More than a dozen visits to Virginia prisons by state inspectors during 2025 show continuing staff vacancies, the presence of a substance that could be mold in several facilities and, in at least one case, problematic conditions of imprisonment.
The Office of the State Inspector General’s corrections ombudsman unit ended December by posting 8 site visit reports. Overall, the office — which was created in 2024 through state legislation after men at Red Onion State Prison began committing acts of self-harm — published 17 reports during the calendar year. Each document, as well as insights into the Nottoway Correctional Center published in early January, was created prior to Joseph Walters being appointed to lead the Virginia Department of Corrections.
The Bland Correctional Center — where 8 of 280 staff members were disciplined during the past year — was determined to have “substandard conditions of confinement.” The ombudsman’s office declined to respond to a list of questions that included a request for a definition of “substandard conditions.”
To combat summer heat, investigators found, incarcerated people at Bland were given “coolers of ice and frozen water pouches during mealtime” when temperatures were above 95 degrees. Bland’s among seven facilities requesting $76 million for HVAC upgrades, the report said.
Collectively, the reports detail the ongoing staffing shortages across the agency — an issue affecting corrections departments nationwide. VADOC has regularly touted its recruitment efforts, including outreach to veterans, though representation of former military personnel on staff has declined from 8.4% to 6.3% since 2022.
At the same time, staffing agencywide increased from a bit over 10,000 to around 11,000 — while the average number of people incarcerated by the state was down to 22,659 in December.
The ombudsman’s office hasn’t posted a report for the River North Correctional Center, where Corrections Officer Jeremy Hall was killed late in 2025, and the facility wasn’t mentioned in its annual report. Some have connected Hall’s death — reportedly the first of an on-duty officer at a Virginia prison in about 50 years — to the staffing shortage.
Each report included language stating that the documents aren’t “intended to assess compliance with legislative or regulatory requirements” — or with internal VADOC policies.
Department communications lead Kyle Gibson wrote in an email that the agency plans to “fully cooperate with the Office of the State Inspector General in all matters of mutual interest.”
Investigators identified “violations of rights, substandard conditions of confinement, or substandard programming options” at the Buckingham, Greensville and Pocahontas State correctional centers. At Greensville, the report said, OSIG received three complaints regarding “sanitation and pests” following its visit.
Michele Deitch, a University of Texas at Austin professor who runs the Prison and Jail Innovation Lab, said the routine inspections are part of the ombudsman’s office establishing regular oversight of the corrections system.
“The job of the ombudsman — or any other kind of oversight body — is to bring attention to those issues, so that no one can claim ignorance about them. So that the public is informed, so that there's analysis, so that there's an evidence-based set of best practices that inform the recommendations,” she said while discussing the reports.
Recommendations across the system largely focused on medical services being provided to incarcerated people and the regular cleaning of facilities.
Deitch added that the ombudsman’s office overseeing Virginia prisons is still new, it’s still developing its approach and that staff is relatively small.
At Pocahontas — where the “staff dining hall was well-maintained and featured murals representing a 1950s diner theme,” and incarcerated people “served as waitstaff” — a sign at the dentist’s office caught the investigator’s attention:
“These are NOT emergencies. Tooth broken off ‘down to the gum.’ Teeth hurt when I drink cold/hot water, Gums hurt, gums bleed, Broken denture, lost my filling(s), Wires from my braces cutting my cheek, Tooth cutting my tongue, Bit on a rock while eating.”
OSIG’s report indicated Pocahontas’ grievance process was "relatively effective” — though staff hadn’t entered each complaint into the agency’s database and that there’s not currently a system in place for individuals to follow up on their filings.
At Nottoway, the inspection indicated that 18 alleged sexual assaults were reported during the past three years: three were substantiated, 12 were unsubstantiated and three were unfounded. Other facilities were reported to have no physical or sexual assaults.
Deitch said the initial batch of reports could lead to the office focusing on systemic issues — but delineated between full-fledged investigations and recurring site visits.
“I think one of the most common misconceptions about oversight bodies is that they're going to fix the problems,” she said. “That's not their job. Their job is to bring more transparency to what's going on inside. The job of fixing the agency is the leadership of the corrections department, and it's the executive branch, and it's the legislature. That's where the power lies to fix things.”