Originally published in the Summer/Fall 2025 edition of the Virginia Defender, issue 77, printed December 11. Reproduced here for accessibility and archival purposes. To find other stories in the Summer/Fall 2025 issue or to download the full PDF, see this post. For other issues dating back to 2012, see the Full Issues page.

Pocahontas State Correctional Center is one of the largest employers in this area, not including colleges and hospitals. The same is true for lots of small towns across Virginia, which brings me to the ultimate question:

IS IT IN THE BEST INTERESTS OF VADOC TO REHABILITATE CRIMINAL MINDS AND SUBSEQUENTLY REDUCE RECIDIVISM?

I witness firsthand the lack of effort to (1) create and implement new and effective programming; (2) cut down on inmate substance abuse and (3) the utter lack of serious mental health therapy.

I have come to the conclusion that VADOC has placed the continued financial well-being of staff over true rehabilitation efforts. In other words, people remain gainfully employed while doing a substandard job.

VADOC will point to programs like T4C, Victim Impact and Anger Management as “effective” staples of departmental rehabilitation. But those programs have a yearlong waiting list, limited class size and a “rubber stamp” completion that requires only minimal effort/engagement on our part.

VA Model prisons have enhanced treatment programming, while security level 4 and 5 prisons (which have more problems) are neglected and rejected [with] the focus on punishment/security instead of rehabilitation.

In any given prison, only 20% of the general population can engage in DCE, VCE or treatment programs at one time. The other 80% of G.P. [general population] are “waitlisted” and are not involved in anything goal-oriented and instead sit in pods where violence and substance abuse are the other options to be trained in.

VADOC supports lockdowns as the answer for drug or violence issues, but doesn’t support engagement. Engagement actually addresses the issue, while lockdowns sweep the issue under a rug, only to pop up again.

WHY DOES ALL OF THIS REALLY MATTER?

The issue is of great consequence, because most of Virginia’s prisoners, regardless of security level, have a release date. The murders of innocent citizens, fentanyl overdoses of children, rapes, robberies, [and] shootings can be prevented.

If VADOC allows its treatment services and staff to remain lackadaisical, stagnant and ineffective, the blood of future victims will be on its hands.

VADOC has a generation of staff who have been told, “Don’t put much effort into rehabilitating them.” VA prisons have created more career criminals than it has rehabbed. If VADOC really put sincere efforts into rehabilitation over the last 20 years, the prison population would have dramatically decreased, subsequently causing more prisons to close.

The problem is that thousands of folks from rural towns would be unemployed.

Based on these facts, I do not believe VADOC will ever require any prison to truly attempt to rehabilitate its prisoners. It’s a conflict of interest.

Philip Daniel

Pocahontas State Correctional Center

POCAHONTAS