Mr. Clarke, Let's Make Your Words Come True

Harold Clarke has been the highly respected director of the
Virginia Department of Corrections since 2010, coming with 
years of prior experience in the Nebraska, Washington and
Massachusetts state correction systems.

According to the Virginia Department of Corrections website the DOC operates some 50 prisons housing around 31,000 incarcerated men and women and has a staff of 13,000 employees. 

The DOC also has oversight of 43 Probation and Parole Districts, Diversion Centers, Detention Centers, and Drug Court programs, all under the direction of Harold Clarke, who was recruited as Director in 2010.

The DOC is the largest agency in the Commonwealth, with an annual budget of over $1.5 billion, but is also seen by many as having the least independent oversight of any state agency.

I am inspired by the idealism I sense in Mr. Clarke's written statements, and also recognize the challenges he faces in carrying out the DOC's stated mission. 

Among these, the director has no control over the kinds of extended sentences imposed by Virginia courts that result in overcrowding and overtaxing the system, has no direct control over the budget restrictions set by Virginia legislators in carrying out DOC's stated mission, nor any control over the decisions of the Parole Board that keep hundreds of those eligible for release in his custody. 

Meanwhile, the DOC is plagued with staffing difficulties, outdated warehouse-like facilities, increased numbers of aging men and women requiring ever more intensive healthcare, and more recently, the challenges of dealing with a Covid pandemic.

So Mr. Clark's 2010-2020 Decade of Progress Report feels highly aspirational and idealistic, to say the least, but I support his statements as a worthy description of the dream we all long to see come true, which he prefaces here with the Department's mission, vision and values:

Mission 

We are in the business of helping people to be better by safely providing effective incarceration, supervision and evidence-based re-entry services to inmates and supervisees. 

Vision

A premier correctional organization where all individuals

achieve their full potential.

Values 

Citizenship Commitment Communication Ethics Honesty Learning Support

What a decade it has been! The following Decade of Progress report highlights the many ways in which the Virginia Department of Corrections has progressed from 2011 to 2021. Our agency is in the
business of helping people to be better, and we are constantly advancing. We champion a progressive and healing environment through a commitment to learning and thinking together.

We are a national leader in the field of corrections, with one of the lowest recidivism rates in the country. This has been made possible by a great deal of hard work and purposeful action all across the agency. From security to medical staff, from teachers to administrators, we have come a long way in recent years. We have dedicated our mental and physical energy to improving the lives of our inmates and supervisees, and we are seeing the results of that dedication.

As an agency, we value the differences and the dignity of individuals; embracing diversity, equity, inclusion. We value safety, commitment, communication, ethics, honesty, learning, and support. We are
committed to recruiting, developing, retaining, and rewarding a diverse workforce of corrections professionals that will enable us to continually improve long-term public safety in the Commonwealth.

Over the past decade, we have trained all employees in the use of Dialogue, giving us all a common language to use in solving problems and moving forward; these communication skills proved to be vital as we faced the COVID-19 pandemic together.

We have been recognized nationally with four STAR (State Transformation in Action) awards from the Southern Legislative Conference and an Excellence in Government Award. We have instituted comprehensive staff surveys in order to hear all voices.

We have learned about and followed the integrated model for reentry and the empowerment model; we have implemented telehealth; we have studied gender responsivity; we have eliminated restrictive housing; we have worked with our communities’ reentry councils to help supervisees successfully reintegrate, and so much more.

The work to improve and progress never ends. I invite you to learn more about where we have been and how far we have come over the past decade, and to join us as we journey forward.

Harold W. Clarke

Director, Virginia Department of Corrections

Note: I have sent the above to some of the incarcerated persons with whom I correspond, inviting their comments on the areas they feel the DOC is succeeding and where they see it failing. I hope to post these at a later time.