“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
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