Sherbri Dillon has spent a decade in state prisons for real estate fraud – a first offense for which she was sentenced to 30 years. Now at the Goochland Correctional Center for Women, she’s excited to be part of a program that trains prisoners to demonstrate leadership and help other inmates make better choices.
“This allows me to become part of the solution and not just an observer or somebody experiencing the problem," she explains. " When I leave this earth, I’ve got to stand before God for all my time, both inside this prison and outside, and this is something that is making a difference and that I feel really good about.”
Prisons, she adds, dehumanize people. At Goochland, for example, women who maintain the grounds or go to medical appointments in Charlottesville must submit to strip searches each time they leave and return.
“And these are not just searches where you pull your clothes off, you shake them out and you put your clothes back on. It’s a visual body cavity search," says Dillon. "It’s just demeaning and humiliating, and for me I have trauma in that area, so it takes me to a place that is not healthy for me.”
In a written response, the Department of Corrections says it must search for contraband, and this process is standard practice – important to institutional security.
Dillon also complains about restrictions on visitation. Her four children, for example, cannot visit as a group. The limit is three, and someone has to wait in the car. There are also restrictions for prisoners.
“You’re not allowed to use the bathroom. They will offer your visitor a water bottle that we view -- thirsty, and your visitor desperately wants to share but cannot."
The Department of Corrections says water fountains or coolers are available for prisoners. Vending machines, however, are off limits.
“You know there is something to be said about the human companionship of sharing a meal, even if it is a microwaved meal or a honey bun," Dillon argues. "There’s something to be said about breaking bread with the people you love. People in visitation feel robbed of that. Also, people don’t bring kids as much, because food is used to occupy little ones.”
And she reports the visiting area can be hot in the summer. So, too, are other parts of the prison.
“You know these buildings were built in the 30’s, so these systems are inadequate, so literally every summer it’s an issue – the air is breaking down, and every winter it’s an issue – the heat is breaking down.”
Extreme heat is also a problem at seven prisons that have no air conditioning – among them, the Buckingham Correctional Center, a model facility where Tim Wright is serving a life sentence. Like Dillon, he’s unhappy with visitation policy, because Buckingham requires inmates to put on special jumpsuits and underwear that have been laundered but worn by other prisoners.
“We’re the only VA model that does not get to wear our own underclothes to visitation,” he says.
Wright is a veteran who served in the marines and was wounded in Iraq. He still suffers back pain and hearing loss – two problems, but when the state did its annual review, it concluded he did not need many of the pharmaceuticals he was taking.
“It took me five months to get everything back, because they refused to look at my physical medical files from 18 years in prison. They only wanted to look at the last six months of my electronic file since I had been at Buckingham.”
Even now he reports the prison runs out of his medications, and he's not alone.
“The guy downstairs had eight heart attacks, twelve stents. He’s on nitroglycerin, blood thinners, blood pressure medications so he doesn’t have another heart attack. They let them run out two or three weeks ago.”
Finally, inmates are supposed to see a doctor within two weeks of a request, but they say it can take more than a month at Buckingham. I
PART TWO:
Virginia’s governor had little to say about problems in state prisons before the election, but Abigail Spanberger moved quickly to make changes once she took office. Guards have received additional training, and the use of force has dropped by 39%. Attacks on staff are also down -- 56% and there were 47% fewer drug overdoses in the first five months of this year. Still, Sandy Hausman reports that more reforms are urgently needed.
Doug Ankney is serving a life sentence at Lawrenceville – one of four facilities for those who’ve proven they can be trusted to follow prison rules. Many of the inmates there are over 60, but there aren’t enough bottom bunks to go around, so half of all prisoners are assigned to a top bunk and risk falling.
“I was asleep, and I just rolled over and fell face first, and my face hit a footlocker and the concrete floor," he recalls. "I broke my jaw in three places.”
He needed surgery, was on a liquid diet for weeks and was miserable.
“The pain is almost like someone just hit you in the face with a bat. It’s just a horrible ache.”
In spite of the injury, he was not given a lower bunk and still has a challenging climb to reach his bed.
“There’s no ladder or anything. You have to stand on this little bar stool. Then you step on a table, and it’s all very slick. Naturally you take your shoes off to get in bed or whatever, and more than once my feet have slid out from under me.”
In other respects, he’s happy at Lawrenceville – one of four model prisons promising access to recreation all day, many opportunities to study, more comfortable mattresses and better food. That concerns prison reform advocate Taj Mahon- Haft who feels all inmates should be fed better.
“They have in their budget to pay $2.68 per day for all three meals per man. There is no world in which you can tell me you are providing adequate food for somebody in 2026 for $2.68 a day.”
Some prisoners are happy with the new communications system that – for a price – allows them to watch movies and stream music. They can call friends and family from tablets and have free access to the law library, but many – like Shebri Dilllon -- have lost access to music they bought from the previous service provider.
“All the music that we purchased over the years that they’ve charged us $1.99 apiece for – I had upward of 700 songs. Some people had thousands. All of that is gone. No money back, no nothing – just gone.”
Inmate Tim Wright agrees and says signing up for the new service is difficult. People who’d like to correspond with prisoners must take their own picture, then share it and a photo of their driver’s license with a for-profit company called ViaPath.
“The system is so complicated. Particularly your older folks or less technologically advanced people find it impossible, so a lot of people lost their connections -- their only way of communicating with family members and loved ones.”
Guards may also have reason to complain. The state still has a chronic shortage of officers, and inmates at some correctional centers still complain they are targets of verbal and physical abuse. Inmate Askari Lumumba says some guards still think their role is to punish criminals – even at facilities that now house model prisoners.
" You have a very conservative group here that doesn’t really believe in all the progressive ideas that go with the model," he explains. "You have a whole generation of staff that can’t let it go."
The state is anxious to retain officers with the vacancy rate for staff at 21%.
There is a way to address that problem and to reduce the rising cost of medical care for an aging prison population. Here, again, is advocate Taj Mahon-Haft.
“You don’t need more officers to fill those vacancies if you just let out 20% of people that you know are no risk. If you close three more prisons, your budget is under control, and you have enough staff.”
How likely is the new administration to release eligible inmates and – with cooperation from allies in the General Assembly – to extend the chance for parole to all prisoners? That’s a question we’ll address in our next report.
PART THREE:
Over the last two years, Virginia’s Department of Corrections exceeded its budget for medical care by $48 million. That’s because our prison population is aging, and inmates have all the diseases commonly associated with old age. At the same time, our correctional centers have too few officers, and the department is already Virginia’s most expensive agency, costing taxpayers over 1.6 billion dollars a year. Now, elected officials are considering a single solution to both of those problems as Sandy Hausman reports.
It cost the state an average of $12,645 last year to provide medical care for one prison inmate. The total bill for healthcare was so big that the Department of Corrections had to impose a hiring freeze, even though many prisons were understaffed. At the same time, the state started moving inmates who behaved well to one of four model prisons, where they got better food, more classes and – they hope – a chance for early release.
Among them is 66-year-old Steve Goodman who’s been in for 35 years.
“You know I’m older. I don’t think the way I used to. I don’t act the way I used to. What I did to get locked up, I’m horrified that I did it now, looking back.” he says.
His cellmate, 62-year-old Doug Ankney, says he committed his crime in the midst of a mental health crisis after a childhood of abuse.
“There was a lot of sexual abuse, alcoholism, violence, drug abuse. I wasn’t even old enough to go to school the first time I was drunk,” he claims.
Both men are veterans, have been model prisoners and are now devout Christians. Ankney says their demographic is unlikely to commit new crimes.
“Generally, the people who pose the lowest risk of recidivism are people who are elderly and who have also done like 20 years or more in prison. I also have met some people in their 30’s and 40’s, but they came in in their teens, and a lot of them have their act together.”
And some prisoners in these facilities have, no doubt, adjusted their attitude – like Keith Hill. After previous convictions for fraud and theft, he broke into a Food Lion, stole a shipment of cigarettes and sold them to convenience stores near Lynchburg. For that, he got 68 years, but he says he’s no longer angry about his sentence.
“You know why you can’t become bitter? You have to accept responsibility for what you did," he says. "I did something that I shouldn’t have done. I have to man up, and have to live with that.”
Many are putting their hope in a new parole board, appointed by Governor Spanberger, but if July is any indication, that body will not be freeing large numbers of prisoners. In July, 107 applied, but only 13 were granted parole.
There is talk of making all inmates eligible for consideration – a right Virginia abolished 31 years ago.
“I don’t know a time frame, and I wouldn’t want to speculate.”
Taj Mahon-Haft is with the Humanization Project – a non-profit that advocates for prison reform.
“I do know that people from both parties, think tank folks, lobbyists, there are a lot of people who have been working behind the scenes to move us in that direction, and I think the evidence of that is the fact that there is a study this year being done about the lack of parole and the potential reinstatement and what all that would mean.”
As the Joint Legislative Accounting and Review Commission or JLARC works on that report, the new parole board must grapple with a requirement imposed some years ago by the General Assembly and ignored by the Youngkin administration. Prisoners who come up for parole are entitled to a public hearing, and inmate Askari Lumumba is suing to enforce the rule.
“First of all, these are public officials – government officials who have to be accountable to the public. From the prisoner perspective, a lot of us want to be able to show the public that we actually have changed – that we’re different people, and that we’re not the caricatures that they paint us out to be. We’re not the worst moment of our life.”
And the governor’s office has not addressed the other option for early release – getting a pardon. Here’s prisoner Tim Wright.
“Everybody is in the dark on the pardon process.You have guys who have been waiting eight years. They put their pardon in at the end of Northam. Youngkin didn’t do anything, and nobody can get any information as to what this administration’s position or process is going to be for handling clemencies.”
The Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission will issue its report on the likely impact of reinstating parole in December of 2027 – in time for consideration and a possible vote by state lawmakers in 2028.
