement and Strengthen New Jail-based Programs

“...including: work release, education release, public work force, electronic home monitoring, weekend sentencing (non-consecutive sentencing).”

12. Expand and strengthen reentry services for incarcerated offenders

“…the provision of reentry and transition services is an important service delivery component of many jail-based programs.”

13. Provide Expanded Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services Within the Jail 

“Increasingly, offenders with chronic mental health issues are residing in local and regional jails, and greatly contributing to the ‘revolving jail door’ that is apparent in Rockingham-Harrisonburg.”

The Final Hours Of Local Inmate 1970-2014

For some, jail may feel like entering Dante's Inferno

Little is known of the 44-year-old African-American male found dead in his cell at 10:10 am Sunday, December 7, hanging from the ceiling of his solitary cell.

What we do know is that this individual was arrested and brought to jail on an assault and battery charge on the Friday just prior to his death. This is the worst day of the week to be apprehended, since one may have to wait until Monday to be classified and placed in regular population.

After being processed, all belongings are taken from an individual and he or she waits to see the magistrate, who has an office on the first floor of the jail. This official, a minor judicial officer, determines whether bond can be set or whether that should be determined at a later bond hearing in court--usually the next day except in the case of a weekend or holiday. In this case, Monday would have been the earliest possible date for such a hearing.

This inmate was detained because bond was either denied or delayed, or was set by the magistrate but the inmate was unable to find anyone on the outside willing to pay a bondsman the required 10% fee. Bondsmen are available on a 24-hour basis, and are there to cover the cost of the bond based on the magistrate's judgement as to the seriousness of the crime and/or the likelihood of the person being a flight risk. If bond is set at $3000, for instance, a $300 payment to the bondsman is required for release. No legal representation is available at this step in the process.

In this case the arrested individual, unable to secure bond release but not yet charged with a crime (and by law presumably innocent until proven guilty), would have been moved to a holding cell in the basement level of the facility. Though this area is typically very cold, one is not given  a blanket, sheet or mattress, and here one may have the company of numerous recently arrested persons going through withdrawal from alcohol or drug abuse.

Usually sometime between midnight and 4 am the following morning one is stripped, showered, given  an orange jumpsuit to wear and eventually taken upstairs to see a nurse for a brief check over. If one is on some kind of psychotropic medication, such may be denied or withheld until a later time when the Nurse Practitioner from the Community Services Board (who spends three hours a week at the jail) can write a new prescription from an approved list. Detox medications are normally not provided, and even some meds for severe anxiety or schizophrenia may be denied.

After seeing the RN on duty one is given a tub of basic hygiene items, some writing materials, sheets and a blanket and is put into a classification unit.  These are single cells with a mattress on a steel cot built into the wall. The solid metal door has a tray slot for food and a little lift up door officers open to look in during their rounds, made every 30 minutes to an hour. No counselor or chaplain is available.

This classification cell represents a form of solitary confinement. One has no access to a phone or to any other human contact. After hours in segregation one is praying to be placed in a pod and to get out of this small steel enclosure.

In this case the inmate's level of suicidal distress and despair, apparently not detected by the nurse as putting his life at risk, led him to take a sheet and hang himself between the rounds made by the officer in charge.

I know the good people who work in the jail are overworked and underpaid, but this inmate's death clearly reminds us of our community's need to provide better treatment, including mental health and chaplain services, for people we incarcerate.

In addition, our jail bond system appears to need reform, according to the recently issued Moseley report, as well as our needing to have a more careful screening take place at intake and generally providing a more humane and less isolated environment for detainees. Building a secure detox and treatment center, perhaps one located on the RMH campus, may be the more appropriate option for many who are now brought directly to jail.

We need to do everything possible to ease despair and prevent suicides in our jail. This gentleman's life should not have ended this way. He should have been able to have his day in court and to be assured of a chance for a new and better life.

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.

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