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Both public and inmate safety
are important. |
Report of a Suicide at Augusta Correctional Center
"Maxwell Adams took his life Thursday, March 14th, 2019 in the Augusta Correctional Center’s isolation/segregation unit. Earlier that evening, according to word among the inmate population, he told the authorities that if they did not allow him to call his mother that he was going to kill himself. So today another mother will bury her child…
"…In the thirty-eight years of my incarceration. I have witnessed men kill one another, rape one another, beat one another and cry for help from within the darkness as their mental health eroded away under peer pressure and the fear of dying alone in prison. But the worst of all is when they kill themselves out of feeling abandoned or rejected by family, friends and peers…
"It is still everyone's responsibility to help others to see the value of living regardless of the struggle that an incarcerated lifestyle may bring. I know that God did not place these burdens upon us without a means of escape or help... The agony of grief in a suicidal person often goes overlooked until the coroner is notified to pick up the body."
- by an anonymous fellow prisoner
Note: A free video called "Suicide is Forever" is now available in the JPay Media Store.
February Parole Numbers Encouraging, March's Not So Much
The Parole Board granted release to over 40 men in February--no females, and three being geriatric. In March, however, only seven prisoners, all male, were granted regular parole release. There were no grants last month for those incarcerated for a first offense, in spite of their good behavior over decades of time.
In January there were 20 grants but only 6 were first time grants. Four were geriatric, and none were female.
- from the Virginia Parole Board website
Miscellaneous Laments and Complaints From Inside
- One inmate at Sussex II State Prison reports that sewage has been backing up into some housing units there for some time.
- A Western District of Virginia federal grand jury recently indicted two former Rockbridge County Regional Jail (RCRJ) officials on charges related to civil rights violations and falsifying documents to obstruct justice. Also, the superintendent of the Middle River Regional Jail has been dismissed for alleged misconduct and is under investigation.
- According to a VAPAC (Virginia Prisons Accountability Committee) Facebook post, a resident at Buckingham waited for two years to get a tooth pulled, then had the wrong one removed.
- From an inmate: “A man here my housing unit is over 80 years old and is on the third floor. He has to walk three flights of stairs to and from chow three times a day and to any other places for medical or religious programs. He was complaining to me the other day about his knee bothering him."
Prison Costs Continue to Rise
For the fiscal year ended June 30, 2018, the General Assembly appropriated the Department of Corrections (DOC) an adjusted operating budget of $1,257,128,812. The DOC expended $1,248,956,790; the major portion of these expenditures were earmarked for salaries and benefits. The Department operated 26 Major Institutions, 8 Field Units, 5 Work Centers, 2 Detention Centers, 2 Diversion Centers, and one Detention/Diversion Center in which 28,889 offenders * were housed. In addition, the Department operated 43 Probation & Parole District Offices. (For FY 2018, the number of offenders under community-based supervision averaged 65,919 as compared to an FY 2017 average of 63,983, a 3.03% increase over last fiscal year.)
On average 28,889 offenders were housed in facilities operated by DOC during FY 2018. Excluded from that statistic were 1,555 DOC inmates housed in a Department of Corrections owned prison in Lawrenceville, Virginia that is privately operated.
The Department-wide per capita cost of housing offenders was $31,240 in FY 2018, up 4.25% above FY 2017.
On a per capita basis, in FY 2018 DOC medical expenditures increased 10.3% above that of FY 2017. The increase is largely attributed to higher medical costs, greater patient acuity, and the creation of additional infirmary beds.
- information sent by a Virginia inmate
Inmate Population - Demographics*
GENDER: 8.1% Female; 91.9% Male
RACE/ETHNICITY: Black 56.3%; Other 0.6%; White 43%
AGE:
Under 18: 0.0%
18-24: 7.5%
25-34: 31.6%
35-44: 28.1%
45-54: 19.7%
55-59: 6.7%
60-64: 3.7%
65+: 2.7%
*This demographic data represents the DOC inmate population as of December 31,.2017, the most recent date available. DOC inmates incarcerated in local jails are included in this data, out-of-state inmates are excluded.1/26/19
INMATE POPULATION - OFFENSE DATA*
14.6% Robbery
12.4% Larceny/Fraud
10.9% Assault
10.3% Drug Sales
10.3% Rape/Sexual Assault
7.8% Homicide-1st Degree
7.7% Burglary/B&E
6.3% Abduction
4.5% Not Yet Reported
4.2% Drug Possession
2.3% Homicide-2nd Degree
1.8% Sex Offense
1.8% Weapons
1.4% Capital Murder
1.3% Manslaughter
1.0% DUI
0.8% Habitual Offender
0.4% Arson
0.1% Conspiracy
0.1% Other Non-Violent
This offense data represents the DOC inmate population as of December 31, 2017, the most recent data available. This data includes DOC inmates incarcerated in local jails; however, out-of-state inmates are not included. Inmates convicted of multiple offenses are represented here by their most serious offense. For example, a drug trafficker who raped and murdered someone would be represented in the murder category. In regards to 'not reported' offenses, this data represents the percentage of inmates whose actual committing offense had not been reported. Over time this information is updated for that particular population.
- information provided by a Virginia inmate
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Awl
Minor Junior Smith, a blind poet and author at Deerfield Correctional Center, is
still waiting for his well-deserved parole release.
An awl is a tool for piercing holes, particularly in leather. It is a simple metal shaft, with a knob of wood for a handle, polished by its fit in the sinewy cradle of a leather worker's palm.
It is likely the tool with which Louis Braille blinded himself as a three-year-old child in France, in an accident in his father's saddle making shop in the early nineteenth century.* Braille later invented a system of raised dots as a means of reading and writing for the blind.
We don't know whether he was in the shop with his father or alone, whether it was a damp and rainy day, or whether the sun shone and brought to life the floating dust that always hung in the workshop air.
Maybe it was just a little poke in the eye with this small tool, a small slip of the hand, a small injury, a little fumble that resulted in his blindness.
This was decades before general anesthesia or antiseptics. Perhaps the doctor they rushed him to believed n the value of "laudable pus" in a wound. I don't want to picture it.
And as a child in his father's saddle-making shop, did Louis Braille already know the names of the parts of a saddle: pummel, stirrup, tree? Did he know the smell and feel of each grade of leather?
Of all the tools, punch and pincers, gauge and groover, chisel and awl, he chose awl. Likely the last thing he saw, a shine of metal galloping toward his eye. Was it an accident that the tool I used at the blind school in Staunton, Virginia, for pressing hand-punched Braille dots was like a blunt, very small awl?
* Braille's injured eye developed an infection that spread to his other eye, eventually causing him to be totally blind. At first he didn't realize he had lost his sight, and kept asking why it was always so dark.
On this Easter day, here's a link to a blog post on light and darkness:
