When multiple people held at Red Onion State Prison burned themselves in 2024, we joined lawmakers in calling on Virginia’s independent oversight office – which we fought to establish – to investigate the conditions there.
As part of that call for an investigation, we submitted a nearly 20-page summary of years of reports of a systemic pattern of abuse, neglect, racism, and retaliation that we submitted to the OSIG Corrections Ombudsman, the independent oversight office.
Today the ACLU of Virginia is making that summary publicly available for the first time, in response to a Virginia Corrections Ombudsman report from the Office of the Inspector General (OSIG) claiming that allegations of abuse, racism, and retaliation at Red Onion State Prison are “unfounded” and “inconclusive.”
Lawmakers gave the ombudsman’s office the authority to bring transparency to VDOC, not to shield it from allegations of wrongdoing. To fulfill lawmakers’ call to determine the conditions at Red Onion that led people in custody to burn themselves, the OSIG Corrections Ombudsman will have to conduct a thorough, transparent, and sweeping investigation into more than just one incident.
We are committed to working together to make sure VDOC does not abuse the system – or people who are incarcerated in Virginia.
