University of Virginia Library

Behind Bars

There is a certain fascination with the
inside of jails and prisons which people who
never get mixed up in lawbreaking seem to
enjoy reading about. But talk to the jailers,
and you will find that the public fascination
has never really been translated into the kind
of help (mostly financial) that the officials
need to make our incarceration centers
genuinely correctional in nature.

Elsewhere in this issue we are publishing
an in-depth report on the state of the penal
facilities in Charlottesville and Albemarle
County. What our reporters found, and what
impressed them as uninvolved observers, was a
noticeable difference between the attitude
and procedures of the county institution and
that of the city. Where the city officials even
allowed our reporter to spend a night with the
prisoners, the county officials would let no
non-prisoner tread. Indeed the reports from
the 137-year old county jail indicate that
there would be nothing flattering to say were
a journalist allowed to report on conditions
there.

Part of the problem, and this is true
universally, is that there is, as one official
said, nothing the public is less interested in
supporting with taxes than a prison. As
appropriations are cut, meal quality goes
down, no recreation facility is feasible, and
the prisoners spend their time becoming
permanently institutionalized, rather than
rehabilitated.

Another part of the problem, at least in
the county, seems to be the lack of interest
the sheriff and the county residents have in
improving conditions. Granted, prisoners do
not need T-bone steaks or every other
weekend at home, but even a felon deserves a
few minutes of fresh air each day and more
than 15 minutes per week to see his family.
The cost necessary to build a small, guarded
exercise yard would not seem to be
insurmountable in a county with one of the
highest per capita incomes in the nation.

The plight of the prisoner was brought
home last week when U.S. District Court
Judge Robert Merhige of Richmond fined
state Corrections Director W.K. Cunningham
$21,000 for abusive treatment of inmates at
the State Penitentiary. While not forgetting
that we are dealing with some pretty surly
individuals, we must bear in mind that a
human being, even one convicted of a felony
against society, is still a living thing with only
a limited endurance. Solving a momentary
problem with severe measures such as
stripping a prisoner and putting him in roach
infested cells will only aggravate the larger
problem of trying to find a way to ensure that
we are actually rehabilitating prisoners.

The only way to avoid these situations –
aggravating to both jailers and judges, and
painful to prisoners – is for the public to
become more aware and more involved in the
problems our penal institutions face both
locally and nationally.