Imagine being alone and locked up enclosed in a steel door cage the size of a parking spot, deprived of any meaningful human contact or sensory stimulation for 22 to 23 hours a day, every day for weeks, months, maybe years, to the point where you lose your grasp on reality. Even worse, imagine suffering from mental illness and as a result, one is unable to “behave their way out” of such isolating conditions, which in turn makes them suffer more. The harmful effects of solitary confinement have long been recognized in the United States. Since 1990, the number of persons held in solitary confinement exploded. Nationally, it is estimated that between 80,000 and 100,000 prisoners are held in some type of solitary confinement. Across Virginia, over 800 prisoners are in solitary confinement.
This report,
Silent Injustice: Solitary Confinement in Virginia, describes observed and reported conditions in the Virginia prison system. The intention of this report is to highlight and clarify issues to be considered by state legislators and policy makers, the Vera Institute of Justice and others reviewing the Virginia prison system. This report discusses the negative impacts of solitary confinement as practiced in Virginia, the systemic difficulties prisoners have in escaping it and returning to the general population, and the State’s failure to exclude individuals with serious mental health problems from solitary confinement despite the existing law and science establishing the especially damaging impacts of isolation on this vulnerable group of people.
Along with this report, the ACLU of Virginia also sent
a letter to Gov. Ralph Northam urging him to issue an executive order banning solitary confinement in Virginia.
Date
Thursday, May 10, 2018 - 11:00am
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Virginia has a long and troubled history with voting rights. Virginia is the fifth worst state in the nation at disenfranchising its citizens and, worse, the unfair, disproportionate impact on the African-American community is increasing. It is time we made clear that the right to vote is essential to a healthy democracy, and it belongs to the people. It is not a privilege to be used by the government to reward or punish its people.
Proposals for Reform:
1. Guaranteeing the Right to Vote:
All citizens should be able to exercise their fundamental right to vote without restriction. It is time we made clear that the vote is inherent to citizenship, the essential building block of civic life in our democracy, and it belongs to the people, not the government they elect. In order to guarantee the right to vote
for all Virginians, we must enact a concise constitutional amendment that:
(1) repeals current discriminatory limits on the right to vote; and
(2) inserts an affirmative right to vote in Virginia that cannot be abridged by law
2. No-excuse Absentee Voting:
We also need to repeal our outdated excused-based absentee voting laws that allow only certain classes of voters to vote by absentee ballot, while prohibiting all other voters from using the same process. The time has come to recognize that all voters in our democratic society should be able to vote by absentee ballot without being required to provide the government with an excuse for doing so. It is imperative that Virginia promote fair, free, and accessible elections by enacting true reform that allows every citizen to have an equal voice in our democracy.
You can view and download our report here.
Date
Monday, December 4, 2017 - 1:30pm
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Capital punishment invites controversy. Like many other compelling issues of our day, it is complex, having moral, political, legal and social dimensions. But unlike almost all other issues, there is a profound and solemn finality to capital punishment that demands absolute fairness and precision in carrying it out -- whether or not one believes it should exist at all.
Among the states, Virginia is second only to Texas in the number of persons it has executed since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1977. Indeed, Virginia's execution rate, expressed as a proportion of the state's total population, exceeds that of Texas. This stark figure provoked our study.
The purpose of "Unequal, Unfair and Irreversible: The Death Penalty in Virginia" is educational. It is also meant to be a springboard for further study.
Date
Friday, December 15, 2000 - 10:30am
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