THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, November 6, 1995 TAG: 9511060088
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LAURA LAFAY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 160 lines
There would be no picnic tables this year on Family Day, the warden of the James River Correctional Center announced last month.
There also would be no grills, no hot dogs and no hamburgers. In place of the annual Family Day cook-out, the facility's two vending machines would be dragged outside. Each prisoner could have four guests, but could not invite their non-biological children. Stepchildren would be turned away at the door.
The decree so outraged the prison's 446 mostly nonviolent inmates that they boycotted Family Day altogether. For them, the incident was an intentional affront - the latest in a barrage of new rules and policies which, they say, are calculated to isolate and dehumanize the 25,000 men and women behind bars in Virginia.
Since July, the state has begun charging prisoners for medical and dental care, confiscating their money to pay for court costs and fines, and restricting visitation in some facilities to eight hours a month.
In addition, the Department of Corrections has announced plans to monitor and record all non-legal inmate phone calls, and says it is considering eight-hour limits on visits in all facilities. Also under consideration: a policy of conducting criminal background checks on those who come to visit inmates.
Prisoners and their advocates see dark motives behind the new rules. And they fear it will provoke an inmate revolt in Virginia's already overcrowded and understaffed prisons.
With all 140 General Assembly seats up for grabs and the state's Republican Party seeking to cast the election as a referendum on Gov. George F. Allen's get-tough philosophy, ``one has to wonder what they're up to,'' says Kent Willis of the Virginia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
``Virginia doesn't have the security problems to justify these kinds of measures,'' said Willis. ``And the cost factor doesn't make any sense because all of these things are likely to cause behavioral problems in the system, and behavioral problems are the most costly. Of course it all makes for good politics, particularly at this time of year.''
The Department of Corrections insists politics has nothing to do with it.
``There is no specific reason which has guided these changes,'' department spokeswoman Amy Miller wrote in response to questions submitted last week.
``The Department continually reviews its procedures and strengthens them when necessary. Many of these programs have been in the conceptual/discussion stage for well over a year and are just now coming to fruition.''
A number of smaller, unannounced crackdowns have taken place quietly. In August, for example, a chaplain at the Augusta Correctional Center in Craigsville was arrested and fired for trying to smuggle vitamins into the prison in his sock. In October, members of the Baptist Womens' Missionary Union were told they can no longer bring monthly birthday cakes to prisoners at the Virginia Correctional Center for Women in Goochland.
The department is also tightening media access. All questions about the agency and its policies must be submitted in writing to the office of Director Ron Angelone. According to one warden, Angelone has announced his intention of eliminating face-to-face interviews of inmates by reporters. All requests for such interviews, he told wardens assembled for a meeting last week, should be referred to his office.
Such measures are ``not atypical,'' according to Jenni Gainesborough of the National Prison Project in Washington.
``It's very cold-blooded on the part of politicians,'' she said. ``It's not their lives that are going to be on the line. It's the poor correctional officers who have to work in those prisons and implement these kind of rules.''
Inmates confirm that the new policies have taken a toll, especially in facilities where long-term prisoners are housed.
``It's tension. Tension is high,'' said Kenneth Stewart, an inmate on death row at the Mecklenburg Correctional Center in Marion. ``Really, what they're trying to do is make everybody snap and riot or something. But I'm not giving them the satisfaction.''
Stewart, 40, said he is a walking example of how the new policies are working. The state's Department of Taxation recently mailed him a $57,900 bill for court costs related to a two-day trial in Bedford County in 1991. At the time, Stewart had $136 in his prison canteen account. The state took $116, leaving him with $20.
Since then, the $20 has dwindled to $5, and Stewart has developed a skin condition. His body, he said, is covered with sores that ``start out like a bump and then turn into an open sore and then leave scars.''
The Department of Corrections insists that no one will be refused medical treatment because of inability to pay. But if Stewart seeks medical care for his skin, the state will take his last $5, leaving him without money for stamps, toothpaste, shampoo, legal materials and other canteen items that are not supplied to inmates. If the doctor prescribes medicine, his account will be debited an additional $2. For the moment, Stewart is unwilling to give up stamps.
``You have to be able to pay for postage to write letters or pay for phone calls to your family and your children and your friends,'' said Lem Tuggle, one of Stewart's neighbors on death row.
``You have to stay in communication or else pretty soon, there's absolutely no one left. And you're in here all alone.''
Other inmates are making similar choices. Since the policy was implemented, said Miller, medical visits have dropped 25 percent in prisons statewide.
Those who need care are not necessarily getting it, inmate advocates say, and when illnesses go untreated, especially in overcrowded and poorly ventilated areas, they spread.
``It's inhumane to force inmates to have to choose between toothpaste and medical treatment,'' said Richmond inmate advocate Laura Rinier.
Because prisoners are not allowed to have cash, their families and friends must deposit money into accounts for them. Inmates who work - earning about 35 cents per hour in low-level prison jobs - have their wages deposited. Then, whenever they buy something from the prison canteen, the price is subtracted from their account balances. Since the imposition of medical fees and liens for court costs, however, many families say they have stopped making deposits into the accounts.
``That's not his money they're taking,'' said one woman whose husband is serving time at the Brunswick Correctional Center in Lawrenceville. ``That's my money in there. And they don't have any right to take it.''
About 1,000 state prison inmates owe court costs, according to a Department of Taxation court debt collection unit. The collection unit, created by the General Assembly in February, is authorized to collect outstanding fines, costs, forfeitures, penalties and restitution from all citizens. State prisoners are neither mentioned nor excluded in the authorizing statute.
Inmates argue that the Department of Taxation is collecting their money illegally. In most cases, they point out, judges order them to pay court costs and fines upon release. In addition, they say, the Department of Taxation is charging them interest on the money, in violation of state law.
Bobby Russell Tilley, a prisoner at Keen Mountain Correctional Center, got a notice of lien for court costs totaling $4,974.06. But according to the clerk of Bland County Circuit Court where Tilley was tried, he owed only $519.65.
The mistake was discovered when Tilley wrote to the clerk, asking to be allowed to pay $10 a month. ``Could the system have accidentally calculated interest. . . ?'' the clerk wrote in a letter to Court Debt Collections Manager Bobby Arnold.
Phone calls are another issue of contention. The department has a five-year contract with MCI for inmate phone service. Under the terms of the service, inmates can only make collect calls and a $3 surcharge is levied for each call.
Efforts to get the company to charge the same rates that apply on the outside have not succeeded. And although the contract expires in December, inmate advocates speculate it will be renewed because MCI does not plan to charge for the new program of monitoring and recording inmate phone calls.
The high phone rates, coupled with the plan to record calls and other new measures, will further alienate inmates and isolate them from their families, said Jean Auldridge, director of the Virginia chapter of Citizens United for the Rehabilitation of Errants.
``Monitoring the calls will make people less free to talk about personal problems and work out solutions. They're discouraging conversation. . . . It's an ongoing process of cutting them off and I can't help but think it's intentional,'' Auldridge said.
``To me, doing time is bad enough,'' said an inmate at the Powhatan Correctional Center. ``As long as we're not in here killing each other, there's really no reason for all these new deprivations.'' ILLUSTRATION: PRISON RULES
New policies in place:
Prisoners charged for medical and dental care
Prisoners' money confiscated to collect court costs and fines
Visitation in some facilities restricted to eight hours a month.
Policy to be implemented in the future:
All non-legal inmate phone calls monitored and recorded.
Under consideration:
Eight-hour limits on visits in all facilities.
Criminal background checks on inmates' visitors.
by CNB