Ken and Bobby

Ken and Bobby.  Who are they?  They’re the two best know Republicans from Virginia on the National scene.  And, every week they make headlines.  What they do daily effects every Virginian, especially the nearly 40,000 of us locked up in Virginia’s prison system.

Ken is Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli.  A darling of the right, Cuccinelli none the less has overseen a series of court decisions and headlines that have called into question his leadership as chief legal officer of the Commonwealth.

And Bobby?  That would be Governor Bob McDonnell who ran for office on a platform of openness and bipartisanship.  Instead, Virginia government has been declared one of the three most susceptible to corruption by a recent independent study and witness to budget deadlock because of the numerous heavy-handed decisions Republican Party leadership made to block Democrat participation in key General Assembly governance.

How, you may ask, do these two gentlemen affect what goes on in prison and why should you care?  Because these men are both lawyers and elected to uphold the Constitution and Laws of the Commonwealth.  They, therefore, need to act with the utmost integrity and enforce the law justly.  Inmates already believe the system is corrupt.  These guys provide them the proof. 

Here are a few examples.  This week the Virginia Department of Corrections was lampooned with the dubious “Muzzle Award” given by the Thomas Jefferson Center for Protection of Free Expression.  The Jefferson Center recognized VDOC for a “lifetime achievement award”.  Josh Wheeler, the center’s director said VDOC “has earned this recognition for a pattern of disregard for First Amendment rights of Virginia inmates.”  For three straight years the center has lambasted VDOC for its denial of inmate first amendment rights even as Governor Bob announces “the incarcerated have civil rights”. 

How ironic.  AG Cuccinelli continues to unsuccessfully defend repressive First Amendment denials by DOC.  And, he continues to lose.  Who pays when a judge orders DOC to lift their book and magazine subscription restrictions and awards the prevailing inmate $100,000 plus in attorney fees?  Virginia’s taxpayers.  Over the last two years VDOC has either lost or settled (in the face of pending adverse judicial action) six inmate-led lawsuits challenging limitations imposed by DOC on religious materials, foreign language CDs, and access to both classic and modern literature.  All of this has been done under the leadership of Ken with Bob’s acquiescence. 

Then there is the pending class-action lawsuit brought by eleven inmates denied parole.   Arguments and briefs are underway and the court has tipped its hand finding Virginia’s parole system questionable.  For approximately 9,000 Virginia inmates, still under the old parole system that initial finding was a first where a court actually “got it”.

Governor McDonnell presides over a Byzantine corrections system that does little to rehabilitate, little to break the cycle of hopelessness and discrimination that leads many released felons to recommit. 

This past week when his budget finally cleared the Virginia senate by one vote (a lone Democratic senator from Northern Virginia crossed party lines to vote “yes”), Governor McDonnell spoke to the press and said “that’s $600 million for our K through twelve education.”

But what of the $1.1 billion that is spent sustaining a broken prison system where rape, hepatitis C and mental illness flourishes?  Where inmates have poor medical, mental health, and drug and alcohol treatment?  Where a significant number are kept in overcrowded dirty facilities?  Where money is spent on barbed wire, not education?

Virginia’s prison system is a rat hole.  Ken and Bob are the two chief law enforcement officers in the Commonwealth.  It’s high time they take their responsibilities seriously.