THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 30, 1995 TAG: 9508300002
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Short : 45 lines
Virginia's prison system has 40 male inmates confined to wheelchairs and two women and one man temporarily using wheelchairs.
Three of the commonwealth's 21 prisons are equipped for inmates in wheelchairs, but the Justice Department has demanded that they all be.
Making all prisons wheelchair-accessible, including those with no disabled inmates, would cost $20 million to $35 million and serve no purpose, say state officials.
In a statement released earlier this week, Attorney General James S. Gilmore III responded to the Justice Department demand for ramps:
``The prison system meets the needs of severely mobility-impaired inmates by housing them in an appropriate facility, not by building each prison to meet an individual inmate's needs. The Justice Department's demand is unwarranted and unnecessary. It isn't supported by law and it's not supported by policy.''
Justice Department interest in Virginia prison ramps apparently began when inmate Ronnie Ray Atkins, who used a wheelchair while recovering from heart by-pass surgery, filed a complaint in December 1992. He has since been paroled. In November 1994 the Justice Department said all Virginia's prisons should be made wheelchair-accessible.
Although it makes all the sense in the world for facilities that cater to the public to have wheelchair ramps, it makes no sense to require that every prison be wheelchair-accessible. Of the three Virginia prisons equipped to handle wheelchairs, one is a receiving facility, one is a medium-security prison and one is a maximum-security prison. Surely prison officials will send new inmates in wheelchairs to facilities with ramps.
It might well make sense to design some of the new prisons to handle wheelchairs.
But Gilmore was right when he said it is wrong to divert up to $35 million from prison construction and maintenance to building ramps when ``Virginians have made it clear that public safety is their top priority.'' by CNB