Reporters who accompanied Delegate Michael Jones on the six-hour drive to Red Onion were not admitted to the maximum security prison, but Jones was welcomed – given a tour and allowed to speak with inmates. Two and a half hours later he came out talking about a pressing need for immediate action. The state, for example, spends about four dollars a day to feed each inmate.
“The food’s not good. They don’t get enough of it," he concluded. "They don’t have the resources for the commissary, and then medical attention if something happens in there.”
He recalled six prisoners were sent to VCU’s medical center after they had burned themselves – hoping to be transferred, but some waited two or three days to make the trip.
“Before they were able to get to VCU or get the type of treatment, it was bandaged up, but third- degree burns require a different type of treatment,” Jones explained.
And despite legislation to restrict the use of attack dogs, Jones claimed they were still being used around the prison to intimidate residents – barking and pulling on their handler’s leash.
“If you and I just walk by the dog it’s going to hit the end of that leach, and that is bad training. Someone got that dog that ramped up that whoever walks by -- I walked on the other side of the warden. I’m good. I’m walking on this side, just in case that thing gets loose.”
Prisoners also complained of limited access to educational programs and vocational training – things that would help them if they ever get out.
“The guy who was in there had seven months left on his sentence, and what was his transition going to look like, and he felt so unprepared to come back out and reintegrate into society. What’s the re-entry plan for this guy? I can guarantee you, sitting down talking to him, they don’t have one.”
And inmates said some of the correctional officers were white supremacists who insulted and abused them. Jones believes that problem is easily remedied.
“That is up to the warden, that is up to the assistant wardens to not allow that to happen. Because you got as paycheck – let me hear of it again and you’re gone. They don’t have to like Black folk when they go home. I don’t give a damn who they like when they go home, but when they’re overseeing human beings they have to carry themselves as professionals.”
He promised prisoners he would stick up for them – would ask questions and make speeches during the next legislative session.
“I want them to hear the rage in my voice," he said. "hey need to hear it!”
He also promised to return, and he’s asking other lawmakers to visit Red Onion.
“I need members of the Virginia Legislative Caucus to go out there themselves and see it. I need my Republican colleagues – I need them to go see this.”
Jones did not promise any special legislation, but he plans to offer budget amendments that would provide more funding for food and educational technology at Red Onion, and he said he would support bills to increase social services for kids who – without additional help from the state – could someday be locked up at that prison.
“These are our brothers, our sisters, our uncles our cousins who made mistakes. If we’d gone through some of the things that these guys have gone through, the way some these guys were assaulted as children, situations that they couldn’t control got the best of them.”
Jones said he would be meeting with public school administrators in the Richmond area to talk about stronger efforts to keep students in school so they don’t end up behind bars.
He pledged to keep the pressure on prison administrators to ensure that inmates are treated with respect, adding that this should be a bi-partisan goal.
“We’ve got to find a way to make Governor Youngkin understand that this is the humane thing to do.”
But he thinks the state will need a new governor if we hope to reinstate parole and release those prisoners who have studied, matured and no longer pose a threat to the public.
