VAPAC (Virginia Prison Accountability Committee) Statement
(Statement read at the Roanoke Speak Out for Prison Justice event on 6/23/2018)
Minds and hearts in the work to hold Prison Officials Accountable---Greetings. VAPAC [Virginia Prisons Accountability Committee] and Red Onion State Prison Front salutes you.
Prisoners in the Virginia prison system front as systems across the nation have resolute chronicles of struggles to hold prison officials accountable and despite the intensity, despite formulations of hard-won concessions, the imperatives of the prison official status quo always returns to malfeasance, violations of the law and procedure. This retrograde fact is of two accounts
Aspects of how we struggle and do the work of holding prison officials accountable.
And the natural inclination of the prison official to petty tyranny, affirming adage, Absolute power corrupts
Our work has always recognized these two accounts.
Each chronicle of struggle against reaction has within it a new potential emergence and resolution. Because it allows us a maturation of political consciousness, enabling us to narrow and sharpen the focus on those specific antagonisms resulting a correct narrative which requires the mobilization of our families and friends, armed with a correct narrative focusing on and exposing prison official lawlessness and extrajudicial acts---this is OUR work.
From the lines of Solitary Confinement on the Red Onion State Prison Front
WE SALUTE YOU
Written by William Thorpe who is held at Virginia's Red Onion State Prison & in Solitary Confinement 22 years