The Virginia corrections system has agreements with dozens of departments across the country that allow incarcerated people to be transferred in and out of state to other facilities.
Democratic state Sen. Mike Jones has proposed a bill that would pause the use of the Interstate Corrections Compact, but only into Red Onion State Prison. His legislation singles out the facility, in part, because of the instances of self-harm at the prison in 2024 by incarcerated people protesting their conditions. Both corrections and state officials have said the incidents were an attempt to manipulate public sentiment.
A redacted investigation into Red Onion by the state’s inspector general’s office deemed complaints — ranging from alleged rights violations to individuals being subjected to inhumane conditions — to be either “inconclusive” or “unsubstantiated.”
VADOC’s website has indicated the ICC transfers have been put on hold departmentwide since at least October 2025. Kyle Gibson, the prison system’s communications lead, didn’t previously respond to an email asking why the initiative had been placed on hold, and was out of the office this week when a follow-up was sent.
If Jones’ bill, which made it out of the Senate in a 21-19 vote, is passed by the House and signed into law by the governor, VADOC would still be able to transfer people into other facilities. Requests by incarcerated people in Virginia for transfers would be unaffected.
Though a state prison official said the transfers aren’t instituted to create a profit — and VADOC’s policy on the process stipulates that incarcerated people cover transportation costs — Jones recently said during a committee hearing that “no place of rehabilitation should be a place of economic impact on a particular locality.”
“I believe by simply adding more fuel to the fire, by bringing more individuals from out of the state, in order to meet a budget or in order to maximize beds and things of that nature — I think that is the wrong intent,” Jones said.
In response to a records request, VADOC wrote that it hadn’t tracked the number of individuals who have been transferred through the ICC between 2020 and 2025, contradicting a department operating procedure instituted in 2022 and updated twice since then. The department also cited an estimated cost of $7,026 for access to emails from the department’s former director about ICC, as well as Ekong Eshiet’s transfer to a prison in Indiana — a state he said he hadn’t requested a transfer to.
Eshiet, who was among the people to self-harm in protest of their treatment at Red Onion, said he was transferred hundreds of miles away through the compact as a form of retaliation for bringing attention to prison conditions. Others have made similar claims.
“From my experiences with it, most people — not all but most people — that get sent out of state … on the interstate compact transfer, it’s due to them standing up for their rights,” he said.
Marcus Elam, the state’s corrections operations administrator, said at the end of January the Commonwealth was holding 38 people from other states at Red Onion through the ICC agreement — though that changes “depending on the time and circumstances.”
While speaking during a Senate committee hearing around Jones’ bill, Elam added that the department doesn’t have an official position on the bill — but doesn’t foresee problems implementing the proposed pause.
“We still can manage our population and there's still opportunities for inmates — or other states if they wanted to use the interstate compact in other ways, in other areas — [it] still gives them that opportunity,” he said.
The ICC bill is set to be discussed in a public safety committee, before potentially being voted on by the full House of Delegates.