One of Virginia’s largest prisons – and the only one operated by a private, for-profit company – has water today after a week that saw shutoffs, flooding and a brawl that sent two inmates to the hospital.
The trouble at Lawrenceville began over a week ago when crews shut off water to units housing more than 250 men to try and fix leaks. This woman – who asked us to withhold her identity -- says her fiancée and others faced several days of hardship.
“They hadn’t been able to take showers or wash their hands or drink or anything like that.”
The Virginia Department of Corrections, which pays a private company about $50 a day per inmate to manage the place, says showers were working Friday night, but debris clogged the pipes, and pumps couldn’t keep up with water flowing out. Cells were flooded according to the fiancée of another inmate who also asked for anonymity.
“Sewage backed up into several of the buildings, and there was at least a foot of water and sewage in the downstairs area of the pod.”
The state says there was no raw sewage, that management delivered fresh water and ice along with hand-washing stations, and the prison has air conditioning, but relatives of inmates say flooding knocked out telephone service.
“All the phones were off except for one building," said our first source, "so they left all the pod doors open for these inmates to get to the other pod to make phone calls.”
And that may have set the scene for what happened next – a fight in one pod where 88 men were living.
“Tensions have been high, and they all got upset about a radio being turned on really loud on country music," said our second source. "The gang members didn’t like that. They all started talking smack, and apparently the violence just exploded.”
Her fiancée was one of two men taken to VCU Medical Center in Richmond.
“He was stabbed in the chest three times. He has a collapsed lung. He’s got some cuts and abrasions to his face, and he also has some broken ribs.”
She blamed an absence of correctional officers – a chronic problem according to three families with relatives at the prison.
“A lot of the staff just has not been showing up for work, or they’re just leaving the posts that they’re supposed to be at.”
“They’re always short-staffed," added our first source. " I know they’ve locked down quite a few times for not having enough staff.”
The Department of Corrections won’t say how many officers the management company employs to keep watch at Lawrenceville, but one source told us guards did not intervene in that brawl for more than ten minutes. They say inmates had time to e-mail their families, and their families called the prison.
“Loved ones had to call the front desk to tell them that there was a fight going on and that these inmates needed help,” she recalled.
Both the Department of Corrections and the private operator – a Florida-based company called the Geo Group – denied any staffing shortage, and in a written statement Geo described the fight as a “minor incident.” Our second source didn’t see it that way.
“I am an absolute mess. I’m not going to lie. He is my rock. He is everything to me, and I’ve been afraid that something like this would happen. He even had a talk with me last week. He said, ‘If something happens in here because of how crazy things are getting, I need to ask you if it’s okay if I defend myself,’ and I said, ‘Are you kidding? Of course. I need you walking out of there on your release date and not in a body bag.”
He was also diagnosed with COVID – as were eight staffers and 73 inmates since the Department of Corrections began keeping track. Five are hospitalized.
The Geo Group said it takes “the health and safety of those in our care with absolute seriousness” but planned no operational changes as a result of this past week’s troubles.
