An Intake At Goochland Women's Correctional Center: "We Were Treated Worse Than Dogs"

The author of this piece is serving a sentence at
Goochland for a probation violation in 2022.

This was written for publication by a local 50-year-old mother of three who is to be released from prison this fall.

I arrived at Virginia Correctional Center for Women (VCCW) on January 18, 2023. I transferred there from Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women, where they hold maximum security inmates as well as do intakes and classify women coming into the Department of Corrections from Virginia jails.

VCCW, aka Goochland, is in Goochland County, an approximately 30-minute drive from Fluvanna. There were around 12 to 15 women transferred that day. We were all shackled with chains between our ankles, so you must take baby steps to keep from falling on your face. There’s a chain wrapped around your waist that is intertwined through a metal box that holds your hands at your waist. The contraption holds your hands so tight that some of the women complained their circulation was cut off and I could see because their hands were turning purple.

The bus that carried us was more like a horse trailer, with little oblong windows that were so high we couldn’t see out of them. The only way to see was if you stood up and stretched because there was a considerable height.

Our only stop was at State Farm. State Farm is a work camp that is on the same property as VCCW but maybe about five miles apart. We stopped to drop off one of the women on the bus who was going to be housed there.

When we stopped the female officer who rode up front with the male bus driver got off the bus and managed to drop some important paperwork that concerned the inmate being left at the State Farm location. We stayed on the bus for several minutes, unsure of what had occurred, while the officer and the bus driver (also an officer) searched for the paperwork.

We were becoming restless and miserable with no air blowing and it was an unseasonable warm day. We could barely move with the tight restraints and shackles on our ankle. 

Finally, a taller girl stood up to one of those small, high windows to see what was taking so long. She then spotted the missing paperwork. When it was dropped it had blown up against a small wooden structure we were parked beside.

After we finally got their attentions, we told them someone had looked out the window and saw the paper had blown to the right of the bus. They acted as if they didn’t believe us, failing to make a move or even acknowledge what we were saying. We became adamant that their paper was over against the building and that clearly irritated them. Finally, one of them did go look and found the paperwork. 

This is an example of the disconnection between inmates and staff. They chose to ignore the information that would get us safely and promptly back on the road toward our destination only because the information came from inmates.

We finally arrived at VCCW and once again we were left sitting on this hot, stuffy bus with no air circulating. We asked the officer and the driver several time to please turn the air conditioning back on because it was so warm and stuffy. We got no response.

Finally, a woman who had asthma had an attack. She was sitting in the seat in front of me and hit my leg when she fell in the aisle of the bus gasping for air. She lost her glasses in the fall. Me, with quite a bit of difficulty because of the cuffs and shackles I was wearing, managed to rescue her glasses before they were trampled in the chaos that ensued.

Luckily, we were on VCCW property and more officers as well as two nurses boarded the bus to assist the woman in distress. The woman was taken off the bus amid a few very vocal complaints from my fellow inmates about our being treated worse than dogs left in a hot car. The driver/officer who had left us on this hot stuffy bus not once, but twice, continued to look indifferent, but turned on the air and left it on. A little later we were finally pulled up behind an old building and taken off the bus, then escorted physically to a basement, mostly because we could barely walk.

I later learned this building was known as Building Two and encompassed medical, a property room, and intake to the facility. The outside was red brick just like buildings Three, Four, Five and Six. Building One was a white structure and was the original prison before it became a money-making "body farm" that could hold 500 inmates. Building One has been condemned and sits in a cul-de-sac below Building Two. They say it’s haunted.

The first warden was Elizabeth Kates. When she arrived in 1931 there were only thirteen inmates. Building Two was also old, and there were tiles on the floors with old, yellowed wax. The walls were concrete, and their paint looked faded. While standing in the main intake room I realized the corner
of the building was separated all the way from floor to ceiling and I could see outside. Overhead were pipes that ran across the ceiling where every so often I could hear water run through them from a toilet or a shower, I assumed. 

After the shackles and restraints were removed we were all drug tested. Then we were taken into a room divided by partitions and pictures were taken of all our tattoos. After that, four of us at a time were stripped naked. We had to squat and cough, lift our breasts, our stomachs, open our hair and run  our fingers through it, show the backs of our ears, open our mouths, and show the bottoms of our feet. This was the second time we had performed the routine; we had done the same thing before we left Fluvanna that morning. I guess one time wasn’t humiliating enough.

Officer Wright was a woman in her fifties. She came in to assist once we were naked. Immediately she acted as if she was in charge. Some were afraid, I’m sure, as she told us how Goochland was a serious place where we could acquire tickets and lose any good time we might earn. She told us we didn’t want to mess up while we were there and on and on about the rules and regulations…while we stood naked. She mentioned several times that we were not at a fashion show as we were issued ill fitting state uniforms. We were told to live with it and stop complaining that something didn’t fit. Too bad!

I came to learn that you had to struggle, fight, and pay to keep halfway decent clothes on your back. Honestly, nothing you wear in Goochland is decent—not even what you pay for. That day of intake I got a shirt that was too small and pants that were too big. It took weeks before a clothing exchange was called where we could exchange those ill-fitting outfits we received on our day of intake.