Rappahnnock Regional Jail inmates continue to report lockdowns, stressful conditions (2024)

Inmates at the Rappahannock Regional Jail continue to report near-constant lockdowns, crowded conditions, inadequate medical care and concern for their mental and physical health during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Free Lance–Star spoke to or received letters from nine current and former inmates and their families who described these conditions. Several agreed to have their names used.

“I don’t expect him to be staying at the Ritz or even the Motel 6, but they’re treated not even as well as animals and that’s not right,” said Kathleen Leavy, whose boyfriend has been incarcerated at the jail for just over a year. He is serving a two year-sentence for drug-related charges.

“He’s guilty. He’s been found guilty. He deserves to be punished,” Leavy said. “He recognizes that. I recognize that. But punishment and treating them like they’re not even human are two different things.”

Leavy said her boyfriend, who is 42, was sick in November with several symptoms of COVID-19—a fever and cough. She said he asked for medical attention, but was not seen for three days.

When he was tested for the disease, the result was negative.

Leavy said her boyfriend is in recovery from substance abuse disorder and suffers from depression. She said he has not been seen by a mental health professional since he entered the jail in September 2019, despite putting in requests to see one in July and October of this year.

She said she worries about his mental and physical health and has “no consistent way to get ahold of him.”

Inmates can communicate with their families from their cells via an app they can access from a tablet, but these are distributed irregularly, Leavy said.

“Once he didn’t get one for 12 days,” she said. “He can call me [on the phone] when he is out on ‘rec’ time, which is supposed to be four hours a day, but that never happens.”

Leavy’s boyfriend, who asked that his name not be used, is a Virginia Department of Corrections prisoner being held at the jail. Leavy said he should be transferred to Indian Creek Correctional Center, a DOC facility in Chesapeake.

DOC stopped accepting prisoners from regional jails in March, following Gov. Ralph Northam’s declaration of a state of emergency, spokesperson Lisa Kinney said. On Sept. 9, the department resumed “limited” jail intakes into Nottoway Correctional Center in Burkeville for classification and began moving inmates from classification to assigned facilities “to allow space for new intakes,” she said.

Rappahnnock Regional Jail Superintendent Kevin Hudson said in October that DOC is accepting jail inmates with “a sentence of one year or more,” but that the transfer process is slow, due to the pandemic, and “cannot be expedited.”

He said in a Dec. 17 email that there are 502 state-responsible, or DOC, inmates at Rappahannock Regional Jail, “350 of which are ‘out of compliance,’ [meaning they] should be at a DOC facility.”

He said DOC has taken two inmates from the jail since beginning limited transfers this fall.

Kinney said there are currently 6,079 state-responsible inmates in regional jails—about 2,000 more than there were at this time last year.

Under the Code of Virginia, the state compensation board pays regional jails $12 a day for each state responsible inmate held.

The jail charges all inmates a daily “housing fee” of $2.50. According to the 2019 financial report, the annual revenue from the housing fee was $534,606.

Hudson said in a Dec. 17 email that the jail has “no involvement” in the process of transferring state-responsible prisoners.

“A formal sentencing order is sent to DOC from the court,” the jail superintendent said. “DOC arranges for transfer.”

“ ‘Overcrowded’ is an understatement”

Allen Seeley is another DOC prisoner being held at Rappahannock Regional Jail. He was sentenced for offenses related to driving while intoxicated, court records show.

Seeley wrote in a letter to The Free Lance–Star that inmates are being confined to their cells for 20 hours a day.

“We eat in our cells at least two times a day—three times more days than not,” he wrote. “On a good day, we will only be locked down for 19 hours. That is between being locked down for ‘med call’ or ‘code’ [jail emergency] or for whatever reason the officers need it to be at the time.”

Seeley said he has never been told that the lockdowns were for COVID-related concerns.

“Only ‘security,’ that’s their response,” he said.

Hudson said in November that the jail has implemented “more lockdowns than usual given the circ*mstances around COVID-19.”

Seeley, who is 40, said he has type 2 diabetes, which he has been able to manage in the past with diet and exercise rather than being dependent on insulin.

“Here we have high-carb diet trays and very little physical movement,” he wrote. “I’m at high risk for heart disease and this is the worst. We eat and sit/lay down. The cells are too small for anything else.”

Seeley sent paperwork showing that he requested a vegetarian diet in the hopes that it would be lower in carbohydrates and healthier for him as a diabetic.

The request was denied by the jail because, “Veg diets are only approved by security for religious reasons once verified by the Chaplain. Not a medical issue,” the paperwork shows.

Seeley and Leavy both said the jail has not put back in place any of the programs—such as Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous—that it suspended when the pandemic started.

“[There are] zero programs, not even church or able to see the Chaplain. Zero,” Seeley wrote.

“Something needs to be done,” he continued. “ ‘Overcrowded’ is an understatement. It’s closer to cruel and unusual punishment.”

‘EXTREMELY CONCERNED ABOUT OUR HEALTH’

Jail inmates reported that their cells are not being cleaned regularly and said they aren’t getting what they feel they need for their personal hygiene.

Keisha Thomas is a former inmate who was held at the jail for a month over the summer.

“Conditions were pretty rough,” she said. “We got very little recreation. There was always a reason for someone to be on lockdown. We had to beg for showers.”

Thomas said she received two cloth masks that she washed and dried herself in the sink in her cell. Other inmates said they received only one mask.

Thomas said she had two other cellmates in a 5-by-7 foot space and that her cell was rarely cleaned. At one point, three days passed before cleaning staff came to her cell.

“Being an inmate is a hard battle because not all who are arrested and jailed are guilty,” said Thomas, who was held at the jail for 30 days before a judge granted her bond appeal. “And even if they are [guilty], they are still human.”

Shawn Payne and four other inmates housed in Pod A at the jail wrote letters to The Free Lance–Star about conditions. They said they have been locked down every day for the past two months, with no recreation time.

They said they are told “lack of staff” is the reason for the lockdowns.

“The whole staff is quitting because of COVID,” one inmate wrote in a letter.

According to the 2019 financial report, the jail has been dealing with “unprecedented vacancies” in corrections officer positions.

In fiscal year 2019 [July 1, 2018 to June 30, 2019], just 78 percent of 387 authorized full-time positions were filled. As of December 2019, there were 68 vacant sworn officer positions.

Staffing shortages contributed to spending $1.3 million on overtime to “fill the gaps” in fiscal year 2019, according to the financial report.

As of Dec. 17, there were 12 vacant correctional officer positions, out of 197 budgeted positions, Hudson said.

Payne said he believes he and the Pod A inmates were exposed to COVID-19 when the jail brought in an inmate who had been exposed to the disease. Payne said he asked to be tested, but never was.

“They won’t test me in any way, shape or form,” he wrote.

Hudson said in a Dec. 9 email that there were “zero” cases of COVID-19 at the jail at that time. He said on Dec. 17 that nine inmates have been tested for the disease.

The inmates said they believe that if more tests were being administered, there would be positive cases. One inmate wrote that he filled out a medical request form asking to be tested, but did not get a response for a week.

“And then all they do is bring a nurse to check your temperature,” he wrote. “Even when you are feeling symptoms, they don’t give you a COVID test.”

Another inmate said he isn’t confident in the jail’s handling of the pandemic.

“We feel the jail is not taking this matter seriously,” he wrote. “We are extremely concerned about our health.”