Local Event Highlights Concerns About Aging Inmates

John Bennie Williams, second from left, is blind and now 85.

The following was published as an Open Forum piece in today's Daily News-Record: 

Minor Junior Smith, legally blind since he was 5, is a 71 year-old inmate at the Deerfield Correctional Center, Virginia’s virtual ‘nursing home’ for the Virginia Department of Corrections. Mr. Smith, who experienced a hard life as a child, was charged with murder in 1971. He agreed to a plea deal in the case, at which time he was assured he could earn parole after a reasonable number of years if he took all the recommended classes and maintained a record of good behavior in prison.

Mr. Smith has accomplished all of this and more, having earned a reputation as a diligent worker, a prolific poet, an author of a book on his life story, and as an active volunteer helping others learn Braille. In spite of this, he has been turned down for parole, including geriatric parole, over thirty times in as many years.

John Bennie Williams, now 85, is another blind detainee at Deerfield, where he, like his fellow inmates, is housed in a dormitory-style pod with some 40 other men, an extremely stressful environment for a blind person. Mr. Williams has been incarcerated for over 41 years, and has likewise been turned down for parole countless times, in spite of his also having an excellent record of good behavior.

When parole was officially abolished in Virginia in 1995, provisions were made for compassionate release for prisoners who reached age 60 and had served at least ten years, or who were 65 and had served five years or more. Today there are over 4000 Virginia detainees who are parole eligible, ‘old law’ inmates incarcerated before 1995. In spite of these all having served 23 years or more, in August there were only four geriatric releases among the 24 inmates granted parole.

Costs for medical care skyrocket as inmates age, while the likelihood of their reoffending drops dramatically. And unless more are released, the number of seniors in Virginia prisons is expected to quadruple over the next decade. 

In some cases aging and ill inmates have lost all family and other connections after decades of incarceration and see no hope for any future for themselves in the outside world. So some states, like Kansas, Iowa and Louisiana, are dedicating parts of former prison facilities to providing nursing care as needed for such people.

A local chapter of Aging Persons In Prison--A Human Rights Initiative (APP/HRI) is hosting a free seminar at the Houff Student Center at Blue Ridge Community College which will address these concerns on Saturday, November 3, from 10 am to 12:30 pm. Panelists and presenters will include Dr. David Bruck of Washington and Lee University Law School,  Steven A. Northup, retired law partner with Troutman Sander LLP, Dr. Nancy Insco, CEO of Institute for Reform and Solutions, and Lashawnda Singleton, president of the Richmond chapter of APP/HRI.

No registration is required for this donation-funded event, and refreshments will be provided. Find more information at <shenvalleyapphrc@gmail.com>.