Virginia Delegates Highlight Abuse at Virginia Prison

On Wednesday afternoon, Virginia Delegates Mike Jones and Holly Seibold addressed a crowd in freezing weather at a rally about the abuse at Red Onion Prison. This is an issue that The Virginia Defenders have been taking the lead and reporting on prisoners who are holding hungry strikes and intentionally burning themselves because of the abuse in the prison.

Delegate Seibold spoke on her experience with touring the supermax Red Onion Prison in Wise County (about 400 miles away from her district in Fairfax.) Last year Seibold sponsored a law that passed on limiting the use of guard dogs.

"The inhumane conditions that I had read about and learned about through the hunger strike remained unchanged even after I visited." Seibold recalled. "A significant portion of Red Onion's population as you know is being locked down in a concrete cell for 20, 22 hours a day."

Siebold says the law she passed about guard dogs in prisons was not being implemented. "I went in May before the before the policy took place so the dogs were still out... They should only be deployed if there's a fight of three or more."

Delegate Mike Jones also took the long trip to Wise County from Richmond. Jones told me that he could hear the barking from outside the facility.

"They (prison officials) may say they're (guard dogs) not roaming, they were sitting by the wall. There was a stripped area, which lets you know, that dog will hit anything inside this, that area... They've got to be retrained or get a new group of dogs. A properly trained dog should sit right here until I tell then to do something." Jones said.

Last month, Virginia Director of Department of Corrections Chad Dotson testifying to the Virginia House Committee on Public Safety that Virginia prisons are the safest in the country. Dotson blamed the self-burning on the prisoners behavior.

The concerning thing, is Dotson lying to the committee? Is Red Onion breaking the law with their use of guard dogs? What's happening with the inmates that are self harming themselves at the prison. An investigation in Virginia's prisons is beginning that could produce answers on what's happening with that prison in the furthest reaches of Virginia. What's being said by Jones and Siebold is at odds with what Dotson is saying.

Doctson has a Substack where instead of writing about Red Onion, he writes about the Cincinnati Red.