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Behind
Bars:
Virginia's
Jails and Prisons
In 1850, a blacksmith named William Borsh, convicted of horse stealing, had been in Richmond’s Virginia State Penitentiary for three years, according to a
census of prisoners published that year. It was a serious crime back then. Some of the other 197 inmates, including a few women, were incarcerated for crimes ranging from murder and rape to stabbing a slave, burning, burglary, larceny and malicious wounding.
As with many firsts in Virginia, construction of a state “penitentiary house” was championed by Thomas Jefferson. In the late 18th century, similar institutions were being built across Europe to hold and reform criminals. Prisoners in jails and prisons at the time were subject to overcrowding, unsanitary conditions and often death due to disease. Jailers were not paid, but exacted fees from inmates. The penitentiary movement hoped to improve conditions.
Jefferson proposed the facility soon after the end of the Revolutionary War, but it took 20 years before reformers in the Virginia legislature were able to hire
Benjamin Latrobe to design the building in 1796. The state penitentiary began receiving prisoners in 1800 and was completed in 1804. After finishing that job, Latrobe moved to Washington at the request of then-President Jefferson to work on the
U.S.
Capitol.
During the Civil War, military prisons became important. One of the more famous in Virginia was Richmond’s Libby Prison. Its three buildings had been built by a tobacco industry magnate and then leased by a ship chandler, Captain Luther Libby, who had to shut down his business when the war started. He had been providing sailing supplies to northern ships. After the Battle of First Manassas (Bull Run), the buildings were commandeered to deal with the huge influx of Union prisoners. Over the course of the war, more than 50,000 men passed through the prison.
Libby Prison is ancient history and the Old Dominion’s original penitentiary no longer exists. However, the state’s Department of Corrections today houses about 31,000 inmates in 30 major institutions and 10 correctional units
(Virginia Department of
Corrections). DOC is among the largest state agencies, with about 13,000 employees and celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2004.
The agency’s institutions include the supermax Red Onion State Prison in Wise County, where sniper Lee Boyd Malvo was held before his recent extradition to Maryland, and the Sussex I State Prison in Waverly, which housed fellow sniper John Allen Muhammad on death row (and will house him again after his trial in Maryland ends). Other facilities, such as the
in Greenville, are small facilities designed for less serious offenders. Correctional units do not house anyone convicted of homicide; kidnapping or abduction; violent sex offenses; or anyone who has demonstrated disruptive behavior.
Virginia’s two federal prison complexes – the Federal Correctional Institute in Petersburg and Lee County’s U.S. Penitentiary in Jonesville add about 9,800 inmates to the state’s total. Petersburg houses low and medium security inmates. The Jonesville facility is a high-security building.
If you add Virginia’s 80 jails, which hold
primarily inmates awaiting trial, and those on parole and probation, in 2004, there were about 112,000 offenders under federal, state or local supervision in the state, according to the most recent statistics gathered by the
National Institute of Corrections. Still, the crime rate for Virginia is more than 38 percent lower than the national average, and the correctional supervision rate (number of offenders supervised per 100,000 residents) is more than 45 percent lower than the national average, according to the NIC.
The role of jails and prisons in society has been debated since colonial times. Should such institutions be designed to keep society secure, or rehabilitate inmates? Is rehabilitation possible? What are the constitutional rights of inmates? What about the impoverished, homeless and mentally ill, who often are overrepresented in the nation’s jails and prisons? Is the institution cost effective?
A 2003 article in Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News reported that Norfolk’s jail had started to charge inmates $1 per day.
Inmates cost the city $37.11 per day on average in
2002 but received only $8 back from the state (“Some Jails in Virginia Charge Inmates Up to $1 for Room, Board,” July 8, 2003).
As recently as early June, there was an exchange in
USA Today which editorialized that a recent report by the
Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons was “a scathing indictment of the nation’s correctional system.” The report revealed serious problems in the corrections system, including lack of adequate funding for education and vocational training, and increased violence in overcrowded facilities.
In response to the editorial, James A. Gondles, executive director of the American Correctional Association, wrote: “USA Today ought to be thanking the dedicated 750,000 professional men and women who work in our correctional systems for maintaining public safety. … Can we do more? Of course, we can, but we need county, state and federal governments to step up to the plate and fund treatment, education, job skills training for inmates and adequate pay for our workers.”
He concluded, “Inmates are our brothers and sisters and our sons and daughters, and nearly every one of them will return to our communities. We need to treat their diseases, mental and physical, to help them turn the corner on living a productive, positive life.”
It seems there are no easy answers. For those who put horse thief Borsch and his fellow offenders behind bars 150 years ago, life was a bit simpler.
NEXT: Blasts From the Past: Virginia’s Drive-In Theaters
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June 26, 2006
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