Virginia Corrections Department, Ombudsman Office Sign Agreement to Facilitate Investigations

Virginia’s Department of Corrections and the state’s corrections ombudsman have settled on a memorandum of understanding — a formality that can help streamline the process of investigating complaints and ensure cooperation when the ombudsman office probes the department.

Corrections ombudsman Andrea Sapone was hired late last year after the state legislature created her position. She has hired additional staff to her office since then and coordinated with VADOC on the MOU. Sapone is tasked with investigating complaints regarding Virginia’s correctional facilities and already has a high-profile investigation on the horizon into Red Onion State Prison.

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From June to August, Office of the Inspector General data shows 568 complaints have been filed, with 77 stemming from Wallens Ridge State Prison and 113 stemming from Red Onion.

Inmates, along with their friends and family and other advocates, have also reached out to The Mercury over the past year to relay concerns of mistreatment and poor living conditions at both facilities, particularly Red Onion.

Allegations in the complaints include excessive use of force, delayed medical care, and prolonged isolation.

Though Virginia technically does not have solitary confinement, it has “restorative housing,” wherein inmates are isolated but are supposed to be permitted a few hours outside per day. Some inmates have said that it is not happening and that frequent lockdowns also make many inmates feel isolated because they lose access to programming and must remain in their cells.

Accusations of racism and religious discrimination have also surfaced — reaching a tipping point last year when a handful of Red Onion inmates burned themselves. Some inmates and advocates say the burns were acts of protest or desperate attempts to seek transfer to a different facility. At a December meeting with state lawmakers, VADOC director Chad Dotson attributed the incidents to mental health issues or attempts to be housed in facilities closer to their families.

Some of the frequent lockdowns around the state might be attributable to prisons having insufficient staffing, a  2024 report to lawmakers suggested. The report described staffing levels as “dangerously low,” leading to “very few” education programs operating and some facilities being unable to provide the time outside of cells that inmates are legally entitled to.

The new MOU outlines assurance that OSIG can subpoena the department for records and data to investigate problems. On the flip side, department staff are able to have their legal counsel with them during any testimony during investigations, and VADOC is permitted to review OSIG’s findings prior to publication, to ensure information that   “could jeopardize the safety or security of the facility, staff or inmates” isn’t disclosed.

The department’s data on inmate and staff deaths, suicides, suicide attempts in custody, physical and sexual assaults in custody, the number of inmates in “restorative housing,” the number of facility lockdowns lasting longer than 24 hours, and the number of in-person visits to inmates that have been made and denied will all be subject to sharing with OSIG. Officials will also need to include the number of complaints or grievances submitted to VADOC, along with documentation of their resolution and how long it took to resolve them.

OSIG will be able to view body camera or facility camera footage at mutually agreed-upon dates and times, the MOU stated.

Additionally, OSIG can request data on staff vacancies per facility, inmate to staff ratios per facility, as well as staff tenure, turnover, and compensation.

It also allows the ombudsman team to follow up on VADOC’s internal affairs investigations and review their findings with a set of external eyes — although an OSIG spokesperson said granting that request “would depend on the nature of the internal investigation and if it fell within the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction.”

The Mercury first learned an MOU was in the works when Sapone held a community meeting this summer, where she shared how her office was bulking up its staff and preparing to more formally launch into the work it was created to do.

In the meantime, a “backlog” of complaints has piled up that the office’s staff is processing.

As Sapone noted during the meeting, some complaints are duplicates that stem from mass emailing campaigns. Since OSIG staff are required by law to process and enter information for each complaint they receive, the spokesperson said in a recent email, staff must spend more time at desks and less time investigating complaints.

“We ask for the public’s continued patience, and to refrain from submitting duplicates of complaints as this exacerbates the backlog,” they said.

by Charlotte Rene Woods, Virginia Mercury

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