Black inmates, protesting racism and intolerable conditions at Red Onion State Prison, a supermax facility in Southwest Virginia, are taking to burning themselves to raise attention to the issues, and try to force relocation to other facilities.
The matter is being highlighted by the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, which sent emails to multiple media outlets on Tuesday to report on the “systemic abuse, neglect, and blatant human rights violations.”
“People who have been incarcerated at Red Onion State Prison describe being regularly subjected to racial and physical abuse from correctional officers, medical neglect including the withholding of medicine, excessive stays in solitary confinement with one report of 600 consecutive days, inedible food having been covered in maggots and officers’ spit, and violent dog attacks,” the caucus wrote in a statement, in which it reported that “at least 12 Black men” incarcerated at Red Onion have burned themselves since Sept. 15.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin was asked a question about the burnings at a press conference on Tuesday, and acknowledged that the Virginia Department of Corrections has “fully investigated” the incidents.
“Part of the investigation is to understand how they’ve happened and why they’ve happened. We have been in conversations with the Department of Corrections about these circumstances,” Youngkin said, adding:
“At the end of it, of course, is we don’t want to see inmates in our correctional system harmed,” Youngkin said. “In some certain circumstances, self-harm is a difficult thing to combat sometimes when it’s perpetrated in a way that is part of the basic infrastructure of the facility.”
That was the response from officialdom on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, the DOC issued a lengthy statement attributed to Chad Dotson, the department’s director:
“The Virginia Department of Corrections (VADOC) has, on numerous occasions, invited all legislators to visit Red Onion State Prison (or any other VADOC facility) to personally observe facility operations and conditions, and to speak with inmates and staff. The recent round of stories about Red Onion are nothing more than bad-faith efforts to try to score cheap political points by advocacy groups who pursue prison abolition and policies that would make Virginians less safe.
“I want to thank those legislators who have made the effort to visit Red Onion and encourage those who have not yet visited to do so at your earliest convenience. We have, in particular, sent personal invitations Tuesday to every member of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus (VLBC) in response to their statement.
“In recent months, six inmates at Red Onion State Prison have burned themselves using improvised devices that were created by tampering with electrical outlets. To be clear, these inmates did not set themselves on fire or self-immolate, as some reports have ludicrously suggested. Some of the inmates were treated for burns at the Department’s secure medical facility at the VCU Medical Center and cleared to return to the facility, while others did not require outside medical treatment. All six inmates have been referred to mental health staff for treatment, and it should be noted that several of these inmates have a history of engaging in self-harm.
“Virginia needs secure facilities in which to house the Commonwealth’s most violent offenders, and Red Onion State Prison serves that purpose. Red Onion is accredited by the American Correctional Association (ACA) and is in compliance with all ACA standards. Further, VADOC takes seriously the mental health of our inmate population – Red Onion has the highest percentage of mental health staff at this security level, based on population size. Finally, the Department has zero tolerance for any form of abuse and investigates all such allegations.”
Share
Chris Graham
