Virginia Department of Corrections (VADOC) is once again refusing to credit people’s hard work in Virginia’s prisons — and prolonging their sentences in contradiction with the law.
“Specifically, VADOC currently fails to begin awarding earned sentence credits (ESC) on the date at which people become eligible to earn such credits,” wrote ACLU-VA Legal Director Eden Heilman in a letter to VADOC. “Instead, VADOC uses an arbitrary date, not defined or provided for by law, to determine when individuals begin earning sentence credits.”
We are demanding that VADOC immediately revise its policies and change its practices to conform with the law and ensure that everyone in its custody receives all of the sentence credits they have earned. To comply with Virginia's laws, VADOC must immediately revise its operating procedures and recalculate people's release dates based on the revised procedures.
People who have earned their release should get it.
Read our letter to VADOC articulating our lawyers' demands below.
