Officials say Lawrenceville is unique in Virginia, rewarding good behavior with better food and mattresses, additional programs and longer visitation, but some of those who qualify can’t get in. Tim Wright, for example, was wounded while fighting with the Marines and needs a bottom bunk.
"I shattered my right elbow. I dislocated my right shoulder and trying to climb up and down on those really high bunks – I just couldn’t do it anymore," he explains.
But he was told it could be several years before a bottom bunk is available at Lawrenceville.
"You know you’ve got people at Lawrenceville who are 70 years old who can barely walk who are being told they have to sleep on a top bunk. They're sleeping on the floor."
The Department of Corrections now says it will expand the program to three other locations – Buckingham, Dillwyn and a section of Greensville, but Wright says those facilities won’t work for inmates who can only be housed at higher-security prisons.
“Buckingham is not considered a wheelchair accessible compound. Only Dillwyn is, but you can’t go to Dillwyn with certain charges. Most of your wheelchair guys have life sentences or charges that they can’t even go to Dillwyn.”
He wonders about the wisdom of letting some prisoners at the Greensville Correctional Center have better meals than others.
“Even though it’s supposed to be better food, it’s going to be prepared in the kitchen by the inmates who live on a compound that doesn’t get those privileges. Who knows what they’ll do to the food?”
And, finally, Wright says going to Greensville might not be much of a reward.
“The people who care about this program all work at Lawrenceville, so you’re going to have the same old staff wanting to do things the same old way at the same old institutions. You’re going to have the same commissary that’s super inconsistent, the same medical that’s horrendous. Nobody wants to go there. Nobody!”
The department has already branded Lawrenceville a success, with no confirmed drug overdoses, no serious assaults and very few positive drug tests.
What it does not say is that the 732 inmates now housed at Lawrenceville were selected because they were model prisoners. We reached out to the Department of Corrections, which issued a press release about the expansion Friday morning. We asked about special training for correctional officers at the new facilities, about the timetable for a transition, about costs and about Tim Wright’s claims, but by Friday at 6 p.m. we had received no answers.
