If I owned a publishing company, my mission statement would sound something like this: “To extend the opportunity to have your voice heard through writing at an esteemed publishing service. We provide typesetting services, graphic design for cover art, and editorial services from trained professionals with a keen eye for detail. We ensure high quality work through our dedication to assist you in enhancing your craft.”
This is the mission statement for the Virginia Department of Corrections: “We enhance the quality of life in the commonwealth by improving public safety. We accomplish this through reintegration of sentenced men and women in our custody and care by providing supervision and control, effective programs and re-entry services in safe environments which foster positive change and growth consistent with research-based evidence, fiscal responsibility, and constitutional standards.”
The objective of a mission statement is to achieve a certain goal or meet a certain need through services rendered by your corporation. The problem with the mission statement advertised by VADOC is that it is, in essence, false advertisement. The VADOC doesn’t carry out any part of its stated mission.
My intention here is simply to illuminate what has been obscured for far too long. I will begin at the end of their mission statement, which reads,…”constitutional standards.” What part of the US constitution allows citizens, regardless of class, race and/or ethnicity, religious preference etc., to be treated unconstitutionally? To suffer injustice at the hands of another human being? This was not part of the same constitution signed by George Washington and the deputies from twelve states on September 17, 1787. When he stated,…”established justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity…,” he did not mean to mistreat the incarcerated citizens of the country. Although by my incarceration I do give up certain rights, does it make me any less human?
VADOC’s mission statements includes their “fiscal responsibility.” To whom? The wealthy and elite Virginians? What about my tax paying family members who are out there everyday working hard to help take care of no only their own responsibilities, but a loved one whom this state is detaining yet mistreating? A loved one whom albeit not sentenced to …”slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime where of the party shall have been duly convicted…,” is working a job earning a meager twenty-seven to forty-five cents per hour? Who are they fiscally responsible to but for assisting the wealthy stay wealthy?
And what “Research-based evidence” are they referring to? What, that the state of Virginia has the lowest recidivism rate? For the past 18 years of my life, I have watched the prison doors revolve as many women have been released, only to return on numerous occasions with the same attitudes and behaviors that they had prior to their term of incarceration. The same attitudes and behaviors that led them to prison in the first place.
Furthermore, if it were true that Virginia had the lowest recidivism rate, it would only be because they do not release their prisoners. The prisoners that have served more than enough time and paid their debt to society by rehabilitating themselves are never released early. We are never given the chance to reenter society and prove that we are more than our past mistakes and poor choices. The ones released early are those who are guaranteed to reoffend and assist with that “fiscal responsibility.”
The “fostering of positive change and growth” is a responsibility one must assume on their own if they are dedicated to reforming themselves. The woman I am today is not the woman I was upon entering the carceral system back in 2005, true, but this was all done by me committing to becoming a better version of myself for myself, my children and loved ones. Now granted, I did learn helpful trades in my vocational courses. That much is true. However, the rest was my choice to participate in those self-help groups. It was my choice to seek out and pay for those educational endeavors, to be resourceful and help myself. The valuable life skills and the erudition I acquired was through my very own efforts; not tools provided to me by the state of Virginia.
The … “safe environments …” in which we are forced to reside in, are anything but safe. If there is a problem between two offenders which has repeatedly been brought to staff’s attention, it is ignored until a fight occurs, inevitably. How safe is that? How safe should we feel when officers are elderly and cannot physically and effectively take control of the situation? If the officers are exhausted from being overworked, and cannot adequately perform the duties of the job, how safe should we really feel?
“Reentry services …,” though I have yet to attend this program, I can say that the number of recidivists I have seen consistently throughout my 18 years, is the proof that their programming is ineffective. Period.
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