Hypothermia hospitalizations and other suspicious circumstances at Virginia prisons uncovered in a recent report deserve further scrutiny, leading state Democratic lawmakers said this week.
Lawmakers have promised to hold Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration to account and have called on a newly created prison oversight agency to investigate the findings of an Associated Press report that said at least 13 people were hospitalized for hypothermia over a three-year period at Marion Correctional Treatment Center.
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The AP also obtained records showing that medical providers expressed concern about temperatures at the prison and that another long-term employee said he wouldn’t be surprised to hear of claims of hypothermia. Previously reported records detailed allegations that conditions inside the facility were sometimes so cold that water in the toilets froze.
The Marion Orthodontic Treatment Center in Marion, Virginia, is shown on Thursday, May 16, 2024. The high number of hypothermia admissions and other suspicious conditions at Virginia prisons revealed in a recent report merit further scrutiny, leading Democratic state lawmakers said this week. (AP Photo/Earl Neikirk)
The Virginia Department of Corrections declined to answer questions from The Associated Press about the prison, citing ongoing litigation over recent inmate deaths centered on poor conditions and alleged deliberate exposure to cold. The department also did not respond to AP’s request to interview the facility’s director.
“I am deeply concerned by recent reports regarding prison conditions in Virginia,” Sen. L. Louise Lucas of Portsmouth, president pro tempore of the Virginia Senate, said in a written statement. “The governor and the Bureau of Prisons owe it to us to explain why this happened and what they are doing to correct it.”
Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell said in an interview that the report’s findings were “alarming” and was among the senators who said they would personally press DOC leadership for answers.
“The conditions described in the article seem more like a Soviet concentration camp than an American prison,” he said.
Fairfax County Rep. Surovell and several other lawmakers suggested that the newly created but not yet staffed Department of Corrections Ombudsman’s Office should ultimately investigate concerns about body temperature and hypothermia. did.
Questions about conditions at the facility arose last year after NPR reported on the lawsuit surrounding the death of inmate Charles Givens and detailed the findings of a special grand jury. After Mr. Givens’ death in 2022, a committee convened by top district prosecutors concluded there was insufficient evidence to support charges, but said it found prison conditions “inhumane and deplorable.”
Mark Kludis, an attorney for Givens’ sister Kim Hobbs, who filed the lawsuit, declined to comment on the Virginia lawmaker’s comments because the lawsuit is pending. DOC did not respond to two emailed requests for comment.
Youngkin Corrections spokesman Christian Martinez called the findings of the AP report “deeply disturbing” in a written statement, but also said prison officials have confirmed with the DOC that no one has been treated for hypothermia at Marion since 2021. Givens was last hospitalized for hypothermia in December 2021.
“The department will fully comply with any investigation from the Corrections Ombudsman,” Martinez said.
Lawmakers passed and Yonkin approved legislation earlier this year to create the ombudsman’s office, a measure that DOC opposed as unnecessary but said would bring overdue independent oversight of the department.
Maggie Sotos, a spokeswoman for the inspector general’s office, said the unit is made up of six people: an ombudsman and five experts.
Democratic Sen. Dave Marsden of Fairfax County, the sponsor of the ombudsman bill and who spent much of his career in correctional facilities, including a stint as head of the Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice, said inmates and detainees often report complaints. “The complaint is exaggerated,” he said. But he said the AP’s findings “raise all kinds of concerns” and are the kinds of things the ombudsman’s office “definitely” should consider.
Marsden also said he plans to send his own formal investigation of the AP’s findings to DOC officials.
Fairfax County Rep. Holly Seibold, who is focused on prison reform legislation in Congress, said she was “outraged” by the AP’s findings. She also sent a letter to the DOC secretary formally requesting more information about the hypothermia incident, and she said she plans to question DOC officials in a legislative forum.
The two Republicans whose districts include the prison, Sen. Travis Hackworth and Rep. Jed Arnold, did not respond to phone messages seeking comment.
