Hampton Roads Speak Out for Prison Justice

This Saturday, July 7 2018, at 1pm at the Miracle Temple Baptist Church (617 32nd Street, Newport News VA), the Virginia Prison Justice Network is holding a prison justice speak-out. Prisoners, former prisoners, family members, supporters, and advocates will speak about the inhumane conditions of Virginia prisons and the U.S. criminal justice system generally. 

You can see the website of the Virginia Prison Justice Network, which was founded late last year, here: https://vapjn.wordpress.com. They're building power across the state to make serious, deeply needed changes.  

For more info and to RSVP, see this link. 

Roanoke Speak-Out for Prison Justice

This Saturday, June 23 2018, from 2-3:30pm at the Hope Center (506 11th St., Roanoke VA), the Virginia Prison Justice Network is holding a prison justice speak-out. Prisoners, former prisoners, family members, supporters, and advocates will speak about the inhumane conditions of Virginia prisons and the U.S. criminal justice system generally. 

For more info and to RSVP, see this link. 

Hampton Roads Regional Jail inmate denied request for medical help two days before he died

Sarah Kleiner and K. Burnell Evans of the Richmond Times-Dispatch report: Another innate has died at the Hampton Roads Regional Jail after being denied medical help. Henry C. Stewart, 60, had requested emergency medical help several times before his death last month, but was told that corrections officers had determined his situation was not an emergency. He died two days later.

Stewart’s family has retained the same lawyer representing the family of Jamycheal Mitchell, a young schizophrenic man who was starved to death at the facility in August of 2015. Though the jail and its employees have been cleared of any wrongdoing by a state investigation, whisteblower employees have alleged that investigators never visited the jail itself, and evidence like video of guards abusing Mitchell have been destroyed by jail staff.

Henry Stewart’s death is the fourth to take place at the Hampton Roads Regional Jail this year.

You can read the entire article here.