Summary
Inmates at Virginia’s Red Onion State Prison set themselves on fire in 2024 to protest alleged abuse, solitary confinement, and lack of medical care.
Emails reveal prison staff discussed charging the inmates for their medical treatment and prosecuting them for arson.
Advocacy groups and former inmates have long criticized the prison for excessive solitary confinement, abuse, and retaliation.
The Virginia Department of Corrections denies wrongdoing but faces lawsuits and a pending ombudsman investigation into prison conditions.
Far far far from a new problem with Virginia prisons. Red Onion “was the model for and is practically identical to Wallens Ridge State Prison in Big Stone Gap” which had this documentary film made about it that documents all sorts of abuse and awful stuff.
Oh, and one of the principal planners of this system ended up getting hired by the federal government to consult on prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2003, prisons which ultimately ended up including Abu Ghraib.
Every day I learn of some new horror.
Quote needs to be beautifully, ethereally typeset
and a bumper sticker.
“All these hospital visits are affecting our profits!”
I really hate how my expectations are it can’t possibly get worse than this, this has to be the lowest this type (who is just about going to be running the country) could sink. Wow. I really wish folks would factor this stuff in before deciding what to do on election day. Yes. both sides bad, but one side way. way. WAY! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYY!!! times infinity. worse.
Harris would not fix this lmao? She was putting people in prisons like this for years
And this has been happening under Biden for the past 4 years, Trump the 4 years prior, and Obama the 8 years prior to that. Pretending like the election would have made any difference is absurd.
this is disengenous. on the federal level it has to be regulation on the states that is not easy. the state of virginia is run by republicans and what you see at their state levels goes to our federal levels.
States violating people’s civil rights is definitely a federal issue. Prisoners just don’t get any sympathy so there’s no political capital to gain by ending these injustices and that’s all that matters to politicians regardless of their party affiliation.
it is and only one party puts in judges that honor the constitution and the bill of rights. im saying its not something that the president can quickly or easily intervene in. Again its about who does and who does not as a general course of action.
this is disengenous. on the federal level it has to be regulation on the states that is not easy. the state of virginia is run by republicans and what you see at their state levels goes to our federal levels.
Idk what any of that has to do with Harris or the fact that she did and would continue putting people into prisons like this with glee. Get it in your head that democrats (the politicians) aren’t good people. They never were and never will be. They will uphold the status quo because the status quo makes them rich and powerful. Right now, the status quo is incarceral slavery.
are you saying because she was a prosecutor. that is so far field from a prison not treating its inmates right.
I am saying this because she is a politician with law experience who can do something about the American incarceral system which is known for its cruelty and excess. Instead she decided to shove low income parents in it because their kids weren’t going school. As if that would solve the problem. Instead she made it her sole purpose to lock people up. You think she doesn’t know what these prisons are like?
how has she shoved low income parents into it. in what capacity?
a truancy law that then-California Attorney General Kamala Harris had personally championed in the state legislature. The law, enacted in January 2011, made it a criminal misdemeanor for parents to allow kids in kindergarten through eighth grade to miss more than 10 percent of school days without a valid excuse
The law was the capstone of Harris’ yearslong campaign to get “tough” on truancy
Harris filed charges against a handful of San Francisco parents whose elementary school-aged children were consistently missing school. A few years later, she persuaded the state legislature to adopt harsher penalties for truancy. Under the new law, the parent or guardian of a young, truant child could face a fine of $2,500 or more — or one year in jail.
Article is long but these are key points. The people prosecuted were poor and sometimes had medical issues they or their kid were struggling with. This did not help.
It’s like comparing a speeding ticket with Ted Bundy.
