A human rights group based in Washington has written to Virginia's Department of Corrections to report claims of beatings and harassment of inmates at Wallens Ridge State Prison in Virginia and is calling for an independent investigation.
The letter from Interfaith Action for Human Rights details the treatment of seven inmates at Wallens Ridge – a maximum security prison in Wise County. They say they were beaten by white guards, maced, kneed in the groin and called racist names.
“We’ve been hearing reports of abusive treatment at Wallens Ridge throughout 2020,” says Gay Gardner, the group’s senior advisor for Virginia.
“Verbal harassment, sometimes withholding of food or spitting in food, withholding of showers and recreation, planting knives in their cells or threatening to plant knives," Gardner adds. "Black prisoners will report very racist epithets including the N-word directed against them.”
One man claimed he was deprived of a mattress, given no clean clothes for three weeks and was not allowed to shower for 41 days. Gardner’s group has reported these charges to the Department of Corrections and was told an investigation would be done, but she has yet to receive a detailed report on any of them.
“Very often we’ll be told by corrections officials that they can’t discuss details involving individuals because of privacy concerns, but we never actually receive any indication from the prisoners themselves or their family members that an actual investigation has taken place or what the results of it were,” she explains.
Several inmates say they were threatened when they complained – pressured to withdraw official grievances.
“The fundamental problem here is that there is no real, independent accountability or oversight mechanism over the Department of Corrections," says Gardner. "There needs to be an independent authority that can go in and hold people accountable.”
Virginia’s Secretary of Public Safety, Brian Moran, did not respond to our request for a comment but he told Interfaith Action that he would look into the complaints.
