Mecklenburg Prison, a facility opened in the late 1970’s
with much political fanfare (the then Governor attended its opening) announcing
it to be “the most secure prison in America.”
Less than four years later, the notorious Briley brothers – cold blooded
rapist/killers from Richmond – and four others executed a daring escape and ran
up and down the east coast causing terror and fear each day of their
escape. That escape, from a prison
Virginia’s political class sold as being secure, represents the utter failure
of the Commonwealth’s corrections’ philosophy.
The end of its dismal life is not as a secure facility for Virginia’s most
incorrigible offenders. No, it is as a
dumping ground – a “receiving center”, is emblematic of all that is wrong with
Virginia’s bloated, unsustainable corrections apparatus.
I write this blog with some ambivalence. After all, three hundred Southside Virginia residents
arrived at work today and learned – less than two weeks before Christmas – that
they will have no jobs. I feel for those
men and women – and their families, even as I wonder how they morally justify
working in a place that treats fellow people – many of whom are not a threat to
the community – in such vile, degrading ways.
Almost every politician since George Allen (up to our
current Governor and members of the Virginia General Assembly) has lied to and
betrayed the voters of the Commonwealth.
They’ve told voters they were safer with extraordinary harsh sentencing
and abysmal prison conditions. They’ve
told voters the Commonwealth could afford one out of every eight dollars going
to corrections – over $1 billion annually – all the while they lined their own
pockets and the pockets of selected crony prison enterprises.
They told rural Virginia communities that a prison in their
neighborhood would generate jobs and growth.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Prisons do not generate jobs nor do they create or foster an atmosphere
for new businesses. Study after study
has concluded prisons have the opposite effect.
Companies don’t move to towns with prisons.
Still, the lies go on.
Where is the courageous politician who will stand up and say “Virginia
needs sentence reform? We have close to
30,000 nonviolent, low custody offenders in prison and we need to let them out.” Where is the courageous politician who will
propose real work training, education and treatment programs for the
incarcerated?
Southside Virginia’s prison communities will continue to
suffer high unemployment and high dropout and poverty rates until courageous
politicians admit we need less incarcerated persons and more money going to
rural areas for education and business development.
My friend DC was one of the initial 19 “incorrigible inmates”
who populated Mecklenburg. That he wasn’t
part of the Briley escape was due to his awareness that they’d all eventually
be caught. He saw stabbings, beatings,
rapes, and murders during his time there.
At one point he testified on behalf of the inmates during a 1983
prisoner civil rights case before Senior Federal Judge Robert Merhige, Jr. in
Richmond. His recitation of beatings and
abuse at the hands of officers so impressed the Judge that he immediately
ordered the U.S. Attorney to investigate.
“If you see a corrections officer lay a hand on any prisoner you get
word to me”, the Judge told DC from the bench.
Mecklenburg is closing.
There are almost twenty other prisons holding low custody inmates that
can also be closed. All it takes is some
honesty and courage from Virginia’s politicians.
In the 1970’s the late, great Johnny Cash performed inside
California’s notorious San Quentin Prison.
Cash himself was a convicted felon and did prison time. He knew the inhumanity of the prison
system. That night, he sang a song he
wrote about San Quentin. The inmates –
black, white, Hispanic – erupted in cheers.
He sang “San Quentin, may you rot and burn in hell…”
Everytime the news announces a Virginia prison closing I think
of Mr. Cash. Its closing time for
Mecklenburg. May it rot and burn in
hell. 
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