Virginia CURE

Media Literacy Project, Strong Families, and Thousand Kites need your help to produce “Calls from Home: Mama’s Day Special,” a radio project that connects incarcerated mothers to their families, friends, and communities. With your support we’ll send voices through barbed-wire to our millions of neighbors behind bars this Mama’s Day.

Sing a song, read a prayer, speak from the heart and let our mamas behind bars in our nation’s prisons know you’re thinking about them. Call to our toll-free 24/7 answering machine now at 877-410-4863 to leave a recording we’ll play over the air.

In the U.S., we have a nation inside our nation. In America’s prison-nation, mothers are forced to give birth in shackles and families are asked to pay exorbitant charges to telephone corporations in order to keep in touch with their incarcerated loved ones. As part of our Mama’s Day Special we invite you to join two national campaigns: BIRTHING BEHIND BARS and PRISON PHONE JUSTICE CAMPAIGN.

Please join us at our Northern Virginia CURE’s May 17th Meeting with guest speaker Virginia Parole Board Member Karen Brown.
 
The meeting will begin at 7:30 pm at Arlington Unitarian Church,
 

4444 Arlington Blvd, Arlington, Virginia.
 

All are welcome!
 

(Enter parking lot from South George Mason Drive. Street parking is also available.)

Virginia is reconsidering how it administers solitary confinement at the state’s only super-maximum prison and plans to implement sweeping changes to its often-criticized practices.

Nearly 500 inmates at Red Onion State Prison spend 23 hours a day in a cell, don’t shower daily and have limited recreation. Some prisoners, including those with mental illnesses, have been kept in isolation for years, inmates and lawyers say.

Some state lawmakers and human rights groups have asked the Justice Department to investigate the use of solitary confinement at Red Onion.

Virginia knows it has DNA evidence that may prove the innocence of dozens of men convicted of crimes they didn’t commit.

Bennett Barbour was convicted in 1978 of a rape he didn’t commit. At trial, he had an alibi supported by several witnesses. He didn’t match the victim’s description of her attacker. Barbour suffers from a severe bone disease that would have made it nearly impossible for him to be the assailant. Police found no physical evidence connecting him to the crime, beyond the eyewitness identification by his alleged victim. Barbour was handed an 18-year sentence and paroled after nearly five years.

The Monthly Virginia Parole Board Decisions has been updated and can be found under the Data & Positions menu item.

Take action today to protect funding in FY13 for the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act (MIOTCRA).  The program received $10 million in FY09; $12 million in FY10; $9.9 million in FY11; and $9 million in FY12.  Send a letter to your delegation today or click here
for more information about the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act.

By Julian Walker
The Virginian-Pilot
© January 28, 2012
RICHMOND

It turns out Fred Quayle’s- separation from state government service will be short-lived.
Gov. Bob McDonnell has named the former state senator from Suffolk to the Virginia Parole Board, an appointment with a four-year term and a $52,000 annual salary.

Quayle’s 20-year career in the Senate ended after he declined to seek re-election last November. He made that decision after he and a fellow Republican senator, Chesapeake’s Harry Blevins, were drawn together in Democrats’ redistricting plan.

Quayle, 75, is the newest addition to the five-member Parole Board, which can grant, deny or revoke parole and detain parole violators. It also has the power to give early release to geriatric inmates.
Out of the roughly 30,500 Virginia prison inmates, about 4,800 remain eligible for parole because they were incarcerated before the state abolished it in 1995.

Full Story, PilotOnline.com

Adam Ebbin, Charniele Herring and Patrick Hope

Too many prisoners are in solitary confinement for too long: Virginia’s nearly 1,800 prisoners in isolation are confined in an 80-square-foot cell 23 hours a day, seven days a week. They typically get one hour a day for recreation five days a week, confined to a 96-square-foot, chain-link-fenced area that can be described only as a cage. They eat alone in their cells and, by design, have little, if any, interaction with others.
Full Story, Washington Post

Virginia State Police troopers’ duties to check on registered sex offenders could be shifted to unarmed civilians under a little-noticed provision in the two-year state budget pending before the General Assembly.

Tucked into the $85 billion spending blueprint is Gov. Bob McDonnell’s proposal to hire 43 “non-sworn” personnel to monitor people “required to comply with the requirements of the Sex Offender Registry.”

Under the current system, troopers and state parole and probation officers conduct semi-annualresidence and employment status checks on thousands of registered offenders.

Administration officials such as Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling have said the switch would “free up troopers currently in that unit to get back on the roads” for patrol and other functions.

However, the plan has triggered alarm bells for an organization that lobbies to change sex offender laws. Its implementation also is being watched closely by a State Police advocacy group.

A lawyer for 11 Virginia inmates asked a federal appeals court Wednesday to reinstate a lawsuit claiming that prisoners are being illegally denied parole.

Northup said state law requires the board to consider the nature of the crime, the sentence imposed, the inmate’s prior record, the inmate’s record in prison and whether release would be an acceptable risk. He said parole denial for inmates with exemplary prison records suggests that not all the criteria are being fairly considered, but it’s difficult to tell because the parole board’s decision-making process is shrouded in secrecy.

Good News! Mike Hash, a CURE member who was convicted of murder in 2001, has had his case thrown out and will either get a new trial or be freed. It looks very likely that he will be freed! Virginia CURE members who attended Mike’s hearing for 3 days in 2005, were very impressed with his attorney who pointed out many inconsistencies with his case and were shocked when the judge eventually denied his petition! It was the same judge who had convicted him in the first trial. Now Mike and his family are finally receiving justice. We congratulate Jeff and Pam for their dogged persistence and belief in their son and send best wishes to Mike and his family.

As murder conviction tossed after 12 years, Va. family hopes son will be
home soon

He was 15 when Thelma Scroggins was shot four times in the head at her home in Culpeper County. He was 19 when he was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to life without parole. Last week, a judge threw out his 2001 conviction, with a strongly worded opinion that there had been a miscarriage of justice with extensive police and prosecutorial misconduct.

Full Story, Washington Post

Misconduct in a murder investigation?

AN ALLEGED accomplice testified in gruesome detail about how Michael Wayne Hash,
then 15 years old, shot and killed an elderly Virginia woman in 1996. Two other
witnesses swore that Mr. Hash confessed. It did not take long in 2001 for a
Virginia jury to convict him and sentence him to life in prison without the
possibility of parole.

Full Story, Washington Post

As Congress begins work on the fiscal year 2013 funding bills, it is critical that members understand the widespread support for the Second Chance Act across the country.  Please contact your Members of Congress to express your support of funding for the Second Chance Act in FY13.

What You Can Do:

1. Contact your Members of Congress and ask them to support funding for the Second Chance Act.
2. Click here to learn more about the Second Chance Act.

Executive Summary
The Secretary of Public Safety’s Office, the Virginia Criminal Sentencing Commission, the Virginia Parole Board, the Department of Corrections, and the Department of Planning and Budget produced a report in November, 2010, on the feasibility of utilizing a risk assessment instrument in parole determinations.

The following is the executive summary of that report. The link to the full report is http://leg2.state.va.us/DLS/h&sdocs.nsf/5c7ff392dd0ce64d85256ec400674ecb/e4089c018b6d60458525772e006b8f24?OpenDocument.

Executive Summary
Pursuant to Item 370, Paragraph E, of the 2010 Appropriation Act (Chapter 874, 2010 Acts of Assembly), the Secretary of Public Safety’s Office, in consultation with the Virginia Criminal Sentencing Commission, the Virginia Parole Board, the Department of Corrections, and the Department of Planning and Budget, respectfully submits the following finding on the feasibility of utilizing a risk assessment instrument in parole determinations.

Additional information is always desirable and helpful to decision makers or to those making recommendations to the decision makers such as the Parole Board. Risk assessment instruments can be a factor to be considered along with many other factors in determining whether an inmate is suitable for discretionary parole. Risk assessment instruments are not designed to replace professional judgment, but to assist in making virtuous parole determinations.

In considering the feasibility of utilizing a risk assessment instrument, a variety of possibilities were reviewed to determine what might be available or could be developed, the time frame required and the potential cost to the Commonwealth. Consideration was given to whether validation studies have been done and whether or not a particular instrument would be appropriate for Virginia’s parole-eligible population. Consideration was also given to the cost.

The Department of Corrections (DOC) has been working with a vendor called Northpointe, Inc. for four years to develop and implement a risk and needs assessment evaluations on all incarcerated inmates including those who are parole eligible beginning in January 2011. The Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions (COMPAS) program will assess key risk and need factors in adult correctional populations and provide decision support for justice professionals.

As inmates are evaluated using COMPAS, the risk assessment scales will become available to the parole examiners and to the Parole Board and will be considered as a factor in the recommendation and decision-making process. Over time, the results will be analyzed and evaluated to determine the validity of the instrument to Virginia’s parole eligible population and whether modifications can and should be made. The potential cost of any such changes will have to be evaluated. Considering the investment that has been made, using COMPAS to provide risk assessment information appears to be the most cost effective way to proceed at the present time. Should the results of the evaluation indicate that the COMPAS Risk Assessment Instrument is not appropriate for the Virginia parole eligible population, other options will be explored.