June 9, 2009
Senator Jim Webb
248 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, VA 20510
Dear Senator Webb:
My name is (Name removed at Inmate request) and I am a prisoner within
the VA DOC. I recently had the fortune of reading your floor speech
to introduce your National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2009.
I must say that I have never heard a politician, especially of your caliber
openly admit or want to change this broken system. I have the up
most respect for you and those behind you. In today’s political community
even the most moral public officials are weary of this subject for fear
of political suicide.
With that being said, I wish to voice a view to you that is very
relevant to the issue of criminal justice. I do pray that me being
a prisoner can be seen as one who had first hand knowledge and not as a
criminal only seeking a hand out in order to get out of prison. I
thoroughly believe in incarceration and rehabilitation yet I only see 50%
of this.
As I am sure you are aware of the “1994 Anti-Crime Act” which guaranteed
any states that eliminated parole for its prisoners $40,000,000.00 a year
to offset the additional cost of extended incarcerations. Virginia
legislators at the time only saw green so to speak, and with the tough
on crime antics sold to taxpayers Governor Allen and his supporters then
made Virginia one of the first states to implement this legislation.
HB-5001 also known as Proposal X was pushed through before the ink could
dry. This legislation cost tax payers dearly by filling jails and
prisons to the max and forcing more and more prisons to be built.
It has also made way for private corporations to pretty much dictate how
the system is run. To offset the ever increasing $40,000,000.00 a
year doesn’t put a dent in it these days. Almost all services to
prisoners have been privatized. These companies have no problem providing
kick backs, campaign contributions or what ever is needed to secure prison
contracts. A good look into the Keefe Group will show that.
They’ve been part of several federal corruptions investigations.
I fully understand that a “witch hunt” into the dirty business side of
how this system really operates will cause too much chaos and not fix the
real problems. However, the current laws allow these companies to
make great profits off of incarceration. This had to be kept in mind
simply because anything or anyone who disrupts this tends to be rolled
over in the political community.
All of the aforementioned I am sure you know, but one thing I am
not sure you know is exactly what impact current laws have on prisoners.
There is one word that will go a long way in helping to solve this issue,
INCENTIVE! With no parole and only 4.5 days of good time allowed
to be earned for every 30 days served (54 days per year) for exemplary
behavior is really not an incentive for inmates. When you add the
cost of incarceration that is constantly taking funding for real rehabilitation
and re-entry programs you have one of the main causes of the current problems.
Prisoners are given very long sentences with almost no good time for good
behavior, and no chance of parole. There is so little money for real
programs that only the amount of effort required to receive the little
funding is taken by the DOC. Did you know a VA DOC substance abuse
program is only 18 hours long? Prisoners go in groups of around 10,
once per week, 1.5 hrs per class for 12 weeks. That gives the counselor
who isn’t exactly qualified 1.8 hours per prisoner over 12 weeks to correct
years of substance abuse. It is impossible, so little or no effort
is taken to do so.
Virginia State Prisons are flooded with drugs and gangs today.
The VA DOC cannot get a grip on it. The very same behavior that landed
most prisoners in here is continued because there is no incentive to change.
A prisoner today will serve the majority of their sentence no matter what.
Along with the lack of incentives for the prisoner comes a lack of leverage
by the DOC. When there is really nothing to lose, you really cannot
threaten us. This is the very cycle of the prison system in Virginia
and I will bet is the case in every system that is under similar laws.
Giving prisoner’s incentive will help to solve the problems you intend
to correct. By setting the bar for prisoners to meet in order to
earn their freedom you cover all aspects of the criminal justice system.
Public safety being first, only those prisoners who have truly changed
will meet the bar and those who aren’t willing or not ready will remain
in prison. Beds will open up therefore eliminating the high cost
of building more prisons, saving taxpayers money which is really needed
in these times.
The VA DOC has an estimated 8,500 out of nearly 40,000 prisoners
who are still eligible for parole that are not released simply to ensure
job security by the current parole board. There are many issues with
the current parole board that is under scrutiny and are in the courts.
The rest of Virginia prisoners have no chance at all, so bringing back
parole as well as giving good conduct allowances to prisoners who earn
it could serve everyone involved.
Virginia’s prison system is a model of the very problem you wish
to solve. I sincerely hope you come into this system and see firsthand
that incentives as well as leverage could go a long way into solving this
crisis.
Thank you very much for you time and effort and I close now as I
am sure you a very busy man.
Yours truly,
Name removed at Inmate request
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