The all-volunteer Virginia Prison Justice Network was launched in early 2018 following a prisoner-requested Rally for Prison Justice attended by 300 people at Virginia’s Capitol Square. Today it has nearly 20 affiliated organizations and a network of prisoners working for change in the Virginia prison system.
Both grief and determination hung over a rally yesterday outside the Virginia State Capitol to support the family of a man killed by a Portsmouth police officer.
Jermaine Doss, the Norfolk native serving a sentence of life-plus-34 years for a crime many believe he did not commit, has a new lawyer who is planning legal action in the case.
Virginia has two women’s prisons: Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women, a Level 3 security facility with a capacity of 1,200 located in Troy, and the Virginia Correctional Center for Women, a Level 2 security facility with 609 beds located in Goochland County.
Trying to exercise your rights in prison is like being stopped by a cop late at night on a lonely country road. Sure, you have rights, but exercising them can get you in a world of trouble.
When Marcus-David Peters was gunned down May 14 by a Richmond police officer, his death quickly became national news. It wasn’t only the fact that another unarmed Black man had died at the hands of law enforcement – it was also the circumstances of his death.
About 45 people, most of them African-Americans in their 20s, rallied June 16 outside the Petersburg police station just a few days after a video was posted on social media showing what appears to be police brutality against 19-year-old Devin Thomas. The rally was called by the police accountability group Virginia Cop Block.
The Virginia Defender 